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Poster/Print + Digital Album
This beautiful ,"Conscientious Objector", limited edition, two-color, hand-printed, silk-screen poster was designed, and is signed and numbered on the back, by Michael Leuthold and Elizabeth Devlin, 2021. 29,7x42cm / 11.7x16.5'' . ++PURCHASE INCLUDES DIGITAL DOWNLOAD OF THE SIX-SONG "CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR" EP++
Previously only available in Europe; CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, a six song EP, is now available as a digital download, or, a poster+digital download. Please have a listen and support independent musicians and music! The first two listens are FREE!
Performer and songwriter Elizabeth Devlin is pleased to present her second EP and fifth release, CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, as the soundtrack for the COVID years, while reflecting on themes of isolation, love lost and gained, socio-political unrest and global struggle. “This may seem gloomy but the message here is one of hope; we embrace what is, and what does not kill us, this will make us stronger. This album is an invocation of hope, honesty, strength and perseverance.”
TANGO INCUBUS, the opening track, sets an ominous stage for the seduction macabre. Devlin layers multiple tracks of Fender Rhodes, Autoharp and sultry vocals. This is accompanied by an accordion solo, written by Devlin, for Susan Hwang (The Bushwick Book Club, Lusterlit and The Debutante Hour). Tango Incubus speaks to “possession, dance, ghostly rapture and submission to sound.” What happens when, “the body let’s go; when physical and emotional existence transcends mortality and lives forever within the music.” Devlin wrote this song, one night, after attending a popular, nomadic NYC dance party, THE GET DOWN. “It is strange to think of it now, like a dream, to be in a crowded room, sweating and screaming and pressed up against other sweaty bodies in every direction…but this is what pre-pandemic joy was, magic moments that gave the body supreme joy. The celebration of what was, in sometimes the best way of coming terms with what is devoid in the present.”
The next two tracks, PROTESTATION, and EAST BERLIN & DILLEY, contain socio-political contemplations and personal experiences for Devlin, by speaking to history and current affairs in which a community or groups of citizens are consumed by conflict and unrest. PROTESTATION tells the story of an individual, caught amongst violent protests, looking for a partner they have lost, “the narrator is caught in the avalanche of emotions, energy and panic; they are caught in a protest, and realize they are drowning under the waves of people and emotions.”
EAST BERLIN & DILLEY was inspired by Devlin’s Dad’s. “He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. He chose this status when he was drafted, and instead of being placed as a medic, on the front line, was assigned a tour in Europe. When finished with his service, he was given the option to go home to the US or to stay in Europe. He choose the latter and backpacked through Europe. “When I was a little girl, my Dad told me about taking a train through East Berlin. He talked about the train stations being darkened, as the trains passed. The idea of a wall going up over night, and families being split in half, resonated with me then, and I harkened back to that memory when I started hearing Trump talk about building a wall. There is a very good chance I would not be here today if my dad had chosen a different path. My song, EAST BERLIN & DILLEY, in part, is extracted from his memories of traveling through East Berlin when the wall was still up and the correlation I found between his memories and the current political choices made for how detainees at the boarder are treated and Trumps efforts to isolate.”
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR also includes the tracks RED CEMENT PIANOS, an acoustic, heart-wrenching narrative of love lost, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, inspired by the 1994 thriller written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Oliver Stone, and bearing the same name, and, I WATCHED ME DISAPPEAR, a song inspired by Devlin’s participation in the Bushwick Book Club reading assignment of "My Brilliant Friend," by Elena Ferrante. “In the first few pages, the main character talks about her friend's disappearance,” says Devlin, “no more than 15 pages in, I put down the book, and this song poured out of me."
Elizabeth Devlin is a visual artist, poet, singer, multi-instrumentalist and curator of numerous art, music, and literary events including the series: PoeTrap, Prose By Any Other, and Token Folk Acoustic. Her debut chapbook, Milkspine, is forthcoming in 2023 (Dancing Girl Press). Devlin’s art and poetry have appeared in Epiphany, Cobramilk Issue 2, The Opiate, Bomb, We the Tender Hearted and elsewhere. As the Founding Director of Bessie’s, a private artist studio and salon, she hosts art, community, literary and acoustic music events, in Brooklyn. Devlin has toured nationally and internationally for over a decade; an autoharpist/singer-songwriter with avant-garde folk sensibilities, she defies traditional song structures, weaving small worlds where magic and fantasies collide. Devlin’s third full-length album, Orchid Mantis (2017), received 4.5/5 from Impose Magazineand is the follow-up to the previously released albums: For Whom the Angels Named (2011, 12”Vinyl), Ladybug EP (2011, 7”Vinyl) and All Are Relative (2009, CD).
