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Phantastes

by Nick Harper

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1.
Welcome 02:51
Welcome to Harperspace It’s a place we can make With our hearts and our brains It’s our own landscape I’m so glad that you’re here too I’ve been waiting here for you In this place we have made It’s our own landscape There’ll be kisses in the trees Many lost histories The other world is far away This is where I plan to stay I’m so glad that you’re here too I’ve been waiting here for you Every time you want to play I’ll be here
2.
This is the history of the kiss That unravelled all the mysteries to tell a tale of simple bliss And I could never have known or guessed my loneliness could end quite like this When she kissed me the rest was history Deep dark boy Alone in the world in search of joy Waiting for life-long love to exist Until the day I die From the day of the kiss Teen spirit’s dreams; all the awakenings To adolescent desolation With the one and only chance of my salvation By landing every heavy hope on her lips On the day of the kiss Well the closer we became The weight hung heavier on my claim Until a softly focused ghostly ballet When the moment was held in frozen frames And my loneliness was blown away On the day of the kiss
3.
Mama's Boy 04:51
When the darkness of the beginning was upon the face of the deep In the loving arms of my mother I slept protected in the depths of our dreams We’d lie side by side Mama’s boy and the beatified Oh but how are children to know of all the love they need Let alone the joy they give as you watch them sleep? But the time came one day To put all those childish things away And get out there boy and discover someone other in whose arms I could stay And lie side by side Where I’d vow I would abide for all time But how was I to know that all those echoes of love would keep on rolling back to me? Yes it’s true I guess I’m a mama’s boy Call me a mama’s boy Say what you like How it was is how it is Mama’s boy Say what you like Love you Mum
4.
The sky pulls on a hooded cloak just as I leave home Through Mirkwood’s nightmare Thousand Oaks I sing aloud alone No moon and no stars And in the midst of The Joke the deep darkness swathes the soul Demon trees make demon sounds until, a faint glimmer, the first glimpse of her town Difficult to make out in the inky Autumn air, but it’s there Unless my eyes are playing tricks No it’s there A mote of light A spright aglow A mote of light Just enough to give me hope Well if I didn’t know I wouldn’t know, that what I saw were the fairground rides aglow But I, too far to plainly see that incandescent cavalry’s Slashing sabres whirling blades from the switchback sleighs and the cage That had not yet quite sliced night’s canopy, But that’s what it was, It was a long walk And I still had some way to go And all I could really see was: A mote of light A spright aglow A mote of light Just enough to give me hope Well at last I’m down into town. I move through the fair Thinking yeah pigs will fly if I see her there I’m into the fray and frenzy of the electric air Where the sweet smack of the smell of the hot sugar floss Fuses with the trodden on hot dogs dropped from the top of the Ferris Wheel’s drop When it jolts and stops to load up the chairs So yeah pigs do fly as I suddenly see her in an Elvis mirror You know the ones you can win for firing rubbery frogs into buckets with rubber mallets She sees me And the lights shine soft, the music stops, and the rest of the scene fades away to night But in the corner of her eye, deep down in her smile I see a tiny something, something I recognise and it’s just for me and it means everything A mote of light A spright aglow A mote of light Just enough to give me hope Just enough to get me home
5.
Out of the window through the leaves of the cherry tree Where all those birds used to fly There’s a light back down that road out there just for me I must leave this place for the last time Shadow’s curse begone! That dons the dark shroud the day long In a never ending game of peekaboo You think it’s gone, then it comes for you I will overcome Make love and light and laughter my friend Oh we let this world make so much suffering It beggars belief the things we’ve been believing in Back down that road out there just for me there is a light And I must leave this world for the first time Shadow’s curse begone! That dons the dark shroud the day long In a never ending game of peekaboo You think it’s gone, then it comes for you I will overcome Make love and light and laughter my friend Love and light and laughter my friend As the horn fills the forest The shadow disappears As I sound out the chorus The way ahead is clear As the horn fills the forest I’m free of all the fear Secret chords in the chorus Will draw The Marble Lady near And the kiss ..
6.
They say a pot of Roman gold was found at one end of that rainbow Between this world and the next Where the one-eyed Magpie watches me walk by again All the way from the life-giver river in the West To the white horse by the white house Both standing there in the rain On the corner of Choppingknife Lane Shelter! With my friends at either end of that rainbow Pure, real gold They opened the door and they took me in Just when I needed it the most At the staging post Other dreams came in from the blue And fairly hid the kiss from view Six string salutations ran imagination through My spirit stretched out as it rested Safe at the halfway house But my soul was always looking out for you Shelter! I stumbled in The bone-weary spaced-out lovelorn ghost And I never forgot the kindness I got Just when I needed it the most At the staging post From here I can see the beginning and on and beyond Where I live now is where I lived then Distance, time, nothing’s really gone Nothing’s really gone, I’m still here Shelter! Shelter! Shelter! My friends Shelter! When you need it the most At the staging post There but for the grace of the kiss go I And you know I am but one of many spirits here Resting from the road So come on, come on, come on, join the host At the staging post
7.
