Crow told me to get out of the way. My ego doesn't like that dance so much, but after a fairly uneventful struggle, I submitted, and this song came up during some terribly difficult times. Crows symbolize transformation & change. They are watchful creatures with powerful insight. In the native traditions they represent cleaners of both land and mind, and are symbols of good fortune. Man, do we need this now more than ever! Mad love & sincere gratitude to artist Caylan Weisel for her exceptional painting. Check out her work at @caaylan. We hope to play out soon with a fresh full set as things continue to be safer. Check us out on Instagram, and please share this if ya dig it!

Crow

SBL's last song of 2021 (gratitude & good riddance), is a track anchored in Pop structure traditions while sharing sounds that hopefully fosters some solace, or at the least a voice that resonates. The title refers to sleep becoming an escape from daily challenges, stress and heartache. If you are suffering or care about helping & healing one another, please reach out for help. Check out the NAMI web site, there are local chapters in most cities as well. Much Luv! Stay safe & sane as we begin to cautiously awaken from the invisible destroyer. Super gratitude to master photographer Sterling Trantham for his art. Check him out online. SBL

Sleep is my Sex

Dodge & Burn is a sincere and groovy love song & call for internal change and love of self. It's a love letter to those of you who are struggling and suffering with mental health issues and (or) addiction. There is solid support available locally through Narcotics Anonymous or AA and a personal path to healing awaits from a supportive community. Reach out, be open, talk, don't keep it a secret, you can make it!

Dodge & Burn

Mirror Mirror is a brooding yet hopeful sonic sound poem about the treacherous yet transformative path towards the landscape of self-love and the obstacles one often needs to work through for the arrival in a better place. Gratitude to the multimedia former New York author, musician, & visual artist now in T or C New Mexico, Wendy Tremayne for her painting. She is represented by the Rio Bravo Gallery.

Mirror Mirror

Our intention in the title use is to creatively share the call of the Suffragettes, a powerful activist movement of women, formed almost 120 years ago. Deeds not words is very relevant today, action not words! The song lyrically personifies Mother Nature as a ravaged and pissed off punk rock female come to reclaim her majesty and restore her body, without us. I know there is a whole lot more on this topic, but this is just the song overview that few people read, so thank you. If ya dig it please share; follow the band on Instagram. Gratitude to New Mexico artist Tauna Cole! Real love your way! -SBL

Deeds not Words

A new year prompts and opens investigations of doing things differently. Truth or Dare didn't crawl from the sonic swamp, as much as danced out of it, and it's in a mood. When this set of unknown sound shapes pulls itself from the shadow side and unravels before us, that's the flash of it, that's the reward. Truth or Dare asks us to listen in without directions or a map. Blessings to all you good people. SBL

Deep gratitude to Phoenix artist Caylan Weisel for her cover art .

Truth Or Dare

This summer in Houston, our family visited the art museum. I was quickly overwhelmed in the creative company of my heroes and heroines, I was, for a moment, nauseas and flushed. At one point standing in front of a painting titled The Ventriloquist, something clicked, it was a mystery, but something began there. Then I find the origins of Ventriloquism & that ventriloquy was an old religious practice going back centuries.
The name comes from the Latin for 'to speak from the stomach: venter (belly) and loqui (speak).The Greeks called this gastromancy. The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist. The ventriloquist would then interpret the sounds, as they were thought to be able to speak to the dead, as well as foretell the future.
I found a kinship between the original meanings of Ventriloquism and the ways the lyrics arrive to me, often "channeling" narratives and vibes around me and within me. Gratitude, luv, Raul

Special thanks to the extraordinary artist Adrian Salazar Villegas for his cover art.

SBL

Ventriloquist

The Edge of Me continues its search and yowl down the somber ally of the human condition, post Eden (metaphorically), with a wistful call to the past of childhood & a hunger for spiritual connection for help from beyond. The "big big silence" represents peaceful refuge, a break from suffering, or even the contemplation of death. The "Garden of Earthy Delights" references the incredibly powerful 1500 painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Sorry, Raul has tried and tried to write an uplifting positive song, to very little avail. Gratitude to guest guitarist Jonathan Chavez! Admiration and big heart out to the incredible painter Ann Piper for the cover art. Check her work out online. SBL

The Edge of Me

As the lyricist, Blind Season emerged from anger & sadness, witnessing, via the news, the caustic hatred, mass destruction, brutal exile, the unimaginable suffering in Palestine, as well as Ukraine. I know no more than the average world news consumer, and do not have any ties to Palestine or the Ukraine, but the witnessing of this ongoing genocide, the war pictures in the news. I have to do something, make something, just to stay afloat, to process. The poem recited in Arabic is from Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) who was Palestine's long celebrated national author/poet, who even wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. The poem translates to " If the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears". My intention is not necessarily to be political, but to be compassionate, and raise a voice of fellowship and respect for one another.

Blind Season

This track is fairly strait forward, from the gut and the heart. It's a voice emerging from our sonic diaries as we look over the shoulders of the everywoman, everyman. Peace! OX

Blue Devours Blue

1,000 Red Guitars is the last studio track from SBL to finish the 2018 year off on a scorching anthemic note. We believe that the lyrics speak louder than words when it comes to the "about this track", well, louder than other words we could share to give the listener an inside understanding of the narrative." Be strong girl, be strong!".

1000 Red Guitars

Alex and Raul have known one another since art school, and played together in the alternative folk-rock band Utopia Go-Cart and the noisy darkness that was Muzzled back in the 90's.

Sister Black Lagoon

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