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An Atlas Of Exits

by Cara Esten (and the Rusty Sunsets)

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無名小卒
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無名小卒 This album vaporized my quarantine blues. It encapsulates the feeling of openness- it's a soft summer day in the park, it's being behind the wheel on the interstate with 800 miles ahead, it's spending a lazy day with someone you care about. It's wandering an unfamiliar city and coming across that one musician on the corner who pulls out hit after perfect hit and you're not sure if it's you or them but in that moment, there's nowhere you'd rather be. Favorite track: Ocean Beach Love Song #3.
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1.
Port Of Call 01:29
Boats list gently in the harbor Touched by gentle waves Predawn grays of white washed homes This whole town whispers stay But my ship is almost leaving You're the last face here I know If I could live in one moment forever It's that counting of seconds 'fore I go That's a bell i hear, start of the day The sky bleeds red with sunrise rays I look back to see a fading gaze Too far away, away, away...
2.
Do you remember the words you said By the great highway when the sky turned red Do you remember how I turned away As I was losing the last reason to stay You can call me home Under the vapor lights Call me home On those foggy nights Call me home I heard your song but it's not Home I'm too far gone The ocean is wide The current is strong But it's gonna take me where I belong The ocean is wide The current is strong But it's gonna take me where I belong Waves that break, and so do we A stormy, hazy, salty sea Memories of golden sails And the parts of me I left back there You can call me home Under moonlit sky Call me home From the Berkeley heights Call me home A dream of skin against skin but There's no home Just the place I'm in The ocean is wide The current is strong But it's gonna take me where I belong The ocean is wide The current is strong But it's gonna take me where I belong Oh come someday Let this love free Across the quiet ocean breeze Oh wake tomorrow wide and see The sun that rises over the beach
3.
New York City never sleeps Texas cowboys never cry And when I see the sunset It's through Oklahoma eyes All the stills out in Kentucky Never helped me much it's true But when you leave California It never misses you Got a friend out in Chicago Says the winter's mighty cold Blizzard follows blizzard Till the city's white with snow Warm liquor melts December Till April's bright and clear But the snow don't come to California It's always summer here Highway one fades in the distance As I make my way back East Let go the little bars in Frisco That had been so good to me There's already someone in my place 'Cause the line's outside the door I got kissed by California Now I don't live here anymore
4.
Plastic City 02:22
Why don't we move to a plastic city Where the styrofoam trees are perpetually pretty Where we slide down chutes to get to work And the faces of the people are set in smirks When it's sunny, things start to melt When it rains, nobody gets wet Why don't we move to a plastic city Where everyone attaches a bit too quickly Where the parties last until somebody snaps And a replacements picked out of a box in the back When it's sunny, we'll get back together Keep your fingers crossed for a change in the weather Honey I just can't live in a plastic city The sunset through cellophane's pale yellow and sickly My bones always break it smells hospital clean Like I'm stuck in the belly of a well oiled machine When it's sunny we'll pack up and move away But today Seems like the rain's here to stay
5.
Give me rusting doorknobs Microwaves and stoves Collapsing folding tables serving Every not quite friend I know Give me water slowly dripping The fridge's lonely moan It's crumpled chore list magnets weak Life in someone else's home All the roots dry up when the water don't come And you curse the cold from the late setting sun
6.
Hey We're not made for this place With your semi-sweet smile And my glossed-over face Hey I'll take a chance And ask you to follow The rhythm of my dance So Let us laugh Between lightning strikes Let's only leave When the music's just right And the sounds get sadder By the end of the night And if you say we're leaving Well then I won't put up a fight Hey Watch the thunderheads roll in Sky gets darker with Each sly smile and small sin Hey I feel rain on my shoulders And the humid warm love on the Air's boiling over So Let us laugh Between lightning strikes Let's only leave When the music's just right And the sound gets louder At the end of the night And if you say we're leaving I won't put up a fight Hey are we leaving Hey are we leaving Maybe we're leaving Maybe I'm leaving But Let us laugh Between lightning strikes Let's only leave When the music's just right And the crowd thins out By the end of the night And I see you're leaving Guess that's alright
7.
Rambles 01:53
When you're gone you're gone there's no halfway in between Halfway in between, all my homesick dreams
8.
Paper Moon 02:47
In a whirlwind through Vienna Nighteen thirty two Three weeks on the continent Spent two of them with you Held hands between the streetcars Hummed operatic tunes We kissed behind the ferris wheel Under crescent paper moon Paper moon paper moon Photographed with you Camera flash left starry eyed But I had to leave too soon Remember me, indefinitely By that paper moon In a letter to San Francisco Nineteen thirty eight Dark sky gone red and black Been dreaming of escape But the doorways west were closing And you had to get out soon So you made your way to Prague by night By the light of a paper moon Paper moon paper moon A photograph of two Torn edges in a canvas bag All the fire around you Remember me, indefinitely By that paper moon In a camp by the border Nineteen forty five Broke down walls, apocalypse You were somehow still alive We scrounged up food where we could find it Scrap paper, a half bombed out room You came back to life under West German skies Woke up to a paper moon Paper moon paper moon Paper moon paper moon Remember me, indefinitely By that paper moon
