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World of Wonder

by Ryan Power

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schimaeras
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schimaeras True to its name, pivots you into the ups and downs of life through every line and point. Music for people who feel things a lot. I love it, man. Favorite track: Psychic Mechanic.
Jimmy Wunts
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Jimmy Wunts Mr Seabrook was an epiphany for me and his recommendation of this album was heeded.
Ooh I’m a sucker for hearing that furry likkle underbelly of pitch tickled so happily. Bliss. Thanks! Favorite track: Struggle Snuggle.
William Leonard
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William Leonard Few artists can channel the absurdity of life quite like Power, and his work has only gotten absurder and livelier over two decades - with this record as his new fullest culmination of arcanely essential pop that celebrates us as it scorns us. Favorite track: Silent Star.
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1.
Psychic Mechanic 04:29
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Psychic Mechanic Again we arrive in the same place We got some rest, but we feel beat down We followed the signs, but what does this say? Get with the zeitgeist of zombie life Sorry to disappoint, but I can’t stomach People blaming others for their own shortcomings Suck it up, ask for help, baby maybe you’ll embrace your fate Black and white do not work in this jungle of misguided faith Too many culprits to identify Chemical imbalance or trauma in a child Booby missed, penis kissed, take a walk on the calming side We’re all the same bumping fists While the cool kids cry and light up the statues in the shrine who Miss this lifetime Rivers of fire burn all night long Outside the doorway hear their song What would it feel like to be them? For love’s sake it’s not a race We are wasting light Listen closely, listen to their cries Who can we rely on? Is the tribe still safe? When the earth has turned to dust We turn and fly away From planet to planet, city to city We’re ready to touch down and trash your world We colonize, divide and conquer, it’s fucked Push right passed and go now There’s no one left around to see, hear, listen Chorus How many people did I disappoint By mentioning something called reality A psychic mechanic, puzzle enigmatic Someone who builds what they want to see
2.
Was That Love 03:50
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Was That Love Was that love? That wasn’t love Is this love? Yes, this is love And the proof is in the pudding Take a bite, right? It’s nice Long ago when we both didn’t know That the other had existed And the feeling just didn’t sit right I couldn’t bear to be told what to do You couldn’t bear to face the grizzliest truth Gypsy moth caterpillar outbreak in the year 1981 Bicycle motocross squishing guts in the sun I know humankind isn’t a kind oxymoron But life is good and death is post return to sender The ghost collecting your letters I love pee inside the tub I love dance inside the club Playing in the mud and thinking Skeletons are alright It’s the ego in the land of the eagle It’s the greed, it’s the credo It’s a train that’s gone run off it’s tracks New age playground fell asleep at the roots Homosapien who invented the blues Why won’t the law permit you to collect your full bod injury claim When the wind falls Uncle Sam sucks up what he gave Public assistance helping us out when there’s a drought But when the driver fails to yield the right of way Hey, you know who’s gonna have to pay Me, love to fall, could be weak, could be brave y’all I go to great lengths to forget the past tense Avoiding the humdrum, maybe I’m the dumdum Hit it, you dirty old wasp you did it The driver staring down at the phone He didn’t see your fucking lights blinking Hematoma, karma sign cutting my third eye Someone lit the torch, handed it to me Shadows on the soul that are projecting onto you Projecting on to me, projecting onto you the image Why pass on love? Brief portal divine Time travel in bed, otherwise dead Too many hassles, head to the rainbow castle It’s not unreal, it’s how I feel
3.
Just a Hungry Snail 02:09
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Just a Hungry Snail We are here to help waste your time Why the sour puss? Why the dreams of nooses? Look inside and blow your mind Drink from half empty grail Shallow or deep it’s too rough to sail Welcome to my world I’m a little skippy bippy bop boo Who are you? All the world over shadow on shoulder Tiny breezes carry sneezes downtown now Pheromone factory glow Stuck in a cycle of rebirth I burp up and I burp down And I burp all around the clown In surrounding him with my mist I look into his bony fist is clutching a flower That looks like me and smells like me But is not me Just a hungry snail To the flower we will be kind With the flower we will play nice We will all play nice Regrets, they are all my cuddly little pets I love my time I spent with you Squirting love and fragrant body odor While my heart is growing older We project on karmic curtains Eaten by the snails for certain
4.
Back Online 03:10
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Back Online Lonely agent of the night I’ve got your ass in sight Funny how I follow you Let’s escape tonight While we’re scaling up the wall Major fumble, tumble Everything is just a little precarious (scary us) It’s not up for critique, it’s closed circuit Study time back online Cosmic dare There’s nothing to be scared of this time If it’s a glass house for ghosts It won’t make any difference, no, not at all First place goes to shiny and new (bling) Obsequious sequence Suffers sniffing glue behind All the ghosts that hide Loud city spoils daddy’s soul stream focus Now I can’t remember all their names Hocus pocus now How will they recount my life story Study time back online
5.
Silent Star 03:12
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Silent Star Cut class in a shitty mood and I didn’t bother to get a note Walked past Mrs. Pelican’s class where they’re going to dissect a goat I agree things are totally fucked But I don’t think it’s the Rapture Smoke a cigarette take a shit Figure out what to do after Hot tramp heading to Vegas Hot Gramp pushing the rope I always sucked as a choir boy Never could hit the middle note, dig it Time you think that can heal me Well I will be surprised if you do succeed I have friends who say they’re happy I know men with loose underwear I smell all their tribal tricks There’s no peace inside there The shining chain has taught us how to fly Unlock the qi block, turn me sideways When you’re thinking the love will die Looking back at the recent proof Well there’s something up in the sky The silent star is beaming down on you too No good to say then don’t say go away The blood to live for the joy of the breakdown I don’t really want to share myself I’m afraid I’ll get thrown under the bus It’s time to go back hide inside my shell I’m afraid that you have lost my trust Everytime that I think of you It makes my freaky heart beat faster But I don’t really want to hang out I’m sick and tired of this endless disaster It’s true, I still love you It’s true, we are through By you’re still here right beside me Like a phantom I once knew Chorus
