Head Fell Between Two Horses

by Fourth Wife

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1.	Thoughts On Coma 03:35	lyrics
when it’s hurried I can’t when I’m faiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii thful enough prized and buried and made into cash cried on the porch gave it a plaque when it’s I can’t see it as well when it’s hurried I can’t see it enough
2.	Attic 02:48	lyrics
saw the shoe scuffs on the tile wake up and start moving long chalk-black wings crawl under the doorframe the light’s off in that room they’re huddling together I feel their wings hissing they’re talking to each other how do I know how do I know how do I know how do I know it’s a compulsion hands over a candle risk the hairline treetops a feather dropped on granite rock lifted vertical in the showroom a cold slab begging to be dropped how do I know how do I know how do I know how do I know did that sound come from the air or did I invent that sound is there ever any difference there is someone in the house I drill a hole into the attic the last hidden consciousness I find me draped in bedsheets I find me draped in bedsheets I find nothing there to speak of I see pendulums below how do I know how do I know how do I know how do I know
3.	Hospital Cop 2 02:31	lyrics
a painting of my eyes as they wake up to the knocking nah, it’s cool for us to meet like this I’m in a gown and I’m sobbing a private life samples of my hair ran from the knock the knock wasn’t even there come on, glass eyes it doesn’t even exist like gravity or being alone like human flight like the numbers in my phone flashlight and cuffs the book of common prayer ran from the knock the knock wasn’t even there the common dust dies in my lungs leave the John Glenn capsule go out for food and regret it still see that cop from the hospital and we both pretend not to notice we ran from the knock but the knock wasn’t even there when we ran from the knock, the knock wasn’t even there now we don’t answer phones, the phones call’s never there we ran from the knock but the knock wasn’t even there we ran from the knock but the knock wasn’t even there we ran from the knock
4.	Quit 01:39	lyrics
bound on the carport feel my synapse dragging me floating above now the sound of the world printing receipts bad comedian but I know that it could be funny again bad comedian but I know that it could be funny again visited by strangers kids in scrubs and policemen thrilled to discuss it the future like it’s medicine bad comedian but I know that it could be funny again bad comedian but I know that it could be funny again when I quit
5.	Five Words and a Fake One 03:05	lyrics
split flows double doubles the odds of a concrete pulse of a dead sweat camouflage pressed into the docks is anybody else here dying like this? is anybody else here dying like this? separate as I adjust under forty thousand tons under forty thousand tons do I wait do I wait
6.	Nerve Control 01:19	lyrics
///0000 00// 00 0/ /////0000// 0/// //0
7.	Cornered By 02:46	lyrics
in polyester breathing in dust from remote controls still awake in his living room now I don’t feel safe alone it’s like my will don’t count nor my habits count nor my reason count now the vision pins me to the ground corner accents fall in love start passing through my skull coming up now in another room but I can’t remember how it’s my fault the house don’t want me cornered by the plaster breathing
8.	Head Fell Between Two Horses 00:43	lyrics
someone gets called to find the teeth
9.	Breakers 01:26	lyrics
leave the bedroom and the current takes a nosedive first time I turn a vacuum on in months reach the breakers and find snake skins in the basement drag a flashlight across the ground to find my daughters or sons convinced at last the glass block honey plants could be raised again by some kind of abstinence curious I fall for this trick daily trapped in sheets a handful of bees, thank god house snakes dry up in the street, thank god shopping lists false positives, thank god the kitchen tiles looks cleaner moonlit, thank god
10.	K 01:08	lyrics
fell straight through the particle board like it wasn’t there and he thanked the lord have to ask for better luck night and day if you keep it up
11.	I Run With Goon 02:41	lyrics
bought soda for two for one five blocks and they’re empty I try to talk to the city but it won’t talk back just holding the fingers of the enemy but an ad in a magazine that I know I saw asked me to kill for the attention dead sleep for a week and then I found some paint with plans to copy his tag until he seeks me out to start at the edges to use restraint then circle in to the thick of it all we’d be scared at first then laugh, and shake, and move to claim every corner to end the evening on his roof where he’ll tell me everything and we’ll meet the next afternoon to tell the city “we don’t believe in you” I can’t believe I run with Goon
12.	Mona Lisa Boys 04:15	lyrics
a diet ice, no forget it mona lisa boys in the public sphere, I don’t get it I unhook my voice it shook without trying I collect myself back to nothing die to be touched mona lisa boys that’s the character and that’s me right there if I forget it enough mona lisa boys a new bravery is here dying to start my research a blanking out of the self I try to cross the street running but I hit the parade I’m five again on my parent’s shoulders caught in my mouth the shadows of steel drums and waving hands die to be touched mona lisa boys that’s the character and that’s me right there woke up in my childhood bed hear breakfast in the next room start studying the curtains start to feel them unravel die to be touched mona lisa boys that’s the character and that’s me right there if I forget it enough mona lisa boys the new bravery it’s here
13.	Dead Action 03:04	lyrics
falling asleep I move against the dead action bound by the feet sprint away from dead action the blurry pile of clothes and forgotten paperbacks keeping awful hours and dreaming of a pact white shirt and jeans and I’m wearing the same thing I greet them with an axe, move it through their chest collapse in dead action ran back to the trees and cowered underneath god did I wanna live with hands around my knees, my dead action ushered to the future by the bloody JFK thought I knew Kennedy parts the other way introduced this kid he says he’d be my son I can’t believe my dead action
14.	White Hot Cath'lic Lesion 05:46	lyrics
tried to leave now coming back the pleasure center, buried maps six a.m. diner doors read the paper with seniors I thought I was above the catholic schools they’re only names but my body is the catholic schools my eyes catch this face Margaret resurrected the crying relief of seeing a cartoon of your face Margaret you expected the crying relief and the rot inside this place eighteen years in the barrel scattered buckshot at the exit I saw you ten years later you were faking an Irish accent from County Cork but still engage with scores from last night’s high school games it’s the spell it’s the cord around my waist tethered to some real estate when I met the freezing highway I set off to disappear now come on Marge, tell me how’d you know we’d meet back here
15.	How Do I Quit This Band 02:36	lyrics
the can lights blink themselves awake and I’m blinking too are we partners in this enterprise they laugh, “we thought you knew” I let him leave the lamp light on I let him hold my hand well that’s long enough how do I quit this band memorize the copy on a frozen bag of snap peas an echo of my concrete pulse as I fail to fall asleep wake up feeling like a rotter act like I’m reading the news thinking when I was fifteen crying when he bought me shoes now I keep a calendar, cut out costs or did I misunderstand that never factored in how do I quit this band homemade tea arrives at my door a call about the music stand while they love me full stop how do I quit this band

