Turns of Phrase

by Holly Mae and the Painted Room

Turns of Phrase cover art
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  • Digital Album

    Holly Mae & the Painted Room is a Berlin-based band of American musicians, made up of singer-songwriter Holly Mae Haddock, Sara Kwon (vocals and violin) and Kathy Kwon (vocals and keyboard), and Molly Morgan (vocals and percussion).

    In their New Folk project, poem-like lyrics and plaintive melodies are fleshed out with idiosyncratic instrumentation, Greek-chorus-like call-and-response singing and experimentation with song forms. With a nod to California folk traditions, the band unites the feel of contemporary expat Berlin with lyrics-based, ballad-like songwriting. Songwriter Holly Mae draws inspiration from myths and tragedies, children's stories, outsider art, and science.

    To contact us for booking please email Tammy Haider at tambooker@gmail.com


    About Holly Mae:
    All current members of Holly Mae & the Painted Room are from Northern California, but this is a coincidence because we all met in Berlin.
    Holly Mae was raised on an organic farm on the California central coast. Her childhood was steeped in folk music and she started writing songs as a teen. She began playing out in the 1990s in the acoustic side of the riot grrrl scene, where she opened for Sleater-Kinney at the Goleta Women's Festival, under the name La Sullen Teen in 1996. Holly Mae assembled a band in San Francisco called the Interludes, in 2005, and eventually formed Holly Mae and the Painted Room in 2007 in Detroit, Michigan.
    About the band members:
    Holly Mae moved to Berlin in 2010 and assembled a Berlin-version of the Painted Room with the following members: Kathy Kwon (keys, vocals, & audio-visual), Sara Kwon (strings, vocals, posters, & audio-visual), and Molly McDonnell (percussion, vocals, styling & costumes).

    Holly Mae has played at the following events and venues:
    San Francisco FolkFest
    Hotel Utah, San Francisco
    MILK, San Francisco
    The Bird's Nest, San Francisco
    Papa Toby's, San Francisco
    Hollerfest, Ann Arbor
    The Yellow Barn, Ann Arbor
    Crazy Wisdom, Ann Arbor
    The Dreamland Theater, Ypsilanti, MI
    Totally Awesome Fest, Ypsilanti, MI
    Glen Arbor Music Festival, Glen Arbor, MI
    The Love Hangover, Ann Arbor
    Ypsilanti Songwriting Festival
    Madame Claude's, Berlin
    Galerie SOUAD, Berlin
    The Neukoelln Anti-Folk Festival, Berlin
    Intersoup, Berlin
    Boom!, Berlin
    Sin Bar, Berlin
    Gelegenheiten, Berlin
    Nano, Prague     ... more

    Buy Now  €7 EUR  or more

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credits

released 01 June 2010
All lyrics and music written by Holly Mae Haddock. Arrangement by Michael Billmire, Mary Fraser, Serge Van der Voo and Merilee Phillips. Vocals and guitar by Holly Mae. Harp, mandolin, banjo, trumpet, accordion, back up vocals and some piano by Michael Billmire. Percussion, piano and back up vocals by Mary Fraser. Back up vocals and cello by Merilee Phillips. Stand-up bass by Serge Van der Voo. Recorded, mixed and produced by Michael Billmire.

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tags: folk new folk Berlin

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about

Holly Mae & the Painted Room is the result of a Berlin collaboration between folk-rooted writer Holly Mae Haddock and the ... more lush, celestial Lost Sisters, Sara and Kathy Kwon. Plaintive ballads are thickened with idiosyncratic instrumentation, angelic harmonies and a sense of desolate, urban space. Holly Mae’s lyrics echo myth and tragedy, children’s stories, outsider art, and popular science. less

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Track Name: We Are the Wild
we will drive to the top of the mountain
this could well be the world's greatest vacation
you could well be the world's next greatest writer
i could become someone I only dreamed of
we are the wild, and this is wilderness I'm sure

hens break the morning and wrens break persimmons
rents in the skin running sweet as molasses
this is the morning we'll always remember
this is the evening we'll always forget
we are the wild, and this is wilderness I'm sure
Track Name: Diomedes and the DIA (the Waltz)
We drive to Detroit, me and my friends
I hardly know them but I am at ease, I'm talking a lot
from the back seat
The city's bombed out. It looks like East Berlin,
only nothing's been changed, nothing's been changed
everything's broken