6.
Kind Sucker (Doodle Book) 01:32
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Kind Sucker (Doodle Book) Some of the time I know I’m a find Others of the time it’s hard to be kind To myself, my mental health We think you’re top shelf A sensitive, kind sucker What doesn’t kill you Makes you jealous, angry or depressed It takes two to tango yeah But maybe we both need a rest A love at first sight can be a bad sign The astrologer said: You’re a sensual life suck now Life sucks Now is the time to dream of Spring As you sleep with him Is it not a sin to want to throw Your doodle book away? That poodle makes me gay Life sucks Some of the time I know I’m a find Others of the time it’s hard to be kind Some of the days I’m feeling real gay Others of the days I’m too dark to say To myself, my mental help We think you’re top shelf A sensitive, kind sucker
7.
Look Back 03:20
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Look Back I set the alarm and take the tincture under the tongue It’s not a problem that you’re long gone It’s not a problem because I’m strong Like a fucking bear naked baby On the pavement, weeping for it’s mother Mummy, hold me What do I do? Just be direct, just be upfront Just be yourself and say what you want I want the power to be strong I want the love to last very long I can react, I can expect I cannot grasp why I’m drawn to the mess The path has trenches deeper than us I know what I have got to do Fill it up, fill your face with all the stuff Fill up the space, fill up the time Fill up your face, fill up the mind What did I do? Travel makes the sleeping heart leap Travel makes the meek man do I don’t know how, I don’t know who I don’t know where, I don’t know when I don’t know why, what do I do? Just be direct, just be upfront Just be yourself and say what you want I want the power to be strong I want the love to last very long I can react, I can expect I cannot grasp why I’m drawn to the mess The path has trenches deeper than us I know what I have got to do Just fill your face, just fill your mind Just fill it up and waste all your time Look at your phone and check the score What’s your password? To be lost evermore Suck on your vape, lick your earbud Lie on the couch passive income Actively searching to distract The tendency to always look back
8.
Dracula Reality 04:13
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Dracula Reality 1983 and I’m afraid of me, my Grampa painted me Dracula for Halloween, but he’s too artsy I look in the mirror and what do I see Shiny hair, pointy teeth, sunken eyes Who is staring back at me? Dracula reality Under a cape I can’t escape PTSD The feeling when he looked at me I can’t go to school, I’m feeling paralyzed This special, private ghoul Sees the stake in other cool They are not like me I look in the mirror and what do I see Shiny hair, pointy teeth, sunken eyes Who is staring back at me? I’m facing my mortality I ran outside in the sunlight Safe in my fear of shining bright I disappear Just like him, disappear A turtle and its shell, a bowl of soup of Hell A new language that reminds you of tender pain oh well The engineer who built and drove the first train off the ledge So gorgeous are the failures of fantasy’s midlife wedge Foreign movie mayhem passion actually means suffering Retail therapy distracting you from facing the real thing A hole the size of Texas growing in your lonesome heart The lowest of the low bottom feeders swim in the dark A holy body manima verklempt from the last scene A shockwave hot wire shot opening a spiral sleeve Same old problems sprouting up Things don’t work, you shout fuck Things go well and you hold on tightly If only you could let go lightly You could see your dreams become reality As the years go by I know exactly why My Grampa was so sad As I cried the make-up ran He was too artsy I look in the mirror and what do I see Shiny hair, pointy teeth, sunken eyes Who is staring back at me? I’m facing my mortality I ran outside in the sunlight Safe in my fear of shining bright I disappear Just like him, disappear
9.
Struggle Snuggle 03:34
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Struggle Snuggle This is not some misunderstanding We must beware of pop psychology Get out of my backyard just take my hand You hear the rip under your ass The flag is stuck always half-mast I sob and pray for love What do you do? This is so far amazing You can make, we’ll just burn off We’ll get naked and face it We can take it, take it all on I feel so qualitative When we struggle, then we snuggle This is so far amazing Will we change it? Make it awful Here is a toast to our love But I shouldn’t drink, no This night would go to hell, yes I would slurp it up And I would never stop it I can’t stop it That was in another life Open my heart and what do you do Take a hot one and send me sailing Into some uncharted nightmare Cold abyss My fears are quick, yes, very smart They left me here backed in my shart The beard is burning white What do you say? This is so far amazing We can make, we’ll just burn off We’ll get naked and face it We can take it, take it all on I feel so qualitative When we struggle, then we snuggle This is so far amazing We can change it, make it awful This is so far amazing We can make it We’ll get naked and face it We can struggle, we can snuggle
10.
World of Wonder 03:09
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World of Wonder Cry I amazed by the world around me I can see pieces in your eye In my arms you are in your undies We can be what we like I could try to ignore the signs Would you know what to do? I might never get out of the country So we won’t have to fly It’s so nice in the world of wonder Little spice from the time before This is one for the many lonely It can be what you like I forgot to say it last night Bonne nuit baby Just say the word before you die And after that the cool reply I am right here son, hold me closer Your strong embrace will calm me down Your aftershave will grace this town I get lost in a world of wonder I’m convinced it is still benign See his arms they are still around me I’m the son who’s inside I will go when the moment’s right Would you know what to do? I was never allowed in your country So I won’t have to fly I could try to ignore the signs Would you know what to do? I will never get out of the country So we might have to cry

