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Wind Instrument

by Kali Masi

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Fantastic 6 panel digi-pak or Kali Masi's debut LP "Wind Instrument

    Includes digital pre-order of Wind Instrument. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Wind Instrument via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited Edition Vinyl - your choice between black or splatter!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Wind Instrument via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

  • Vinyl 3 Pack
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes all 3 variants of "Wind Instrument"
    Black
    Oxblood w/ Bone Splatter
    Tri Color

    Includes unlimited streaming of Wind Instrument via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
Some Friends 02:05
You’ve got a funny way of coming clean– or are you just coming apart? You tuck the to-do lists between the book ends and in the books that look good on the bus. Mistake my wince for a smile while you choke on a bitten tongue. You’re not so funny when you’re mean to me. Your black flags fade to gray– the red-blooded blues When we grow old to know we died young. Nothing ever lasts. It’s a dystopian, sick world and everything is just falling apart. But don’t it feel like we’re coming together when we load-up the goods and push the shopping carts out? We’d smoke in your bedroom, where the forced laughter is not contagious. I know that you wish you were sick, but there are so many ways of being more disappointing.. You’re not so funny when you’re mean to me. Your black flags fade to gray, you looked dead in your leather anyway. Suburban Punks and we’re gonna die young. But you’re gagged and you’re bound and you’re city-bound. You died young. Because it feels like there’s something that’s gone. When you ask if there’s something that’s wrong. I feel like there’s something that’s gone.
2.
Over Magpies, Vega cries drunkenly. Right hand five, left hand two. Everyday I wake to find the plot device written on my spine. But with rack torture, I turn the wheel and find my peace of mind. I have these dreams when I’m asleep, black and velvety. I never can remember dreams. I wish I could remember things, I can’t remember anything. Secrets the size of cemetery walls– some days I can’t get outside at all. We are what we eat– and I am my word and you are nothing at all. If I could count the ways I need you, am I just wasting all of my time? All of the crowns I keep turn evergreen as I wait for you, the world will pass me by. I found you sitting lotus under starry-skies You’d painted eyes on palms red as Hester Prynne. I watched you cut your hair short and the bobby-pins beneath my twin accrue. It used to be fun. It used to be kind. I’m in ill-fit shedded skin again and I can’t remember anything. All young love lives on in all of the sad songs, drunken kitchen-hymns, your throat’s raw I am set adrift. I’ve grown disinterested in every kiss. The antithesis of wanting is waiting. Like all of the pictures of the people you miss That hang impatiently in place of the ones we see in every dream That came like the rain, and left like daylight over Magpies. [We were wasting our time nights spent patient and wasted.]
3.
I can’t help but see it all now: The dance of dominance and the submissive rites– like a muzzle for the face of love. And a small script written for your sons and daughters. I am the bar-fly swatter. This awkward and mindless game of predictable outcomes. Don’t mistake my yawns for love songs. The color-blind daughter of the oil painter and the tone-deaf son of the cellist: Won’t you tell us of the love that brought you up? You said the thought of me wore you so thin, Was I the reason you stopped eating again? To buy you a drink and to take you home, there was a knight in rusted armor Right on cue and playing safe, you held your breath from car to lake Check your phone and paint your face. It’s a farce and a fairytale. It makes me feel Regular and domestic to love on others terms and outlines, the definitions of the unexceptional To love like a kite-string in a bad storm: tense and conductive. To break and fray like the rest of the rats in the race. Turn ceilings to storms and lose yourself in the throes If it takes all that we are to find a heart and home, well that’s how we’ll go. Does it feel like this part’s been played out? Like you’ve been here before? Stuck in a snowglobe, 20 years now, getting shook-up. The headlines on their faces say it’s absolutely greener, But all I see is concrete so I’m not sure what they mean. How does it feel? I made you feel so Regular and domestic to love on others terms and outlines, The definitions of the unexceptional To love like a kite-string in a bad storm: tense and conductive. To break and fray, break in wild winds and carry to the irregular. The domestic who live inside of terms and confines will love the way that’s expected. Like a month to be paid. Another crack in the paint. Another bird that sings its song of flight but lives its life of powerline days.
4.
Jejune 04:28
A green line across my forehead says I was never really king at all. And all my friends fell out like rotting teeth. My riches turned to dust, my kingdom crumbles and falls away. But every face is a blossom of jejune praise. I feel I'm learning more each day. I need to find my feet again. And I know that all good things must pass, but the aching never fades away. A pair of lenses fracture light across a map. The places we've never been are Sharpied onto scotch tape on a coffee can. You were crying in the kitchen, I was helping you breathe. You were screaming at the floor boards "This place is not for me". But now you're leaving. The damage is done. You fold us into airplanes and throw us at the sun. And I still feel sick when I sit still. I watch you follow plot-lines, how she'd tilt her head to show you that there was no condition deserving of you. Was I the wind between your palms? Was she the slab that broke your fall? Did you get my letters? The green line across my forehead. Was I ever really here at all? My efforts stretched like rubber bands, decayed. We waltzed charades inside this abandoned apartment space To the echoing promise made that "maybe one day..." I'd like to take my name and burn it with my mattress and my books and my identity. And I'd like to drive until I can't see the skylines. Sometimes I feel so stuck in propulsion, my feet are still in motion but my head is fucking frozen. So I'm leaving. The damage is done. My love is unconditional, But I'm in no condition to love. Now I've found something to write about. This is the letting go for hope in jejune bloom. If I told you that when you left I was discolored and frayed, would you lend me your hue and wax? (Trace your mind back to a time where headstones were headlines and your name pooled sweet on our tongues.) And if I showed you, through verb and tax that I had learned to let go, If I could go back, I'd say that you were right. You're right. You're right.
5.
And then you left. I was sprawled out with palms full of rust From clawing at the Detroit-made frame of a 1990 Ford Econoline With the wind-screens just thin enough to spit through. By now we know how it goes– Winter stays too long, we cancel plans when it’s gotten too cold. But when the sun shines, this city turns to gold. I had that dream again. Where my eyes are sutured shut and I’m trying to read. Where we dance until we cannot Walk until the fights had all been Fought until the day was Nights like that, sleep will never find me. But will we ever find you again? Will your letter ever reach my door? I had that dream again. Where I shout your name at the figure across the street and the traffic blares. I think that I could have done a better job to surround myself with all of the people who'd have done me well. I’m just a little white man with the little white lies I tell myself to repress who it felt. Because it feels like my whole life I’ve been waiting to go home. So where do I go?
