Album Notes

Light Silver Automatic's "Reelsounds" is a tightly knit audio sweater comprised of warm singles for the grab-and-go crowd yet satisfying sonic spokes through the album wheel that will satisfy the full-album listener. Written on piano, guitar, and with voice, the songs are immediately hummable and deceivingly implacable in their pursuit of 37 minutes of gripping rock-pop love growls.

"Reelsounds" was written and created within the cozy confines of Full Bright Life Music studios as the result of numerous marinations, stewings, sonic explorations, and lyrical and musical ruminations. It was then recorded on 24-track analog tape at Reelsounds Chicago recording studio in Skokie, Illinois, and then mastered at Caffeinated Recordings, Chicago, Illinois.

Considerable volume is highly recommended.

Credits:

Light Silver Automatic – Reelsounds

Recorded on 24-track analog tape at Reelsounds Chicago.
Electromagnetics by Thom Fiegle.
Additional engineering by Mark Brunner.
Mixed by Thom Fiegle and Mark Doherty.
Mastered by Matt Engstrom at Caffeinated Recordings.

Accomplices:

Mark Doherty (vocals; guitars; piano; mandolin; pump organ)
Eric Carson (drums)
Shane Davies (bass)
Matt Engstrom (piano; keyboards; synths; lead guitar; bass on “TPC” and “Mesh”)
Mark Brunner (percussion; drums on “TPC,” “Mesh,” and “Supra Instanter;” mixed “Sunslip”)
Michael Doherty (guitar on “Hello, My Fellow Insomniac”)
Susan Meziere, Michelle Meziere, Nicole Renkosik, and Ryann Chioda (choir)
Brianna Sabatino (lead choir)
Ed Pocus (banjo)
Roger Osthoff (trumpet; choir)
Brent Kimbrough (lead guitar on “Bubbling Onward”)
Rachel Ries (vocals on “Sunslip”)
Mark Biehl (soprano saxophone)
Nathan Syfring (violin)
Doug Braun (guitar T.L.C.)
Chris Brumfield (piano coach)
Roger Kyler (studio photography)
Madelyn and Sean Doherty (vocals; piano; chimes; cymbals; laughter; joy)

Written, produced, photos, wild sounds, layout, design, copyright, and registration by MPD (Full Bright Life). All rights reserved.


Lyrics
Light Silver Automatic – Reelsounds
© and (p) Mark P. Doherty. Lyrics reprinted by permission.

Five and Three

If you find a way to calm me down
Could you be troubled to let me know?

Whenever I’ve wanted to say
That I would not give you away
You couldn’t be bothered with me
Having heard it all so frequently

Yet you must think of this
As something more, so much more, than coincidence

So whenever I want to say
That I will not give you away
You will be bothered with me
Your preference means nothing in reality

The last image I always see
Is you glowing while floating away from me

So if you find that you have a string
Will you allow me to pull it in?

Because what you already may know
I just have never outgrown
The need to be standing alone
Yet calling out for someone

The last image I always see
Is you glowing while floating away from me
Just when I thought I was gaining ground
Turns out I was always upside down


Sunslip

In a sundrenched season of discovery
The status quo became so slippery
Through too many cracks of the eggshell
It all ended although it did not end at all

And if you don’t understand that don’t even try
There’s no reason to think it through
No matter your path here this is your life
Now, what are you going to do?

I think I’ll set awhile
And examine each and every denial
Break them down to the molecules
To determine how I could have discarded you

And if you never forgive me I will understand
I won’t need to think it through
No matter your path here this is your life
You will do what you need to do

While I’ll be about getting really close and spending the most
Of every single second that I have left in this life just being honest
I know it’s the best policy although it hasn’t always seemed
To have worked out that way for me but there I go being selfish

If it were only as easy as imagining
We would be doing more than clinging
To the idea of slipping through the sun stream
And reaching through to the reality of you and me

And if you don’t understand me you don’t need to lie
After all that we’ve been through
No matter our paths here these are our lives
Now, what are we going to do?

I will be about getting really close and spending the most
Of every single second that I have left in this life just being honest
I know it’s the best policy although it hasn’t always seemed
To have worked out that way for me but I wanna be done being selfish


The Purple Case

My will is stronger now that I’ve seen just how this would end
With you here and me there no matter that we’re friends
The spill that we’re wiping down is not as large as you think
If only you believed me you might not lose more sleep

You call to me again for chemistry
As if it were made in a tube
But I say some things evolve only naturally, if they do

The feel of an open mind responding in kind with the wind
Can truly set you free from the cracking soul within

You come to me again for certainty as if it were us who can choose
But I say some things evolve only naturally – win or lose

You turn to me again for chemistry as if it were made in a tube
But I say some things evolve only naturally; this will, too

My will is stronger now that I’ve seen just how this would end
Our fill that we’re pining for may not be much more than a guess
Yet only with hands and rings can we clarify the rest


Mesh

Just to call you down here
Could make it all crystal clear

These things tend to unify she tells me
We should hold on
Never been much with delivery, baby
So what would I know

Never seem satisfied lately
You’re here but I’m alone
Wish you heard what I hear sweet thing
When the wind doesn’t blow
Think once with the other’s mind
We cannot live without the light
No more sight through covered eyes
Prepare to fly

Just to call you my friend
If there’s a God then God bless

Balancing with our arms stretched way out wide
Calm breathing as we rocket on our glide
Believing in spacetime as our only guide
We’re landing with no concern in our eyes
Now resting with total comfort in our lives


The Universe Through Which We Fly

Yesterday I was running
But it seems today I’m slowing down
What so many moons had covered
I’ve allowed myself to rediscover, although it was never gone

Around my fractured heart
There is bound no small part of you

Directly on a mission
I concede I don’t really know
With you meshed with me so very deeply
Where could I ever really go?

