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Caretaker

by Malachi Graham

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Malachi Graham's new album Caretaker on black vinyl

    Includes unlimited streaming of Caretaker via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $25 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Caretaker via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days

      $14 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

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

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1.
You’re in the basement packing the last of your things Not how we thought it would go, what a damn perfect ending Your shadow will stay long after you go On the bed, on the house, on my bones We made a home, we made a home We made a home, we made a home Your fears were contagious, we both shut the blinds from within Now that you’re gone I can see there’s a brightness in everything And we built a fortress to keep it all out Safe from all but the dark in yourself We made a home, we made a home We made a home, we made a home I’ll paint the walls back to white I’ll paint the walls back to white
2.
Big Bouquet 03:43
3.
As Is 03:06
4.
5.
6.
LYRICS: When you were getting treatment I watched your favorite movie every night About a man who gave up every dream he ever had Someone always needed something he could give There’s enough of me to go around until there’s not There’s enough of you for everyone to use, but... It’s a wonderful life It’s a wonderful life It’s a wonderful life Everybody cries So call your wild creatures They’ll hop and flap and skitter to your knees More mouths to feed, but they’ve done their share of feeding too When you’re wrapped around the madness, let em hold you There’s enough of me to go around if I hold my breath There’s enough of you, but Mom, we gotta breathe out It’s a wonderful life It’s a wonderful life It’s a wonderful life Everybody cries I’m enough of me, no matter what I have to give You’re enough of you, you've got nothing to prove It’s a wonderful life It’s a wonderful life It’s a wonderful life It’s a wonderful life
7.
Montreal 02:33
8.
They stay together for the kids It’s not marital bliss but it is what it is. They don’t know what they’d do Say “Life isn’t great but at least I’ve got you.” The kids all wish they’d split Been talking past each other since 1996. Kids are grown and paying rent “What are they waiting for? We know we were an accident.” Will I burn out anyone I love for 20 years?  Even great loves fray around the edges.  Even great loves fray around the edges.
9.
Spare Me 04:59
I’m a woman, not a notion I’m a heartbeat, not your conscience I’m a whole, not your good half— spare me. You’ve been living like you wanna die For so long that I already grieved us I can’t suspend my disbelief Thought it was love, but I guess it was grief Shoulda known from the way they all looked at me You were never coming back. You were never coming back. I can’t suspend my disbelief Thought it was love, but I guess it was grief Shoulda known from the way they all looked at me You were never coming back. You set me free from my desperate hopes With the knife that you used to cut the rope You were going down with me in tow To the darkness below To the darkness below Did you spare me? Spare me. Did you spare me? Spare me. I can’t suspend / spare me My disbelief / spare me You were going down / spare me With me in tow / spare me Spare me, did you spare me? Spare me, did you spare me? Spare me.

about

A hymn for the exhausted. Portland songwriter Malachi Graham’s new album Caretaker is what comes out when a bad breakup opens your eyes to pathological behavior all around you - and in yourself. She is embracing a rockier sound to chart a rockier road, and using her deft, sometimes blunt, lyrics to examine codependency, unraveling love, chronic pain, grudges, flings, addictions of all sorts, and the boundaries of the self. The emotions she dredges up cover a spectrum from bitter humor to gentle despair, and the music similarly ranges from delicate to raw. As she wrote these songs different anxieties rushed out like a breath she didn’t realize she was holding in.

Graham has been writing and performing for ten years as one half of the hooky indie pop outfit Small Million (Tender Loving Empire). Her earlier solo songs had an observant, literary flavor, full of empathy and poetry. “Those felt like more of an intellectual exercise. These are the first songs I've written that are like, ‘Oh! this is actually scary to sing in public’,” Graham says of her new work. Caretaker is an evolution, her most mature, emotional, resonant, vulnerable work.

Her lyricism – frank, ever-curious, and at times devastating – prods at the confines of relationships from many sides: from the eyes of a woman trying not to care about a casual affair, or a wife remaining in a dead marriage, or a drunk fuckup tired of being ‘fixed’—and there at every turn is another facet of what it means to be a ‘caretaker’. Taking care of the wrong priorities. Taking care through a field of relationship landmines. Taking care where and when you can find it. “There's a lot of danger of egotism in being a caretaker. I think when you’re a problem caretaker you're not treating someone as your equal, you're assuming that you’re superior to them,” Graham explains. “In my experience it’s the way something sweet and domestic and loving sours and becomes a cage.”

She enlisted a host of musicians from the Portland scene to help her craft a wide range of musical accompaniment, from the crunchy guitars of rocking opener “We Made a Home”, to abstracted drones (dual-wielded screwdriver on guitar) on the haunting psychological study “As Is”, intensely spare acoustic guitar on the funny-until-you-sit-with-it “Montreal”, and lush analog synths powering the stunningly complex closer “Spare Me”. The arrangements grew and changed, sometimes drastically, as she worked with all her collaborators to find the feel for each song. The result is wide-ranging sonically, but the whole album travels an emotional arc that feels like a slow-dawning awareness of, if not joy, then at least relief.

credits

released January 19, 2024

All songs written & composed by Malachi Graham
Produced by Philip Graham and Malachi Graham

Mixing: John Askew at Bocce
Mastering: Amy Dragon at Telegraph Mastering
Recording:
Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 Philip Graham at Ear Trumpet Labs.
Track 1 Matthew Zeltzer at Bocce.
Track 7, 9 Malachi Graham.
Drum Recording track 9: Dustin Hamman

Cover Photo: Kale Chesney
Vinyl Layout & Design: Malachi Graham

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Malachi Graham Portland, Oregon

Portland indie songwriter Malachi Graham twines her incisive lyrics and inventive sounds around the complexity of personal relationships. With a long history in the synth-pop duo Small Million, her newest solo songs explore codependency, unraveling loves, chronic pain, grudges, flings, and the boundaries of the self. For fans of Aimee Mann, Neko Case, Mitski, Jolie Holland. ... more

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