set | bern

set | shacklewell

what i miss the most
is feeling electric
i’m your ghost

what i miss the most
is burning
i’m your ghost
i’ll keep returning

i cling to any glimmer
worship my sinner
you altered my axis
misaligned center
now north is south and
east is west and
you’re my baby
fuck the rest
i’m your ghost
i’ll keep returning

Ghost

i watch the day break from your bed
cool blue licks the walls
i nuzzle in for a moment
before i slip home
admire your bones
scavenge for my clothes

divulge decades of orbiting passed
now i’m in your kitchen
cheek pressed to the granite
could you surround me like that

you’re hiding right inside my eyelids
as i touch him
while i’m laying beside you
my body’s buzzing
it’s probably just the blow but
i can’t stick around to know that

i’d follow you to any room
each crowded with people
in love with you

in a way, there i know i belong
i melt in the softness
you trace my palm

you’re hiding right inside my eyelids
as i touch him
while i’m laying beside you
my body’s buzzing
it’s probably just the blow but
i can’t stick around to know that

Swap

don’t act like you were happier
hands around your neck
stumbling by the roadside
i found you at the right time

don’t act like i’m not half of us
i took you in
you weren’t always a good time
but you’re mine

i won’t let you replace me
with some cut bitch with ac
i won’t

we’re sweating in the kitchen
tell me you won’t miss this
or don’t

make me proud, shut her down
you won’t

don’t act like this is mutual
enchanted by a pearl who hasn’t met your flaws
yet

don’t act like you are in control
i know the 3d shape of you
i plugged the hole

i won’t let you replace me
with some cut bitch with ac
i won’t

we’re sweating in the kitchen
tell me you won’t miss this
or don’t

turn around, burn it down
you won’t

Old Man of the Woods is the ambient avant-pop project of Seattle-based artist Miranda Elliott. Alchemizing shit into sustenance, Elliott crafts intimate, entrancing songs under the alias of a private, prickly mushroom that survives by the same creed. “Each pop nugget is like a different landscape painting, textural and intriguing, with deeper meaning hidden behind the lush, beguiling surfaces" (Foxy Digitalis). Having toured her debut LP Votives & EPs Dissolve & Devolve across the Pacific Northwest and East Coast, she’s poised to release her second LP Tendrils this June. The first single, 'Anticipating', drops April 22nd.

Tendrils is a collection of devotionals, written at a yearning distance from their beloveds. It's the recognition of the vines that bind us to all we adore, at times only felt once they become taut, begin to quiver, reverberate, fray, snap, curl. And the realization that there will always be more, weeds crawling through cracks, for those who stay hungry.

Recorded while an artist in residence with Culterim Gallery at a lakeside abandoned sanatorium in Biesenthal, Germany, the album itself is preserved in amber. Any attempt to interfere once leaving erased some essential essence of the estate’s eerie serenity, forcing Elliott to choose peeling walls over perfection. Each room dense with memory, a century-old space intended for healing in isolation, for walks around the lake that Elliott too circled endlessly each day, pen in hand, one’s left to wonder whose tendrils she really writes of, or if we’re all entwined. 

Vesperal vocals echo from cracked windows and walls, coating the consumptive cathedral, forming an organic organ. Oozing oscillations transform studio into swamp. Damp footsteps haunt the halls, sometimes pacing, sometimes with purpose, demanding to be let in. Whispered truths lay waiting for whoever needs to hear them. With Old Man of the Woods, there’s always a breeze, a blush, an invitation to sway and engage, if you choose to accept.

Anticipating

the third & final single from upcoming lp tendrils ~ 


guide my fingers inside
    / transcribe, describe
    // prescribe, subscribe
    /// inscribe, derive
    //// bribe, abide
you have my attention

dripping in new sweat
    / salty, sweet
    // sultry, sick
    /// syrup, heat
    //// saccharine
biting new pillows
staining new sheets
trembling with tension

Abide

the jellyfish approach the womb
but i want you
i just want you 
i pray, i lay
again, again
lungs heavy 
where do i begin

the crystals spin, refracting blue 
but i want you 
i still want you 
i pray, i pace  
again, again
lungs heavy 
where do i begin 

i drift and wake, the siren croons
but i want you
disdain that truth
i pray, i pay
again, again
lungs heavy 
where do i begin

Jellyfish

i emerge flushed cheeks, panting  
from midday meditation
laid yoga nidra 
giving into temptation 

when you enter me, fully   
leave no room for thoughts 
pulse, breath me in and out
your cock is my whole world now

Meditation

life underwater
muffled and slow
whisper my name
i love the echo

kids in the pool
we’ll play through the cold
the wind, rushing rapids
out my window
 
i will dissolve
not rot in graveyards of stale thoughts
i will absolve
the weight that you can’t recall 
making mine

let glimmer consume me
my limbs bend and mold
no longer concerned
with staying afloat

i’ll cradle my youth
concede to my soul
deep, i’ll grow stronger
give into the flow

i will dissolve
not rot in graveyards of stale thoughts
i will absolve
the weight that you can’t recall
making mine

dissolve

old man of the woods is the ethereal electro pop project of seattle-based artist miranda elliott. alchemizing shit into sustenance, elliott crafts intimate, entrancing songs under the alias of a private, prickly mushroom that survives by the same creed. swirling harmonies, pulsing bass, and glimmering synths forge an eerie realm to gyrate and contemplate ~