Around my fractured heart
There is bound more than a little part of you . . .

. . . and our way of saying next to nothing
But communicating all that it meant to be, all that it means to be with you

Around my fractured heart
There is bound every single part of you


Bubbling Onward

Nothing more, nothing less
I confess this is all

You can say whatever you want dear
Just don’t give yourself away

Reaching for a catalyst
The one I missed through the door

You can say whatever you want dear
Just don’t give yourself away

You can feel whatever you want here
But it doesn’t change what we say

Most of all, please recall
We can enjoy the silence


Ghosts

Halls of discomfort are watching
Pressing close
Forming a circle of gestures
Revealing what troubles the host

After all we are at the most
Steadily fading from our lives into ghosts

Thinking of simpler lives
Once covered with hope
Traded for whispers and lies
Now behind the embers that rose

After all we are at the most
Steadily fading from our lives into ghosts


Supra Instanter

With a hum watch him run toward you
Even though all you ever do
Is turn around with a frown
As with the others who dared pass through

Every moment begins the same
Unfiltered and unrestrained
Until it leaves the brain and enters the waves
Traveling through the air

Watch him loft one up for you
Which you love for him to do

All the colors surrounding you
Trend toward shades of black and blue
Battered and tired yet opening wide
Grasping for something new

Watch him loft one up for you
Which you love for him to do

The devil he comes to prey
On those who continue to sway
Indecision is not the way
To put an end to his reign

Cycling memories begin to break
(You’ve come to a place with no one around)
Into slices of ease and strain
Striking lines across my eyes
(If your conscience were water you might drown)
Sealing my actions into place

Within the hour you come back to faith
(There is but one thing left for you to do)
The leaning tower is being razed
Everything left is what you forget
(To thine own self then to others be true)
You can’t replace

The devil he comes to prey
(Watch him loft one up for you)
On those who continue to sway
(Which you love for him to do)
Indecision is not the way
(But how long will this continue)
To put an end to his reign
(If you never suffer to choose)


Hello, My Fellow Insomniac

My son his hand holds my hand
As we calm ourselves toward sleep
Just one of many reasons
To stop being a creep
Through the hall she’s breathing adventuring into a dream
Their mother sees no ceiling through eyelids searching for peace

What a picture we are of conflicted souls
As we swirl about these truths we’ve renewed
With a mindful of colors from photos we know
I could draw you
Maybe we know this will not go
Every which way we want it to
Yet any time of the day you should know
I’m thinking of you
So hello my fellow insomniac
It’s wonderful to see you back on the attack

He feigns his escape in slow motion
I pull him with laughter to my chin
She smiles as we quiz each other
The younger no wonder like the hen

What a picture we are of conflicted souls
As we swirl about these truths we’ve renewed
With a mindful of colors from photos we know
I could draw you
Maybe we know this will not go
Every which way we want it to
Yet any time of the day you should know
I’m thinking of you
So hello my fellow insomniac
It’s wonderful to see you back on the attack


Terrace Drive

If you’d like me to show you the way
From this point to your grave
We’ll take one step and you will be done
The end shall come

Or instead we could allow the truth
About the things we cannot move
To strengthen another chase of the sun
From a walk to a run

Are you in there?
What do you feel?

Or did the lights just go out
Leaving nothing for you to doubt?
Oh how I long to hear those words from your mouth

While I could never say enough
Well I should have said as much
Yet I trust you feel my love . . .

. . . Reaching toward you
Like a shadow crawling down your spine
Embracing shades of blue
And layering them across what’s left of our lives


Alma

Determined colors are shaping borders of faith and wonder
Among the clutter of black and white that’s left behind
When you smile so that they might again form upward lines

Fleeting highlights seeking to inspire another
Glimpse of the warmth of the detailed close up so that, yes,
Now and then we might pretend that I will live . . .

. . . with a little more action
I will feel with more compassion
I will guide with more attention
Gain some traction
Let our imagination become reality

As they move through barriers old and new they bend the
Flesh up like the falling sun greeting the moon so that, yes,
Now and then we might pretend, please, once again . . .

. . . that I will smile with more intention
I will listen without distraction
I will love with more conviction
Deliver on my mission
Let our imagination become reality

I will blow a kiss through the air
And hope that the wind finds you somewhere
Peaceful and without a care
And that you will keep it there

How I wish it were true
My image of you
Holding onto
The love I blew


Relativity

If you haven’t experienced a miracle yet I suggest here’s one
We’re flying through the universe but we don’t feel alone

If you’re wondering what humbles me right down to my core
It’s the five and three looking back at me their lives what I adore

Seeing becomes so clear on the edge of the telescope horizon

If you listen closely to the source I expect you’ll hear
Gratitude filling every pore as the distance it draws near