Lower, Permission

by Brandon Wadley

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Phil Lofton
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Phil Lofton This album is POWERFUL. Every single song hits you like a ton of bricks lyrically and musically. Favorite track: Lower, Permission.
Ryan Johnson
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Tom Peck
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1.
03:17
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2.
04:53
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3.
03:08
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4.
04:32
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5.
02:27
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6.
04:14
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about

Lower, Permission was originally meant to be written about the true nature of manhood and womanhood, our nation, and real love. Over the course of a year and a half, with much of the still yet untitled project ending up on the cutting room floor, these six songs remained. True to form, this turned out to be more so about the internal talks and yearnings of my personal struggle with these issues reflected in the outside world; a picture surrounding this season of life, with its shifting perspectives and fluid sense of time. I had to let much of the process of writing come as stream of consciousness, writing down pages of raw material along with a phrase here and there in between pouring cappuccinos and sweeping floors. With most of the songs at one point or another in a different musical incarnation completely, this album is full of themes and verses that didn’t make sense at all until I sat with them a while and let them grow into themselves. It wasn’t until months after I wrote the last song that the title of this collection found its place and the heart behind the album began to show itself in glances. Each song seems to exemplify the all powerful dichotomy of truth and struggle, especially when those two intersect, which happens to be pretty often whether you’re intentional about it or not. More than anything, I hope this will serve as a reminder that we all have the freedom to continue to grow, to cultivate, and to remain present where change is needed most, especially when hope is distant, when time disappears, and when we don’t feel the joy that’s needed to go on. I want all of this to say that we have so much potential as human beings to love one another and to actualize the conversation between our shores and our oceans. Thank you for listening and yes, please take this as personally as you possibly can.

credits

released November 3, 2017

Thanks to my beautiful wife Katie and our doge Rosie; Chris Hickman for being my dear creative companion and confidant; Jared Garner for being a solid friend, my guitar tech, temp drummer, guitar t o n e wizard, and spiritual brother; Grant Thomas for making everything he touches ten times cooler than it was and for directly improving my music taste; Phil Lofton for being the cherry pie to my damn fine cup of coffee and for being my best friend; the amazingly sweet wives of the aforementioned gentlemen: Jen Hickman, Jenny Garner, Beth Ann Thomas, and Heidi Lofton; Moon Baby; Jarrod Bright for friendship and playing drums loud and good; Nathan Partain for being a phenomenal mentor, facilitator, encourager, and listener; Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis for being beautiful and inspiring; Jeff Nottingham for helping me process so much and encouraging the exploration of the subject matter for many of these songs; Jackson Sutherland for a being patient, sweet bass player and friend for all those shows as well as for following your dreams to be a chef because that’s really brave and inspiring; Adam McCormick for night time beer conversations; Peter and Dixie Gaultney; my parents Jeff & Joy, my brother Phillip, and my sister Erin; The Landrys and Hernandai for everything; the illustriously talented and encouraging Alicia Zanoni and the Curry House girls; all the kind words and conversations with the fellow artists in the Indianapolis art and music community, and YOU, for whose love, tenderness, strength, passion, hospitality, patience, and friendship have made this pursuit possible. Thank you for picking up this album and listening.

This album was produced by Brandon Wadley, Chris Hickman, and Jared Garner. Chris also engineered, edited, and mixed the album. It was mastered by Kris Fricks at Uptown Sound Productions in Indianapolis, IN.

“Lower, Permission” was recorded over the course of four days in Summer 2017: at Redeemer Presbyterian Church’s sanctuary in Indianapolis, IN on July 16, Jared and Jenny’s house in Louisville, KY on August 5-6, and at The Quonset Hut at Belmont’s Bradley Studios in Nashville, TN on August 26.

Brandon Wadley played guitar and sang all the songs as well as played bass guitar on tracks 1, 3, 5, & 6.
Jarrod Bright played drums on all the songs.
Jared Garner played second guitar on tracks 1, 2, 4 & 6 as well as bass guitar on tracks 2 & 4.
Phil Lofton played hand percussion nearly completely clothed on tracks 1, 2, 4, & 6.

The beautiful painting on the album cover was created by Alicia Zanoni.
Art direction and lyric sheet photo by Grant Thomas.

For more information on the artist, tour dates, photos, and more, visit:
www.brandonwadley.com

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Brandon Wadley Indianapolis, Indiana

Earthy indie rock songwriting with disarming, cathartic lyricism and floral notes of art punk, rootsy folk, and 90s indie rock.

book me to play in your city:
brandonwadleymusic@gmail.com

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Track Name: Altar Ego
In misery and pallor, 
sunlight refrains from my head. 
My clothes are made of mornings; 
the thorns gathered my attention. 

