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Pissabed Prophet

by Pissabed Prophet

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    This is proper pressed vinyl album (not a lathe-cut) in a strictly limited edition.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Pissabed Prophet via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 90 

      £20 GBP or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Pissabed Prophet via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

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    Purchasable with gift card

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1.
Spooling 03:28
Hold your breath, now let the sound stream straight through you It’s a mere matter of matter over mind You’ll see Close your eyes and sink down into your body Feel all the atoms spin pirouettes inside your head As your thoughts wheel round and round and round and round Pinch your nose and dive in a pool of pity If you sink low enough, you can hug the mirrored floor Stuff your ears, but nod like you understand things Just let the questions come spooling out between your teeth If you peered inside (what might you find?) What might you find there in me? (a swarm of bees) A bucket of bees (buzzing in me) A half-eaten scroll soaked in weak tea A bundle of tunes unwinding A broken machine that’s grinding Round and round and round Hold your breath, now let the sound stream straight through you It’s a mere matter of matter over mind You’ll see
2.
Waspdrunk 03:16
Here we are again Watching the Stour creep up Noah’s Ark Lane All those prayers we prayed for rain And now we pray it back again Here we are again Watching the apples fall with the September rain Every year we pray for fruit Then watch it rot around the root The sweetness of decay Drips blessing on these autumn days Waspdrunk on prayers we’ve prayed We try to pray them back again Here we are again Ending the day with that old prayer book refrain The same prayers don’t taste the same When prayed in the sweetness of decay The sweetness of decay Drips blessing on these autumn days Waspdrunk on prayers we prayed We try to pray them back again
3.
Know yourself Once removed Single glazed Disabused Retuning white noise fingers Riding the whale Petting a blue bottle Now I’m writing home again about life in the bell jar Life in the bell jar suits me Bumble brain lolls again First, decay Then, sustain Rewiring sentences while grinding the gears Choking the second hand Now I’m writing home again about life in the bell jar Life in the bell jar suits me Giddy boy Giddy boy Giddy boy Giddy boy It’s no fight It’s taking punches
4.
Evensong 04:20
In the fadelight Don’t let your senses be lulled, my child In the shadow time There’s beauty to find There’s always beauty to find In the duskdark Don’t let your ears be dulled, my child The Nightingale sings all the while There’s beauty to find There’s always beauty to find And I learn beauty through you There’s beauty to find There’s always beauty In the dimday Don’t pull your shutters tight, my child The Evening Primose scent beguiles There’s beauty to find There’s always beauty In the nightrise Don’t let your eyelids fall, my child Venus sails above the Plough There’s beauty to find There’s always beauty to find There’s always beauty
5.
Limbo is the land of: Limbo is the land of: • Bindweed and bramble Limbo is the land of: • Bindweed and bramble • Ragwort and rot • Of dripping candles • Old food on a window ledge • Mould in a mug • Fruit fly and fungus • Murk • Fog, fog, fog • FUG Moon upended Tides suspended Sun in shadow Dusk distended Limbo is the land of: • Bindweed and bramble • Ragwort and rot • Of dripping candles • Old food on a window ledge • Mould in a mug Limbo is the land of: • Bindweed and Bramble • Ragwort and rot • Of dripping candles • Old food on a window ledge • Mould in a mug • Fruit fly and fungus • Murk • Fog, fog, fog • FUG Moon upended Tides suspended Sun in shadow Dusk distended But in this nothing a dream descended: Loompit Lake lies silken and black As the loose veined river dribbles dark, flows slack Container cranes cower The bittern blows his bottle As a ship’s sails sag A sailor’s skin mottles The fisher of dead men hauls net for the night While lugworm and leech knot by oil lamp light I wake to no joy I wake to no sorrow But a thousand maybe maybe-bes That always dawn tomorrow
6.
No Gap 02:53
I found me a girl with a lot of soul So I shaved my head and I burned my clothes Then found us a house on the Mile End Road And let life flow - Oh Love me Need me Gently lead me to my fate Laughing Weeping Leave no gap between us Take a little time to chance a big mistake and love me Uh Oh! We lost ourselves in a working whirl But spinning out together had a baby girl Who turned up sound & colour on a gorgeous world Into which we brought a baby boy and let life flow, yeah Love me Need me Gently lead me to my fate Laughing Weeping Leave no gap between us Take a little time to chance a big mistake and love me Uh Oh! I found me a girl with a lot of soul So I shaved my head and I burned my clothes Then found us a house on the Mile End Road Let life flow - Oh We leant on each other ‘til we couldn’t pretend To know our own beginning and the others’ end When troubles start intruding mingled hearts soon mend Let life flow Uh Oh!
7.
Chanking a ‘roon in the bull’s noon Billywitch lapped up the milk moon Loplollied, drowned in a soupspoon Snuffed his wick tragic’ly soon Bishbarnabee passed his hours Munching on pissabed flowers But sobbled through what he devoured Soon caught cold and found himself soured Hedgehoggle goffled the goosegogs Meant for his wife and their two sprogs Bloated, got stuck up a putlog And was starved for want of less grub Parson, tell the Bees! Don’t whisper it Just knock the hive and speak: “Blessed bees your friend is dead Don’t flee us please.” (“O blessed bees don’t flee us please”) Hedgehoggle goffled the goosegogs Meant for his wife and their two sprogs Bloated, got stuck up a putlog And was starved for want of less grub Bishbarnabee passed his hours Munching on pissabed flowers But sobbled through what he devoured Soon caught cold and found himself soured Chanking a ‘roon in the bull’s noon Billywitch lapped up the milk moon Loplollied, drowned in a soupspoon Snuffed his wick tragic’ly soon Parson, tell the Bees! Don’t whisper it Just knock the hive and speak: “Blessed bees your friend is dead Don’t flee us please.” (“O blessed bees don’t flee us please”) Dada Parson, tell the Bees! Don’t whisper it Just knock the hive and speak: “Blessed bees your friend is dead We crave your honey for our bread And wax to light us off to bed And so we mourn with you those friends Who’ve met their ends, O blessed bees don’t flee us please!”
8.
The Peterman 02:02
I only half made out The tale the boatman slurred about How through the fret and mist he saw (Rolling above the fog to shore) A little Peterboat under sail How as it passed above The Peterman was heard to sob, “The waves no longer compass me!”
9.
Ghosts of he Creep between the steeple people Tie a fraying lace together Curl a breath beneath a feather Magic lantern man Sculpture made in sand Shadow crossing land La la la la linger Ghosts of he Creep between the steeple people Tie a fraying lace together Curl a breath beneath a feather Magic lantern man Sculpture made in sand Shadow crossing land La la la la linger Be Snuff Spark Tinder Pulse Glitch Cinder Breathe Fade
10.
Through depths and shallows Joys and sorrows Through life till death Fat of my marrow Bless’d eye’s apple Breath of my breath End of our dreamings Two lives leaning into one Down Humber Doucy Past St Martin’s And home to rest I refuse to mourn a dream when I can hold you now I refuse to mourn a dream when I can hold you And when I can no longer May sweet shadow fall soft upon you