9.
[in-transit] 02:35
10.
There is a building overseas With all the heartbreak you'd ever need Kept in boxes, neat plaques above them all One night the sun set on that town And nobody was left around A little light shone from its windows through its walls And the spark that lit the fire Was from my heart's desire A bit of sunshine to wash away the dark And the heat that fanned the flames Was memories of the names Written on the kindling and tinder in our hearts When the sunlight came with dawn All the shattered dreams were gone Now turned to ashes and embers, rising heat Still the tourists all went by Tossed love letters in the pile The fire raging as they lined up down the street And the spark that lit the fire Was a gift from my heart's desire A bit of sunshine to wash away the dark And the heat that fanned the flames Was the memories of the names Written on the kindling and tinder in our hearts To all the broken hearted types With half dried tears still in their eyes To the all the ones who have yet to move along There's a fire burning bright Underneath the city lights Where you burn through everyone and everything did you wrong Just toss it all into the pyre Let the smoke rise ever higher Walk much lighter and brighter with love gone And the spark that lit the fire Was a gift from my heart's desire A bit of sunshine to wash away the dark And the heat that fanned the flames Was the memories of the names Written on the kindling and tinder in our hearts And the spark we feel again Is that sunshine creeping in With more letters and the promise of new starts And the only ones we need Are the ones who still believe In the memories of the kindling in our hearts
11.
Specter specter of the eastern bloc Please don't force my luggage lock Apparition just let me be And I'll let you roll off that ecstasy Spirits round every corner In the bathroom stalls The tortured wails of teenagers' 3am phone calls We are the ghosts! The ghosts! The travel guide warned you about! Late night parties after hours clubs in the underground Shiftless drifters listless kissers lonely in the common room When you wake up around noon When you see them in the day It's cigarettes and thick malaise Slowly now they start wake Raise the tempo, hide the shakes Vodka tonic parties Dance like it's a chore A waste of wasted figures Sprawled out on the floor We are the ghosts! The ghosts! The travel guide warned you about! Late night parties after hours clubs in the underground Shiftless drifters listless kissers lonely in the common room When you wake up around noon It's hardly an average weekend My knees are getting weak My lover joined the spirit world And I got up to leave They are the ghosts! The ghosts! The travel guide warned you about! Late night parties after hours clubs in the underground Shiftless drifters listless kissers lonely in the common room When checkout's around noon And I know I'll see you soon
12.
Count the last coins in my pocket Enough for one more beer Look for meteors crossing winter skies Their trails round out the year But it's no geminids this December My twin does not exist So I make my New Years resolutions Cross 'sentimental' off the list This is a song you see when it's sung Mist hangs in holiday air This is a prayer to say when you're done With trying to disappear Count the months that I've felt rootless Enough to fly away A million starlings swinging A breeze in black and gray But there's no flock to keep me company The birds they come and go So I catch the breeze best I can Taste the spring air as I float This is a song for forgotten crossings For the border guards' disquieting stare This is a prayer to say when you're fading As you manage to disappear If you manage your cameo on satellite TV Call my name out through the streets When it echoes down cobblestones I know I know someone's still thinking of me This is a song for highway off ramps It'll rattle the truckers who hear These are words to say when you've forgotten How to disappear
13.
(Pray for) Domesticity while you're drowning (Pray for) sleep when you're lying wide awake (Pray for) the technicolor tones to start receding For the purples and reds at the dying of the day I lit a candle, I watched the wax drip slowly down the stem I hid behind the alter, I thought the doctrine was changing again Behind the pews, by votives' flame I took a penknife and carved your name
14.
It calls me to the ocean Takes me wandering through the street A restless imagination But for now I move my feet on the ground 'Cause I feel like going home I can float above the ceiling I like drifting through the air I tend to lose my concentration But right now the clouds don't appeal too much I feel like going home Sometimes late at night while running from the rain Running from the voices filling up my brain Now I wish they'd leave me alone And let me be, to go off on my own Let me be to go home I feel like going home

about

The first full-length LP by Rusty Sunsets (formerly Turkey Mountain Sunset Band)*. A narrative about travel and distance and feeling gone.

*If you don't include that one time in college

credits

released June 10, 2017

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Cara Esten (and the Rusty Sunsets) Oakland, California

just a girl, standing in front of a tape recorder with an acoustic guitar, a melodica, and a synthesizer, asking the motor to please not burn out this time

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