6.
Under sun-stained blankets A beer-soaked carpet holds your wine-stained shirt And we can lay til whenever, my little whatever. I never thought I’d make it Tracing maps that led back into your palms Rubbed smooth from worry stones Not that you’re ever worried stoned I hear you making breakfast I lie so still you’ll never notice I’m not asleep I watch you pack your things and head out of view You’ve got things to do and I’ll be high by 4AM And I slept through Vegas, just like I slept on the train that I took back home from where we talked all night I wish I stayed in that state forever. Wherever I go I carry this ghost in periphery And all your mood rings cast in gold. You little black and white kaleidoscope in monochrome. Your broken knee-bones. The late-night phone call. The reverie of my severed home. Letting go of what’s left– A jar of sand and your underwear Kept in a box in my room somewhere. Remember forties at the squat? Drunk as fuck, you said you thought “the vibe here sucks” Fuck the sacred stones you hold. They won’t keep your body from the cold - They’re just painted rock. And they weighed you down. Made me think I need you, I don’t need you. I need a one-way flight, I need to get my shit together. Wherever I go, I can feel the rope digging into me. And all your mood rings cast in gold. You little black and white kaleidoscope in monochrome. Your broken knee bones. The late night phone call from a hospital when you felt alone. It was the greatest story never told. All of the secrets that you told, Were all your mood rings cast in gold? In black and white, Kaleidoscope in monochrome. Your broken knee bones. The late night phone call and the reverie of a severed wight Wherever I go I can feel your ghost coming after me And all your rings of gold, such a joke You little black and white kaleidoscope Your broken knee-bones. The late-night phone calls come less and less each year. And all of the ashes that we held dear Held all the embers of our younger years Burned brighter than the days we’d know From my severed home.
7.
Lunger 03:23
Under the weight of the world light eyes Wandering for the first time Oblivious At times it felt I’d palmed the light of the sun For the first time Yeah, we crossed lines Time-Travelled for the first time I decide it best to let the past just exist Like a metaphor in the limelight I am calcified I cannot pacify you. Lungs fill and expire Why wait until the time is right? What are you working for?
8.
I’ve been keeping busy Keeping you at arm's length and breaking ice between the covers My father was a liar, he taught me everything I know. And as fictional as they come, he’s as memorable as they go. And I dreamt the biggest dreams in all the weeks I couldn’t sleep. Navigate the palms of promise, like the ones I couldn’t keep. Did I fall silent like a glove dropped into banks of greying snow? Am I forgotten like your wallet, like the songs you used to know? Now I’m asleep and you’re nostalgic. I’ve got twisted thoughts of murder. Although I’d never lay a hand I dream of simple ways to hurt her Watch me leave without a note, just your name in every song But I’m sure she wouldn’t notice until the wind sings through her palms. I’ve been keeping busy. Taking mirrors from bedroom walls So I can’t recognize the reflection of a past that I’ve been trying hard to shatter. I crushed the distance in my palms. I fought like fencers through the patterns Of a future as bright as a litho black Got your degree, so what’s the matter with you? It can all change so quickly. And I can’t recognize… So I’ve been running my soles straight to compensate For my time running in my place The gerbil wheel spun me ‘round again It’s left me feeling jader than an august rain. When we wrote our names in the wet cement, I felt walked on. Waiting like a patient book to have my spine split open and to spill my guts into memories. Was my name simply spat on the casket? And no flowers befall on my grave? We’re just dust to the wind. I’m a dog-eared page of the moment you hummed out my name like a song that we’d sang. Your crescendo wrapped a cloth around my eyes. To find a strength to call my own, I traced your name into this poem Just keeping busy. Watching loved-ones go by car and tucking good-ones into coffins. It seems so often, we sing out the memories instead of the movements. When I go it will feel like waking up in a well-lit room with no memory of the excuse that I used to use. In the post they lost your letter I imagine that it read You were sorry that you’d miss me Not as sorry had we met I took the mirror off my bedroom wall I was growing tired of waking up next to someone I didn’t know
9.
Sputter 02:50
Is there another life for me? Another trail to blaze in parallel time? Leading to riches, social status, a stable income maybe? Maybe I could have found a way to make my father proud. Another life, I could have chosen. But not this time. “And the days are not full enough” To lift me up before they come Each day arriving as it leaves I mean to clean but never leave And I know that there’s a time and place for conversations like this. But as I grip the steering wheel I feel my mind slip Into another place, into another time Familiar faces mouthing phrases Waving goodbye “And the nights are not full enough” To drag the pen to call your bluff I’d ask the moon to drink the stars And hang itself back up in my yard. I don’t think I could take another day of it. Do I look as sick as I feel? I know I won’t fix the unrepairable. I won’t be held responsible for the gaps you’ve refused to fill. I don’t think I could take another day of it. My heart’s so heavy now.
10.
C.A. 06:54
This place is beautiful, I don’t know how to get back home. It’s far enough away and fair enough for me to throw the odds into the wind. And everything that meant anything before Meant nothing when the sun rose over green-capped hills, but you don’t feel the sun anymore. This place is difficult, you know it’s tearing you and I to shreds. We’ve come an awfully long way just to shut our eyes and wait for low tide. Skipping beats, measures and stones. If I wanted to feel like I was cast away, I would have stayed back home in Chicago. Where at least I know that my friends and my home are just a train away. This place will burn. Because cast aways set fire to the beaches to learn. I’ve seen the west and the deserts where the oceans had been. Your heartbeat, so crass and unapologetic. Your hands, so dry and cold. But waking up to the trash and smokestacks doesn’t make me feel so sad about the river anymore. You know, the sun don’t rise just west of here. I can feel your january breath on my neck and it burns like summer. If nothing golden stays and we let it hang and fade like medals, at least we’ve placed. I don’t keep the voicemails so I can hear you call me ‘baby’. But it’s proof that you once bled redder than you’d like to remember. If the valves in our hearts are in binary code while some of them open, others stay closed. Some doors open when others stay closed. I’m punching broken numbers into subway pay-phones ‘til you’re back home. We’ve still got time. Some days strike you down I know some nights are spent alone. When you’ve been thrown more curves than bones and you’ve built more walls than homes. A broken heart can break your spine sometimes. Love & Pain are sometimes the same, alright? We grow old, grow out of touch with ourselves and eachother. What it takes to be happy, I don’t know. What kind of fool would fall in love with someone who gave up on themselves? What it takes to be happy, I don’t know. What it takes to be happy, I don’t know.

