Bloodless, by CLAIRE CRONIN

"Feel This" music video direced & animated by Marcos Sánchez

Bloodless

by CLAIRE CRONIN

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Tyme This is my favorite thing from 2021 that I've discovered in 2022.

...so far.

Outstanding artist though. Top notch folk and that voice! Favorite track: Feel This.

cloudrecordings another classic from claire & ezra, and friends! good lyrics, good production, and affecting music!!! i was telling a friend recently, that i played a million shows with claire & ezra, and ezra never mentioned that buchla synthesizer inventor, don buchla, was his dad! it was only after don passed, and i was reading a new york times article about him, with a quote from ezra, that i realized! Favorite track: Feel This.

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140 gram clear & black swirl vinyl LP in an extra heavyweight, full color photo jacket with Risograph-printed lyric sheet insert. 9 tracks, 40 minutes.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
140 gram classic black vinyl LP in an extra heavyweight, full color photo jacket with Risograph-printed lyric sheet insert. 9 tracks, 40 minutes.

Black vinyl edition limited to 200 copies.

Includes unlimited streaming of Bloodless via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 5 days

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1.	Bloodless 05:33	lyrics	buy track
Must be strange not to see skin and bones To mistrust the light — terrible I know I’m a man, thorn in my eye and my mind is unbearable Bloodless, bloodless Bloodless, bloodless Must be strange not to see light and air held back from the heat bodies bring Taken to a field, never got blessed swallowed by the sound of angel wings Bloodless, bloodless Bloodless, bloodless I did not give up I did not get drawn up It was not my luck or the book of trust No one’s body knows No one’s body knows You should take your pious face and run Bloodless, bloodless Bloodless, bloodless
2.	Through the Walls 05:21	lyrics	buy track
Speak to me through the walls Hang your bloody head I was born in July, now I am dead To terrify you Take my house and my lawn Who do you think you’re running from? Strong and wild and hot Brave until you rot I’m a radio, I’m a radio, I’m a radio I’m a radio, I’m a radio, I’m a radio I’m rid of you, I’m rid of you, I’m rid of you Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha Shadows in the pines staged inside your mind All your great unease black against the leaves I want your return I want you to burn Every step you slipped Every face you kissed I’m a radio, I’m a radio, I’m a radio I’m a radio, I’m a radio, I’m a radio I’m rid of you, I’m rid of you, I’m rid of you Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha
3.	Feel This 05:42 video	lyrics	buy track
Blue light, the color was in your arms, in your arms in your arms, in your arms I gave my breath to you some symbols made as true real as mammals Green light, the color was in your hall, in your hall in your hall, in your hall And held us as a chain some feelings without name only pressure Feel this, feel this, feel this Feel this, feel this, feel this I don’t want to be in your body What I want is something above me big as the law Run, run the time has come out of harm, out of harm out of harm, out of harm Guns, gold, and Vicodin for their charms, for their charms for their charms, for their charms I don’t want to be in my body What I want is to be beyond me floating like God Feel this, feel this, feel this Feel this, feel this, feel this
4.	Snakes for Angels 03:13	lyrics	buy track
Snakes for angels, won’t forget you ever-knowing, ever-fretful Every time you raise your hand to pull some burning thought to steer you I have seen you with your head down Are you praying to the background? That’s where I am — on that detail next to zero, where the mind fails You mistook me for a sunrise Snakes for angels, coal for gold mines What’s the difference: air or water? God the son or God the daughter? I have heard you speaking backwards How your crying sounds like laughter In the long shade of your bedroom with your new name and your white suit
5.	No Forcefield 04:47	lyrics	buy track
No forcefield No headlights I am fading in the dark like a picture of the night that’s pressed too far past the outlines It’s a mystery I brought from another person’s life I see three hooded guns Is that thee, golden one? You believed you were done seeking omens about dying but you go on I can see you through the scrim It’s a common language, shadow Pass a little blue dream to me Lying on your blanket, lit up by the screen Do you hurt the furniture because it frightens you? Are you imprisoned by some private absolute? Is the shirt too black? Send the message back No big deal No pay day There’s a language I forgot I am digging up the names in the dirt road jn the worst way Tastes like iron on my tongue Has it always been the same? I see three hooded guns Is that thee, golden one? You believed you were done seeking omens about dying but you go on You go on
6.	I Could Not Let Blood 04:00	lyrics	buy track
I could not let blood into my thoughts I could not save face and play it off I could not be blood with blood washed off or I’m a liar It was not unlike the peak of day brighter than the brass around your name when I saw a light, and in that blaze I heard a choir Shadow offices, ex deo Every orifice can say so Make us pay for this and lay low On the precipice, the let go People just get sick and torn apart Trouble in the air to make it start Written in your fists, a pack of cards a book of prayers It was like an eye inside my eye watching from the glass or power lines What I heard it say, my own design or something higher? Give an offering, ex homine Say the names you know your mother’s way If it’s meaningless transparency may my loneliness transfigure me I could not let blood I could not let blood I could not let blood I could not let
7.	To Ferry Across 03:34	lyrics	buy track
To ferry across you couldn’t get lost anyway The waves that you saw they didn’t need you any day Didn’t dream you into feverish believing Didn’t free you — looking back from your TV screen To float in midair To be cruel and tired The earth shakes and scares but you’re getting higher To ferry across tear out all the wires The ocean you watched while the town was on fire Didn’t dream you into feverish being Didn’t free you — looking out from your TV screen
8.	Not a Noise 03:37	lyrics	buy track
Not a noise, not a song Not a light, not a long October Take me over What was real in the thaw was a lie you just thought you saw closer Take me over I’ve been down in the claw for a sign that got lost Four leaf clover, take me over Sun is red Cut my lips The sum is death Ticks and tricks The sum is red Sunday roll O my soul What was real as a thought is a face in the frost You don’t know her Take me over
9.	Now I Don't Leave 04:09	lyrics	buy track
I came out of the rain and the backwards glance but the coming was not good Now I don’t leave, now I don’t leave Those who persevere will be destroyed and I am not the destroyer in this story In a blur, in a blur I was wandering but my passage was foretold Now I don’t leave, now I don’t leave Repetition of one danger is my joy and I am not a joyful singer Put me back in the weeds, I was happier there with the clover as my blood and a veil that fell, couldn’t see myself I was shaking hands with a “couldn’t I, couldn’t I” But I could not be the ruler of that glory No blame, no shame, no sorry