about

VINYL HERE feedingtuberecords.com/releases/world-of-wonder/
(vinyl comes with digital download slip inside)

From the sui generis pop songwriting mind of Ryan Power comes World of Wonder, his first album since 2020's Mind the Neighbors. Following a string of influential releases on the Vermont label NNA tapes, World of Wonder is Power’s second release on Massachusetts imprint Feeding Tube Records. While its predecessor presented Power in a largely stripped down, acoustic setting with lush horn and string arrangements, World of Wonder has Power return to his characteristic hyper-produced, high-fidelity home studio to craft a set of ten songs which harmonically undulate, consistently surprise, and which all further solidifies him as one of the most engaging songsmiths of our time.

Power, 48, describes the lyrical content of this album as reckoning with a “midlife crisis” — or maybe more appropriately, myriad crises — which encompass breakups, regrets, reconciliations, a horrific bike accident, childhood traumas, and personal forgiveness through it all. Despite the remarkable candor with which these morose issues are delivered, Power makes sure to convey them with levity and a surprising amount of humor. Power has always lyrically been an open-book, and World of Wonder is perhaps his most personally revealing statement to date. To that point, he says: "I love art where at one second it's hysterically funny, but then at the next it's tugging at your heartstrings."

World of Wonder is laden with imminently catchy earworms, and even as they oscillate in mood and approach, Power never once sacrifices his penchant for songcraft and intricate, crystalline structures. The album opens with the infectious masterpiece "Psychic Mechanic," whose fitting opening line ("again we arrive in the same place") has Power wondering about "how many people [he's] disappointed," within a "jungle of misguided faith." Other highlights include the buoyant “Was That Love,” a reckoning of previous relationships; the highly emotive ballad “Back Online” where Power croons about how “everything is a little precarious;” “Silent Star” where Power mourns the loss of a friendship with the potent “It’s true, I still love you/it’s true, we are through,” the meaning of which comes across despite the line being delivered in something of a British accent; “Dracula Reality” where the singer reflects on being painted as Dracula by his grandfather for Halloween in 1983 but using that as a trojan horse for questions of identity and anxiety of attention on himself.

World of Wonder concludes with the exquisite eponymous track where Power begins by asserting that “[he’s] amazed by the world around [him]” and that he gets “lost in the world of wonder” – within Ryan Power’s idiosyncratic pop universe, we listeners likewise get lost and are astounded by his singular accomplishments.

Sam Weinberg

credits

released January 19, 2024

All songs written and produced by Ryan Power
Recorded and mixed at Perfect Pets and Fresh Pond Road by Ryan
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Mastering
Lorraine Dinkel: backing vocals on Was That Love
Weston Minissali: backing vocals (recorded by Weston) on Look Back
Album art by Caroline Beatrice Bennett
Album layout by Shino Urano

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Ryan Power Queens, New York

It seems that Ryan Power is a highly sensitive, mid-life, jazz-influenced songwriter living in Queens, NY.

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