about

“Kali Masi carved out a sonic space between the urgency of the punk and hardcore bands that were our foundation and the Midwestern Emo breeze that was sweeping through our towns at the time. But, we wanted to be a counterpoint for the evergreen music scene that thrives in Chicago; to move with the current but never float on the surface. To write as many songs as we could in ways that we hadn’t heard before. So, we dug in our heels and started pushing” says singer/guitarist Sam Porter on where their sound for their debut LP Wind Instrument comes from.

He continues, “It sort of feels like you’re piecing together a mosaic of the parts of your life that you want to keep around. Figuring out what fits and using it to sculpt an image of what felt true then and what still feels true now. Little by little, we carve out parts that feel right. As people, we break and grow. Make adjustments along the way. Step back, realize you’re not where you wanted to be, erase, change, break, grow.”

After a handful of EP’s and relentless touring, Kali Masi called upon Jay Maas (Defeater, Polar Bear Club, Vanna) to take the helm and produce Wind Instrument. Porter goes on to say, “We worked with Maas, an astounding engineer, musician, and now great friend to make the record. Together, we set up camp at the legend-of-punk-lore Atlas Studios in Chicago and put pen to paper, piecing the fragmented parts of the past few years into some songs that we felt made sense of it all.”

Wind Instrument out now on 12”/CD/Digital via Take This To Heart Records.

credits

released October 6, 2017

Engineered, Produced and Mixed by Jay Maas

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KALI MASI Chicago, Illinois

Kali Masi is an American punk rock band from Chicago. They've been heavily touring and self-promoting for the last 6 years; steadily evolving the heavy, emotive, and urgent sound found on their 2017 LP 'WIND INSTRUMENT' and the much anticipated 2021 followup '[laughs]' ... more

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