Phantastes 04:58
One night, on what started out as a little a trip from the Staging Post I go through the looking glass to see (Sweet liberty was lying in the grass absolutely free you see) Subconsciously I’m searching for any trace of this elusive kiss And just when I’m thinking I should give the whole thing a miss I come across the ruins of a Marble Hall where the inside is the outside as much as the outside is There a beautiful statue glows in the Nighttime abyss By then I had kicked open a good few doors of perception And now this Marble Lady became my obsession Deep down in her smile The Marble Lady comes alive Then she is gone, gone from the pedestal The figures fly from the frieze Phantastes I see her form disappear into the darkness So I strike a match and it lights up the whole sky The box is gone in a flash (of course) and was she ever nearby? Deep Space Cadet with quicksilver emotion Boldly going to earn an astral promotion I measure up a universe unseen With super-imposed geometric grids of purple and green Everything’s dilated, even time itself in the ripples of the Pool of Soon Where the statue comes toward me in a reflection .. of the days to come Deep down in her smile The Marble Lady comes alive Then she is gone, gone from the pedestal The figures fly from the frieze Phantastes I follow her into the trees “Have you seen her?” I ask But the trees look at me like I’m crazy So I embrace the very earth to feel her vibrations maybe, But I get attacked by a gang of green flourescent emmets And through the living nettle stings I ask the trees again, “Did she go by this way?” Because deep down in her smile The Marble Lady came alive And now she is gone, gone from the pedestal Her figure flew from the frieze Phantastes “Excuse me. Sorry. Did you see a .. marble lady .. go by this way? .. No. OK. I guess it’s back to the lab.”
8.
I have all the chemicals working together I have studied all the mad professors of old Though my previous experiments were failures I’m much closer to success than anyone knows By my calculations we are go! I made myself a love machine Pure imagination keeps the whole reaction growing Though impurities have a way of getting back in The obsession keeps the elemental music flowing But I sometimes smash it all up and start again And though I give this dream all I’ve got to give to keep it going I’ll never know what it was that stopped me giving in But in the end without me even really knowing The experiment’s conclusion stirred within Behold! The creature lives! I’ve made myself a love machine And you can check my workings out in every equation Follow the formula falling into place From the flash of the genesis all through to the solution You don’t need to be a scientist to follow the trace It’s all written plain as day across my face I have made my self a love machine
9.
Well we all want a dream we can live by Building one up doesn’t seem so insane One for us all, the master, the dame One for the boy who lives down the lane Building and building and building All alone in a little house out of the way The little sculptor working on feet of clay That little boy’s moment came And he reached out with both hands That little boy thought he was pretty brave Thought he was brave just like a man He grew up with all those poets He took it all so seriously He was mad back then, he was mad back then And there’s way too much pain, way too much suffering Just for one poor little world He thought he could put a few things to rights with it That little boy’s moment came And he reached out with both hands That little boy thought he was so damned brave Thought he was brave just like a man On the steps in the flagstone churchyard Two flutes in his hand that he had to fill to play The sun was shining after the rain It was the day after midsummer’s day They looked down on all the people in town She turned to him, but never said what she was going to say He wasn’t going to let the chance get away That little boy’s moment came And he reached out with both hands That little boy well he was pretty brave Yeah he was brave That little boy’s moment came And he reached out with both hands Finally .. He kissed her and the little boy was gone And there he stood Just like .. like a man
10.
Ever since I was a little boy I felt echoes Way before I knew the source from whence they came And I followed them along Beguiled by their song Guided by the gentle force that they became And no time I had was ever better spent Not one minute would I take back again For when I followed the echoes of love They led me to the source of my happiness And all along I knew I’d never be An oh so clever man I could never understand Why was not everyone the same as me? I thought I saw life through others’ eyes In the end I realised The way I feel is not how everybody sees But no time I had was ever better spent Not one minute would I take back again For when I followed the echoes of love They led me to the source of my happiness If you could talk to the little child Who still lives inside of you What is it they would say? Have you lost your way? Do you still seek the source of the echoes that play? And no time you have would be better spent Not one minute would you take back again No time I had was ever better spent Not one second would I take back again For when I followed the echoes of love They led me to the source of my happiness: You

about

PHANTASTES

This album was made possible during these exceptional times by some exceptional people, who backed this album without hearing a note. I feel very lucky to have that kind of support.
Thank you. Love, Nick.

Phantastes is partly inspired by a wonderful book of the same name by George Macdonald.

Guitar and vocal by Nick Harper

Mixed by Tchad Blake

Artwork by Fal

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released November 1, 2020

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Nick Harper England, UK

TEMPUS FUGITIVE
The new album.

It's about time.

Slabs of sonic beauty from Nick and Tchad Blake groove through the portals to meet the immortals ..

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