You and me, you and me, 
we’re loving hearts, disparate parts. 

When our covers grow opaque and slow, 
nothing feels simple anymore; 
and all I feel is alone 
'cause after all, I was only sleeping. 

You and me, you and me, 
we’re loving hearts, disparate parts. 

Obscured of light in fortitude, 
what if we were the same mind in different bodies? 
Would it still be discontenting? 
Would we feel like ourselves after all? 

You and me, you and me, 
we’re loving hearts, disparate parts. 

Isn’t our skin 
meant for so much more than this? 
Let’s be friends, let’s be friends. 
Isn’t our skin 
meant for so much more than this? 
Let’s be friends, let’s be friends.
Track Name: Rapids
Where are you going?
Where’ve you been?
For whom are you searching?
Or are you him?

Draw a bridge over water
to jump in
the breaking rapids
of conclusions.

I can hear the cavern of the saints;
tell me what you want me to say.
I can touch the light upon the walls;
tell me what you want me to feel.

A vessel broken
or an empty ocean?
Hunger to belong in;
lust to wander on.

I can hear the cavern of the saints;
tell me what you want me to say.
I can touch the light upon the walls;
tell me what you want me to feel.

When the bread is broken
and the water turned,
it was nothing glamorous,
but have we learned?

I can hear the cavern of the saints;
tell me what you want me to say.
I can touch the light upon the walls;
tell me what you want me to feel.
I can hear the cavern of the saints;
tell me what you want me to say.
I can touch the light upon the walls;
tell me what you want me to feel,
what you want me to feel.
Track Name: Fictions
Mythologies perpetuated,
opening the braided floodgates.
Sun shy well with a drop of black
contaminates the truth I lack.

In everything I thought would matter,
supersede the tendency of me.

I’ve been sold, I’ve been sold,
I’ve been sold the narrative
and it’s got me
disenchanted,
disenchanted,
disenchanted;
sold me this disenchanted lie.

At the end of these fictions,
where they sabotaged my senses,
nurture this embodiment now,
a vestige of my vessel.

The pages are torn and numbered;
there’s beauty within the paper thin.

I’ve been sold, I’ve been sold,
I’ve been sold the narrative
and it’s got me
disenchanted,
disenchanted,
disenchanted;
sold me this disenchanted lie.
Disenchanted,
disenchanted,
disenchanted;
sold me this disenchanted lie.
Track Name: Cardioplegia
Galvanized, the wick is tempered;
illuminate the eminence.
There’s a fountain in the valley
written on the ground you’re standing on.

Catalyze the marrow,
cold comfort, desperation.
The dregs of the pertrichor
are carving out the residuals.

The all known receptor,
knowing what’s best for me.
The old locust man still seeks
to wage his wars in between me.

Let my shame and fear know truth.
In my abiding doubt, I know it’s you.
Wish I had a hundred lifetimes
to live then love then clean the mess I’d done.

Vernal repercussions
are cleaning up its reaches
in our worldly sorrow,
unhidden from our friends again.

Mound of dirt on my head,
unhanding godly grief;
beat myself up and promise penance,
cardioplegic kindness, wake with me.
Cardioplegic kindness, wake with me.
Cardioplegic kindness, wake with me.
Cardioplegic kindness, wake with me.
Track Name: Force of Nature
Virgin ghost is a shoreline
since it’s been washed over.
I’ve heard it in the whispers,
it’s a force of nature.

Planetary souls
within these fragile bodies;
remember what it’s like
to be infinite?

Visceral and royal,
instinctive primordial,
explicitly human;
you’re a force of nature.

In the great frontier,
there’s something in the fire,
wind across the waters;
I think you know who you are.

Psalters in the soil,
inscribed epidermal,
portion of the timeless;
you’re a force of nature.

Primitive revealed
in mothers of the mighty;
you will reign innocent
where you began.
Track Name: Lower, Permission
Evaded by it, yet permissions feign;
forbade me closer when you were tame.
Who I’m granted, emancipate;
I wear it out in me again.

Sleep it off and turn it over,
make your mind, hold your time.
Disembodied, all the best;
push against it like the rest,
like the rest.

Will the shores in my head
ever hear the oceans in my chest?
Will the shores in my head
ever hear the oceans in my chest?

Broken femur, take my fever;
moody gloom, make it true.
The uncensored, impossible fame;
the engendered, emasculated.

Make it matter, make it new;
relegated, become whom.
Eternity hidden lower still;
how you made me, how you will,
you will.

Will the shores in my head
ever hear the oceans in my chest?
Will the shores in my head
ever hear the oceans in my chest?
Will the shores in my head
ever hear the oceans in my chest?
Will the shores in my head
ever hear the oceans in my chest?

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