We go to a very dark place where we say what can't be said, oh, oh

There in the fourth room, out of the track lights
impossibly small, by nobody I ever heard of, you are
Diomedes
you were the best friend, the one inside the horse
inside wood-paneled walls, gift to the foe
the undoing of Troy

We go to a very dark place where we say what can't be said, oh, oh
Track Name: Green Caves
We are lonely now climbing up the rock face with bighorns and the ocelots
But you brought all your tea and I brought little bags we’ll make a pessary
Invite those mountains in we’ll make a fire
We will make firelight
Pour them cups of tea, I’ll sit right by your side, by your side
Snow is driving down, icicles hang low round the mouth
You don’t look too good, you’re drinking too much
When those scoundrels call you just say open wide, open wide
Staring down their throats you just lay down inside, down inside
This is a very old tradition
The wind is howling through the trees
The wind is howling out the walkways
I’m tied up in dreams, tied up in dreams
Track Name: Ships Fold Water (it's the space inside)
Ships fold water into crests & troughs, miles of drapery, yards & yards of cloth
Inch of muslin foam to mark where ships have roamed
Breast plate creased to a point pushes on under a bonny
Forging on and on to bark the shins of foreign shore
And ships fold water
It’s the space inside
Track Name: Pilot in the Sage
I saw the wall of broken china, landmark I dreamed from outer space
I saw you racing along the breakwater, salted air in crash of lace
You perform a new sonata, leave me a message and I’ll write you back
I heard you got a new computer, leave me a message and I’ll write you back
Oh, oh

You slept in fields in sage of heather, gorse and broombrush full of bees
The oaks are pushing through their illness, you’re laid up nursing swollen knees
I hear you shuffling up the front steps, leave me a message and I’ll call you back
I fold my hands across the table, leave me a message and I’ll call you back
Oh, oh

This is for the mustard bloom & the bonny painted room
And the oil of silver spoons all over, all over
For the island brown and the jasmine tumbling down all around this sleepy town,
All over
And it’s for the purple flowers and the idle passing ours and the lathe-turned face of owls
All over
Track Name: Ariadne and the Minotaur (Long Red Thread)
You set your mind on the maze
you're type that puts a horse to plow
you'd give your body up to science
and knotted ropes under the bed
I love to see you standing there
you have no sense of your command
you have no sense of your weakness
someone like me has to protect you

Here is the end of a long red thread
hold it tight and don't let go
when you're lost come back (to me)
you can follow it back

Your brow is set with crown of stones
a coronation in the sky
I'm known to love a happy ending
Corona Borealis up on high
what would you do without my strength
what would you do without my wit
just another of the yearly ten
just another of the yearly ten
Track Name: Long June
When I walk all alone, I feel that loneliness deep in my bones
And if the signal’s strong, I know it won’t be long until I find my song
No it won’t be long til I find my song
So I stop by the Arabic store and I get rosewater, cloves and myrrh
And I see that big book and I think of how long it took to find my peace
Though they wrote it in gold leaf
And I know that I’ve come far and I must be going somewhere
And you’ve come far and you’re not standing still
And I long to keep you by my side but I know that I am wrong
La, la we are one long month of june, we/this will all be over soon
So I put up my painted birds and I put up paper flowers
and I rearrange my mood to match my room, push the window open wide
and it’s cold outside so it’s cold inside, and honey you’ve hurt my pride
La la la
Track Name: Wanting Me Back
Now's time to pay for the damages I've done
in my life so far, oh but I don't have the strength
and I do not have a car, and I don't have you
wanting me back anymore
Now's time to pray for the challenges I'll face
in my life ahead, oh but I don't have the faith
and I can't get out of bed, and I don't have you
wanting me back anymore

So please, when you see me don't say hello
just let me walk, because I still can't say hi without wanting to try to make you talk

Now's time to relax in my own skin, oh but I don't have the space, nor am I sure what skin I'm in
and I don't have you wanting me back anymore

So please when you see me, don't say hello
just let me pass, because I still can't say hi without
wanting to try to make it last

Now there's expansion, it follows every contraction
I know that I wanted to free both you and myself from me
and now's time to lay it down, it's time to lay me down, oh but I can't say I swim and I cannot say I drown
and I don't have you wanting me back anymore