Shaking graves will never let a dead man lay,
haunting living hours with what you couldn't say.
Dance it out and pray the sweat goes in my eyes.
Father, son, holy ghost are here to baptize.
You grab my waist, I close my eyes,
we drop like seagulls on the tide.
In an ocean of bodies we glide.
You take my sleep, you take my rest.
I did it all, I did my best.
Dance until we fall into step.
Its a tango, its a dance.
Indigo smoke swirls as lashes beckon you,
standing still was never a thing I could do.
Wall flowers will fade into this timeless truth.
Come now lets all worship how we are meant to.
You grab my waist, I close my eyes,
we drop like seagulls on the tide.
In an ocean of bodies we glide.
You take my sleep, you take my rest.
I did it all, I did my best.
Dance until we fall into step.
Its a tango, its a dance.
In the street
the youth are marching
demanding reciprocity.
In the empty square,
man stands solitary.
A devout protest,
he ignites the body.
Oooooooooo,
this is my prayer,
let me find you before
its too late.
In the break we lay,
the wild night carries
us into the fray,
protest never ending.
I need,
I need to,
I need you.
Lost and screaming
the crowd carries me on
violent passions
imprison songs
I need you,
more than you know.
I need you,
more than the mob.
Find me, find me, find me.
Find me, find me, find me.
Lately I climb the ladder to the roof,
after you're asleep safe in bed,
it's all I can do to get through the night,
it's all I can do to clear my head.
Nothing between be and a roof filled sky,
cars and trains and metal scrapers slip.
I thrust my arms sideways into the wind,
close my eyes as I leap into the lift.
As I invoke the infamy
of a life now walled off to me
its a raging of symphonies
crashing through the lead
X-rays through the head.
You told me of traveling through East Berlin,
stations darkened as the trains passed
places no longer open to eyes
closed off over night who knew that it would last.
Tyranny, the walls that some men build.
No one can escape, no ones let in.
Seperating families in one fell swoop,
inside this barricade is where I stand.
But I invoke the infamy
of a life now walled off to me,
its a raging of symphonies
crashing through the lead
X-rays in my head.
Its a wonder that haunts me still,
memories of you always will,
pull me into nostalgia's trance
screaming with a neck breaking cadence.
Oh my god, can hear me.
Oh my god, can see me.
Oh my god, can hear me.
Oh my god, can see me.
It's been a year and now I hear
that maybe you are doing quite well.
I don't know which way this will go
but can tell you I'm living in hell.
Those months ago, you took my hand
that night we danced so slow.
Walking me home, you left a ghost,
red, cement piano.
I'll never tell quite how it felt
all I know is that time fades the call,
music inside, I was so high
and I felt like I had come home.
But now I know, that autumn's end
delivers winter her chill.
The heavy heat the dance left me
condensed on one crying window sill.
I met your friend the other day
who's to say what became of his arms.
He seemed like you, at once I knew,
to love Cain was to know Abel's charms.
What heart is this, that drags me now,
rough leaves, skinned knees,
they brought me here,
and laid me flat, upon my back,
a heart attack, stretched on the rack.
Telll me why, did you fly
away to the east
without saying goodbye?
Perhaps its nothing but
I have a heavy heart
and my eyes fall to leaves,
and my hair it grows to long,
and my skirts the wrinkle up,
each time someone leaves.
Perhaps it nothing but
maybe the rumors are true
the strange calling of the dogs,
howling at the moon,
before the night was through,
you left with him for a walk.
You know its strange,
I go for weeks,
without thinking or saying
your name.
Then, all it once,
my breath it speaks
and my heart knows
it's beating in vein.
The limbs cry out,
where have you gone?
There was a moment,
it's gone.
This void I've come
to love and know
it leaves a still
and a slow.
Previously only available in Europe; CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, a six song EP, is now available as a digital download, or, a poster+digital download. Please have a listen and support independent musicians and music! The first two listens are FREE!
Performer and songwriter Elizabeth Devlin is pleased to present her second EP and fifth release, CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, as the soundtrack for the COVID years, while reflecting on themes of isolation, love lost and gained, socio-political unrest and global struggle. “This may seem gloomy but the message here is one of hope; we embrace what is, and what does not kill us, this will make us stronger. This album is an invocation of hope, honesty, strength and perseverance.”