about

Fourth Wife is the long-running project of Cincinnati’s Michael Latella. His latest full-length is Head Fell Between Two Horses, and as in his previous work, Latella stretches, splits, and recombines the crystalline complexity of songwriters like Fiona Apple and Elvis Costello with the scuzzy roil of artists like Protomartyr and Drive Like Jehu. Layers of piano and acoustic guitar wind-chime across album opener “Thoughts On Coma.” It’s a cautious twine that frays as soon as drums thump into frame, beset by a flint-sharp wheeze of guitar. This move sets the table for all of Head Fell Between Two Horses, an album where we are wrenched between fury and calm, structure and collapse, jazz-like harmony and frigid dissonance. It’s a jolt of an album, rife with surprise.

On “Hospital Cop” and “Mona Lisa Boys,” moments of expert melody emerge from the clanging morass, like a secret kept just around the corner. The frantic energy of “Attic” dissolves into languid choruses, themselves sliced by pummeling snare. “I Run With Goon” offers an island of singer-songwriter simplicity before stentorian drums kick out the roofline, while “White Hot Cath’lic Lesion’s” cinematic touches of synth are stomped out by a baked-in-fuzz guitar solo. We’re running through an unfamiliar house, stumbling into rooms crowded by parties, rooms with no floor and a view to the basement, rooms totally empty save for shocks of afternoon sunlight.

It’s no mistake that despite the surface-level chaos, Head Fell Between Two Horses acts like a sonic Rube Goldberg. Every scratched-up moment is a ball bearing on a track toward greater purpose. Beyond writing and performing all the songs here (save for a few contributions by Patrick Apfelbeck on drums), Latella engineered and mixed the vast majority of the record. We’re not alone in the dark house, Latella pulls us along and knows just where he’s going. Of course he won’t answer when we ask. On an album whose title track is a stuttering echo of noise less than a minute long, what could we expect?

Head Fell Between Two Horses closes with “How Do I Quit This Band,” a track whose melody and composition are so timeless it feels more discovered than written. Played plainly on piano and flourished with vibraphone, the openness of the song casts a can light across the album as the kicked-up dust stills. Head Fell Between Two Horses is prickly and claustrophobic in places, sure, but these challenges are more doors than walls, asking to be opened.

- Taylor Peters

credits

released November 12, 2021

All sounds written and performed by Michael Latella except:
Patrick Apfelbeck played drums on “Attic,” “Cornered By,” and “Mona Lisa Boys,” as well as the blasts on “K”
Kevin Hall wrote the bridge piano melody in “Attic”

Engineered and Mixed by Michael Latella at Culture Vacuum Recording
Additional Mixing by Jacob Tippey at Martini Church
Mastered by Kate Siefker

Artwork and Layout by Michael Latella
Photography of Artwork by Kevin Doyle

Thanks to Patrick, Kate, Jake, Harlan, Kevin H, Kay Dee, Kelly, Marisa, Erik, Tay, Kat, Ryan, Donna, Tony, Gina, Maria, and Robin.

Culture Vacuum Recordings 2021
CVR-001

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about

Fourth Wife Cincinnati, Ohio

fourthwifeorchestra@gmail.com

IG: @fourth_wife_orchestra

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