about

Bloodless is the new album by Los Angeles-based musician and writer Claire Cronin. Expanding upon the supernatural and metaphysical themes of her critically acclaimed 2019 album Big Dread Moon and her 2020 “horror memoir” Blue Light of the Screen (published by Repeater Books), Bloodless is a powerful work of haunted Americana by one of contemporary indie music’s finest singer-songwriters.

Like its musical predecessor, Big Dread Moon, the arrangements on Bloodless’s nine songs are stripped and sparse, Cronin’s steady electric guitar and spectral voice holding center as strings and synthesizers provide wisps of eerie atmosphere. The sound of Bloodless is both more visceral and more subliminal than Big Dread Moon, due in equal part to months of intensive home recording by Cronin and Ezra Buchla (Cronin’s husband and violist) and expert mixing by Deerhoof’s John Dieterich (who previously collaborated with Cronin on her 2016 album Came Down a Storm).

Claire and Ezra had been living in Berkeley for less than a year when the pandemic took hold. While living in near-total isolation, one of the worst wildfire seasons in California history began. Cronin explains:

Some days, the air was so toxic that we couldn’t leave the house. Days passed indoors with our air filters going, while the sky outside was orange and dark from morning until dusk. The recording process was almost hallucinatory — I would lose my sense of time in the music’s repetition and the heat of the tiny room where I was playing. The photo on the record cover is from this time.

I felt trapped and hopeless and terrified — of the virus, of the fires, of what was going on in American politics. In some ways, death felt far away — numbers of
fatalities on the news — but it was also a constant threat. When I found out I was pregnant at the end of July, I had an even more heightened awareness of life and death. Most of my parts on the record had been finished by then, though, so the record isn’t about the pregnancy.

This intensity of circumstances rattles throughout Bloodless. Cronin’s vocals waver with emotion, in some moments harsh and others, soothing. It’s a voice that sounds like it knows what you’ve been through. The lyrics on Bloodless are about spiritual seeking and confusion. Though most of the
songs were written before the pandemic began, Cronin says:

I’d been doing a lot of I-Ching readings in the months before COVID hit, and I kept getting these ominous results that didn’t make any sense. I thought the oracle was punishing me for using it too much, or that it had become sinister. In hindsight, maybe it was making accurate predictions. The song “Now I Don’t Leave” is about accepting that sometimes things are just bad and you can’t win. The best course of action is to submit.

On that track, Cronin sings: “In a blur I was wandering / but my passage was foretold / Now I don’t leave, now I don’t leave / Repetition of one danger is my joy / and I am not a joyful singer.”

This fascination with the otherworldly guides much of Cronin’s work. On the title track, she employs the term “bloodless” to depict a spirit without mortal pain or needs, singing: “Must be strange not to see skin and bones / To mistrust the light — terrible / I know I’m a man, thorn in my eye / and my mind is unbearable.” Cronin says of the song:

I’m trying to imagine what it’s like to not live in a human body. Much of the record deals with this desire to transcend myself and my body and the facts of existence. But in this song, I’m making the statement that we can’t do that. We can’t get out. We’re not bloodless. And we can’t really know what’s going on in the spiritual world, despite what some religious believers say. God’s will — if such a thing exists — is a mystery. We have to keep living despite this. I’m reckoning with these truths.

Cronin doesn’t intentionally craft songs so much as follow unconscious pulls, a custom more akin to a mystic or medium than a songwriter. She concedes to an unthought intake of the world around her, and finds in it, better understanding.

The songs capture states of consciousness that are very emotional but unclear, like when your memories blur with dreams, or you hear a voice in your head that doesn’t feel like your own. Real life becomes mythological. A poetic phrase comes closer to the truth than a simple recitation of the facts.

For all of Cronin’s spiritualist leanings, however, the album is grounded and raw. Whatever metaphysical seeking takes place on Bloodless is in reaction to the kind of suffering we all experience. In “Feel This,” a song about struggling to stay present with difficult emotions and relationships, Cronin admits: “I don’t want to be in my body / what I want is to be beyond me / floating like God.”

Bloodless is out November 12, 2021 on Orindal Records.

credits

released November 12, 2021

Claire Cronin:
vocals & guitar on all songs, claps (6)

Ezra Buchla:
viola (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8), synth (1, 2, 3, 5), baritone guitar (2, 6, 7), vocals (3), drum (1)

John Dieterich:
synth (6, 7, 9), claps (1)

Owen Ashworth:
synth (5)

All songs by Claire Cronin (BMI)
Recorded by Ezra Buchla
Mixed & mastered by John Dieterich

Cover photography, illustrations & design by Claire Cronin

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about

CLAIRE CRONIN Berkeley, California

Claire Cronin is a writer and musician in Los Angeles.

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