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The Immutable Tor House

by Tor House

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1.
Wandered for years, chasing in vain such a harsh one till I pushed her away and left her to waste in the wild sun Had to escape, so I packed up and left for the ocean and where I go today: what’s to find waiting for me? I called up a friend and said to surrender his hard life so we hopped in the car, driving through towns in the dark night Then came the dawn, made it down to Big Sur with our tired eyes and where we came today: what’s to find waiting there deep in the woods where we rambled along? Death, in the trails of a crumbling log To think, that will someday be me withered and done, to be dirt for the trees forever Sunday night, in our hotel room in Monterey I could smell the smoke looming— a cigarette, a heavy heave of air into your chest I will call you friend till the fleeting of my days Sunday night, at a bar along the Cannery after just a quip or two I heard him say he would shove that barstool in your face but I’ll defend you, friend, till the fleeting of my days
2.
Sour Mash 04:15
Once all the coast debris rolls outward with the tide I’m gonna break my ties Beneath a brumal sky, I’ll cut right down the line I won’t back down this time This bold rock bottom climb That goddamn college try Old age imparts new ways The sour mash of days So mind and nurse the wounds that scar cause when the cold wrath hits you…boy, it hits hard But when a faithful kindred comes to help you out and say, “Gather what’s left and try again—” you gather what’s left and try again! So while the grey-tailed tribe may say they’re satisfied they’re gonna see me strive cause I’d rather take that chance and watch it slowly die than see it just pass me by This bold rock bottom climb That goddamn college try Old age imparts new ways The sour mash of days So mind and nurse the wounds that scar cause when the cold wrath hits you…boy, it hits hard But when a faithful kindred comes to help you out and say, “Gather what’s left and try again—” you gather what’s left and try again! You gather what’s left and try
3.
In the Snow 03:50
A northerly voice is calling out in the madness of dusk with the crows They leave us to be when the autumn nears so we fend for ourselves in the snow The brotherly boys are working out all the fears they may share while they plow The shivering sun sits solemn now and way up over the mountain deep in the canyon we learn to sing lightly burn to shine brightly And when my time has come, to the ashes I’ll return: throw my bones to the wind… But the chimes will ring with the songbirds in the spring, so we’ll take to the road… We can do this on our own. I carry in me lies of long ago— in the outcome of what I was told maneuvered the way back before the cold and way up over the mountain deep in the canyon we learn to sing lightly burn to shine brightly And when my time has come, to the ashes I’ll return: throw my bones to the wind… But the chimes will ring with the songbirds in the spring, so we’ll take to the road… We can do this on our own.
4.
Tule Fog 03:18
Tide the daily din: automatic, warm within every time you would hold me And I’m trying hard to stay but I see the absence in the way every time you withhold me The less we learn the word to say the more regret we won’t convey (the consequence of growing by the day) and out here in the pouring rain droplets catch the windowpane to linger there until they dry away Not for nothing with your love but we hit the point where we can’t save enough Can’t tell what this tule fog brings so I won’t worry ‘bout the rain that falls till the morning and will this fall in the morning?
5.
I know the mountain might suffice although the strong red stream runs dry But I have loved you long through the drought before the storm like the moon and sun in pursuit across the sky And while we may not have a shot it’s worth the try to shake this loss So if you prove me wrong you’d remove these wounds I’ve drawn if the time we’ve stayed has surpassed the games we’ve played But when it’s down and out shoot the half and send me on my way to where all these vultures wait over stones that stopped the well from caving in for your teeth again But I have loved you long through the drought before the storm like the moon and sun in pursuit through all their days but when it’s down and out shoot the half and send me on my way
6.
Mates 04:07
When I was a child, a faithless face I could not love another for the life of me All the while you tread so cautiously So hard to tame the boy who prod our fourth fight of the day This no-good light of mine One low-down way to shine I’d walk away but you’d stay anyway. Then summer came around and sowed this heat I’d always let my anger try your patient care with words that would barrage the worse for wear even though I could not say exactly what I need To change this light of mine and help my spirits shine I fell through but you’d stay for my reprieve. So here these days we’d laugh and joke to cry I guess we’ve grown a while to see the finer years while leaving room for fables still to hear In place of all the demons now forever lost to time: that selfless light I see who would not dare secede whose sympathy will stay with me for life.
7.
Jibbing 03:53
8.
Where do I want to be? On the fields of my home in Anatoli but wherever I go with the things that I do I just want to go with you. Where do I want to be? Stuck in fall, where the harvest won’t bother me cause whatever I do with the crops that I choose it’s enough to stick with you. Where do I want to be? In the grove where the branches hang over me and as long as the coyote yearns for the moon all the while I yearn for you. Where do I want to be: on the fields of my home in Anatoli? But wherever I go with the things that I do I just want to go with you.
9.
Cicely 01:08
10.
Never came a day that I wished to repeat your raggedy love, no I would’ve rather sailed through a stormy day straight past the Golden Gate but now I’d come back to shore if you still want me more And getting back the heart that I gave you wasn’t too terribly hard, no But I couldn’t say the same of my sorrowed bones from drinking and drinking, oh But now I’d be sober for the day you want me more And I don’t even know where you are now and though it’s not tearing me up, no well, maybe if you come back to town again well, maybe you would find me here keeping an open door if you still want me more