about

"BIZARRE POST-PUNK MASTERY...LUDICROUSLY COOL" 8/10 Vive le Rock

"A MOST JOYOUS ALBUM...A WORK WITH AN OVER-ARCHING SENSE OF COMMUNITY, LIFE, LOVE, AND NATURE, WHILST ALSO MUSING ON THE CYCLICAL INEVITABILITY OF DEATH AND DECAY" Fatea Magazine

"ENERGETIC...GLORIOUS...A DANDELION FIELD FULL OF FRESH CUT GOODNESS" The Organ

"OUT THERE MUSIC. RECOMMENDED" Shindig!

Pissabed Prophet was born in the resonance field of an MRI machine, as the Rev’d Matthew Simpkins tried to keep himself sane by mentally harmonising over the deafening noise of a medical scanner. Excited by the potential of the sounds, the Rev recruited Dingus Khan and SuperGlu frontman Ben Brown to help him turn these ideas into an EP.

Working over the summer of 2022, the pair formed an immediate intense friendship and working relationship, and ideas for the EP quickly blossomed into an album’s worth of material, overspilling with joyous and ruminative songs, born of an emotionally turbulent time in which Matthew underwent unsuccessful immunotherapy for stage 4 cancer.

Their debut single Spooling, released in March 2023, was possibly the first song created by placing a vicar in a powerful electromagnet and passing radio waves through his head. Its strange provenance led to an unlikely premiere in Survivornet and propelled the band into the pages of the Church Times. It also generated coverage on BBC Look East, in which anchor Amelia Reynolds refused to utter the band’s name on teatime telly, despite the Rev’s assurances that the word ‘piss’ occurs eight times in the King James Version of the Bible.

Second single Telling the Bees is a three-part psychedelic fugue, sung in the incomprehensible dialect of the Essex-Suffolk border folk, honouring the tradition of staving off ill fortune by informing bees of a recent death, so the hive can be put into mourning. It features guest vocals from Suffolk-born furniture restorer ady johnson and an introduction by the Reverend Canon Lionel Simpkins (Matthew’s dad).

Pissabed Prophet the album is a riotous explosion of unfettered joy from the fevered musical imaginations of two of East Anglia’s most prodigious talents. It’s a tale of friendship and shared passion for melody and harmony; a testament to the power of creativity to turn dark times into an exuberant celebration of life.

The Rev’d Matthew Simpkins is priest-in-charge of St Leonard’s Church in Lexden, Essex. In 2019, he was diagnosed with a rare form of malignant melanoma. His illness inspired him to return to his original calling and in 2020 he released the critically acclaimed album Big Sea. He followed this in 2022 with Saltings, a meditation on the wilderness years of Covid and his regular pilgrimages to the Essex coast.

Ben Brown has shaken the stages at Latitude, Leeds, Reading and SxSW with SuperGlu and Dingus Khan, and has released numerous singles on Fierce Panda, Communion and antigen records. He has most recently worked with chart-topping folk punk Frank Turner, who described him as “the world’s greatest songwriter”.

PLEASE NOTE: A 'pissabed' is what normal people from outside East Anglia call a dandelion. The term is printable in the Church Times, but too rude for pre-watershed use on the BBC.

credits

released May 12, 2023

Featuring Ben Ward, James De'ath, Toby Bull, Ady Johnson, Sian Simpkins, Jim Simpkins, & Ed Sheldrake.

Sleeve designed by Red Belly Boy

Produced by Matthew Simpkins

Engineered by Karl Younger and Matthew Simpkins

Mastered by Eric James at Philosophers Barn Mastering

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about

Pissabed Prophet England, UK

Melodious, chaotic, gloriously energetic, Pissabed Prophet is the fruit of the fevered musical imaginations of Matty Simpkins (Rev Simpkins) and Ben Brown (Dingus Khan, SuperGlu).

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