TANGO INCUBUS, the opening track, sets an ominous stage for the seduction macabre. Devlin layers multiple tracks of Fender Rhodes, Autoharp and sultry vocals. This is accompanied by an accordion solo, written by Devlin, for Susan Hwang (The Bushwick Book Club, Lusterlit and The Debutante Hour). Tango Incubus speaks to “possession, dance, ghostly rapture and submission to sound.” What happens when, “the body let’s go; when physical and emotional existence transcends mortality and lives forever within the music.” Devlin wrote this song, one night, after attending a popular, nomadic NYC dance party, THE GET DOWN. “It is strange to think of it now, like a dream, to be in a crowded room, sweating and screaming and pressed up against other sweaty bodies in every direction…but this is what pre-pandemic joy was, magic moments that gave the body supreme joy. The celebration of what was, in sometimes the best way of coming terms with what is devoid in the present.”
The next two tracks, PROTESTATION, and EAST BERLIN & DILLEY, contain socio-political contemplations and personal experiences for Devlin, by speaking to history and current affairs in which a community or groups of citizens are consumed by conflict and unrest. PROTESTATION tells the story of an individual, caught amongst violent protests, looking for a partner they have lost, “the narrator is caught in the avalanche of emotions, energy and panic; they are caught in a protest, and realize they are drowning under the waves of people and emotions.”
EAST BERLIN & DILLEY was inspired by Devlin’s Dad’s. “He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. He chose this status when he was drafted, and instead of being placed as a medic, on the front line, was assigned a tour in Europe. When finished with his service, he was given the option to go home to the US or to stay in Europe. He choose the latter and backpacked through Europe. “When I was a little girl, my Dad told me about taking a train through East Berlin. He talked about the train stations being darkened, as the trains passed. The idea of a wall going up over night, and families being split in half, resonated with me then, and I harkened back to that memory when I started hearing Trump talk about building a wall. There is a very good chance I would not be here today if my dad had chosen a different path. My song, EAST BERLIN & DILLEY, in part, is extracted from his memories of traveling through East Berlin when the wall was still up and the correlation I found between his memories and the current political choices made for how detainees at the boarder are treated and Trumps efforts to isolate.”
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR also includes the tracks RED CEMENT PIANOS, an acoustic, heart-wrenching narrative of love lost, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, inspired by the 1994 thriller written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Oliver Stone, and bearing the same name, and, I WATCHED ME DISAPPEAR, a song inspired by Devlin’s participation in the Bushwick Book Club reading assignment of "My Brilliant Friend," by Elena Ferrante. “In the first few pages, the main character talks about her friend's disappearance,” says Devlin, “no more than 15 pages in, I put down the book, and this song poured out of me."
Elizabeth Devlin is a visual artist, poet, singer, multi-instrumentalist and curator of numerous art, music, and literary events including the series: PoeTrap, Prose By Any Other, and Token Folk Acoustic. Her debut chapbook, Milkspine, is forthcoming in 2023 (Dancing Girl Press). Devlin’s art and poetry have appeared in Epiphany, Cobramilk Issue 2, The Opiate, Bomb, We the Tender Hearted and elsewhere. As the Founding Director of Bessie’s, a private artist studio and salon, she hosts art, community, literary and acoustic music events, in Brooklyn. Devlin has toured nationally and internationally for over a decade; an autoharpist/singer-songwriter with avant-garde folk sensibilities, she defies traditional song structures, weaving small worlds where magic and fantasies collide. Devlin’s third full-length album, Orchid Mantis (2017), received 4.5/5 from Impose Magazineand is the follow-up to the previously released albums: For Whom the Angels Named (2011, 12”Vinyl), Ladybug EP (2011, 7”Vinyl) and All Are Relative (2009, CD).
“Conscientious Objector” - Elizabeth Devlin
What A Mess! Records, France 2021
Elizabeth Devlin Publishing, USA 2023
MUSIC:
Elizabeth Devlin: Vocals, Autoharp, Rhodes
Susan Hwang: Accordion
Produced by Elizabeth Devlin
Mixed by Elizabeth Devlin and Daniel Sanint
Engineered by Daniel Sanint at Flux Studio NYC
Mastered by Paul Gold, Salt Mastering
(c) Elizabeth Devlin
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Elizabeth Devlin, with her haunting combination of lilting voice and enchanting Autoharp, is a self-produced NYC singer-
songwriter. Devlin defies traditional musical structure with many of her songs, building miniature narratives and magical worlds where characters, fantasies and time collide.
Devlin has toured nationally, internationally, & performs in venues throughout NYC's 5 boroughs....more
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