about

It’s not uncommon for musicians to step away from time and place, to write and record in isolation. Many sulk in solitude, but most will also woodshed. It’s simple. It’s human nature. It’s a practice that needs no back story.

Daryl Jason Lazaro and company spent eight months of this process on their latest work, The Immutable Tor House. An album that, really, isn’t so immutable after all. It’s pliable, vulnerable, still waiting for its resolution. Like the characters you meet, their stories are subjective; you only find out as much as each one knows about the others and nothing more. And yet, their meanings become universal.

You’ll never love someone as much as you did when you were 16, 18, 21, and it’s always difficult to articulate grievances at those ages. The 24-year-old Lazaro does it in a significant way. On “Shoot the Half” he sings about a classic scenario: saving a friendship plagued by the “does she or doesn’t she?” chase-around — but he presents it to you as if they're verses from Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey.” Past the mountains and the vultures, he’s crestfallen, but as the ending ventilates into a triumphant “ah!” he senses hope, as if to say he’s figured out how to put it all behind him.

To hear a track like “Fields of Anatoli” for the first time, with the way Lazaro delivers words with conviction, you’re pushed into a cloying dive. Even when his voice is fragmented like it is here, it rides your desire to be nowhere else but with your lover, leaving you amazed at how a person could ever yearn to be without. It’s cold, sexy, and somehow uncompromising.

But not all these cuts are love songs in the traditional sense; Tor House also treads brotherly and familial territory. On “Mates” we hear Lazaro croon about an untethered friendship that evolves into an unbreakable bond (specifically, the 12-year bromance between him and bandmate Alvin De Los Santos). His most important relationships are always caught somewhere between brave and foolish, along a continuum shaped less like a line and more like a circle, so you can slide around and around knowing that things always return full of respect and full of loyalty.

Getting there is another story: throughout this rural route, Lazaro owns up to his faults. On “Tule Fog” he walks away from his loved one to avoid further torment. Both have fallen, and their disdain builds in the song’s human pulse and nature’s sound effects. But album closer “Back to Shore” is an invitation to reunite with that same partner, while bearing in mind that second chances don’t often come easy. Luckily, scraps can always be pieced back together, if the effort is mutual.

Any creature with a heart can relate to the indie folk ballads of The Immutable Tor House. Very few musicians provoke such reflection, but it happens on this album, over and over again. Its concepts are enough, but most listeners will measure the greatness of the songs in the weight of their own memories, how much they hear themselves in the singer. It’s an involuntary gesture, born out of an artist’s resonating lyricism and intonation. A good beat rattles the nerves because it is so familiar — and in that, you find something comforting. For most, that’s the difference between a bad day and a good day.

— Vanna Le

credits

released September 7, 2012

All songs written by Daryl Jason Lazaro,
then arranged and performed by Tor House.
Track 7 composed by Daryl Jason Lazaro & Andoni Chaniotakis.

Tor House is:
Daryl Jason Lazaro: acoustic guitar, cajón, claves, cover art,
design, electric guitar, hand claps, harmonica, mastering, mixing, producer, recording, Roland FP-5, shaker, tambourine, trombone, trumpet, voices
Andoni Chaniotakis: Cretan lyra (tr. 7)
Adam DeBow: electric guitar (tr. 1, 2, 3), slide guitar (tr. 3, 8)
Rondy Michael Lazaro: violin (tr. 9)
Alvin De Los Santos: Roland FP-5 (tr. 1, 2, 3, 8, 10),
alto saxophone (tr. 10)

Recorded, mixed and mastered October 2011-June 2012
in Hayward, CA, Davis, CA, and Charlottesville, VA.

© Tor House Music, 2011-2012. All rights reserved.

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