I Held the Shape While I Could

by Bodywash

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Jason Wilder Love the album. Broke out your t-shirt for the first time at a Bruce Hornsby concert tonight. Thought you would like to know. Favorite track: Picture Of.

spective This is in my wheelhouse of instant guilty pleasure layered, shoegaze-y synth pop. Come for the glassy chorused guitars stay for the perfect crescendo moments of “Kind of Light” Favorite track: Sterilizer.

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	Massif Central 00:00 / 03:06

Book/Magazine
Take Form is a 30-page booklet that expands the world of the album. Designed by Yoon Rachel Nam (Desert Bloom, Cedric Noel), Take Form features the complete album lyrics alongside poems, a short story, and guitar tabs by Long Decter and Steward, as well as new art by Kristina Pedersen. Includes download code for I Held the Shape While I Could, sent separately.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of I Held the Shape While I Could via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

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

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Limited Edition 12" Black Vinyl + Digital
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of I Held the Shape While I Could via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

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Limited Edition 12" Clear Vinyl + Digital
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of I Held the Shape While I Could via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

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1.	In As Far 03:31	lyrics	buy track
and after you’re in as far holding it seems better holding your way to falling out after you’re in as far finally move the space down how do you pull how do you pull
2.	Picture Of 04:36	lyrics	buy track
you were hard to believe asking everything close you were hard to prove something to see and not know you leave slow days get tight i watch the bloom it all grows sideways and covers up the room i decide to lie and wait picture of desire in a frame and what night do you see when you’re looking in and what to do but sit beside til the morning what night becomes something to picture from above i don’t believe it was just a mistake i don’t believe you had nowhere to fall i don’t believe it was just a mistake you were always writing in the corners and i kept it all i kept it all and what night do you see when you’re looking in what to do but sit bright til the morning what night becomes something to picture from above something to picture from above
3.	Massif Central 03:06	lyrics	buy track
falter at your feet flaking the skin that fled underneath my nails in agony did i slip between the hands that feed me? pacing down the days like you’re the one that fell apart i’ll make my guts a heart and it all goes to show that nothing stays the same it’s all immaterial when you’re a passenger just another cross to bear i’ll live and die in rank and file a life turned out of season with one curdled smile (maybe i’ll leave the house today feel the rain that wets the clay) pacing down the days like you’re the one that fell apart i’ll make my guts a heart and it all goes to show that nothing stays the same it’s all immaterial when you’re a passenger just another cross to bear
4.	Bas Relief 03:53	info	buy track
5.	Perfect Blue 04:51	lyrics	buy track
etching a lifeline on the back of your hand trace it slowly into me let is suspend my disbelief could i run away slowly fall back on my feet circling fifths through history succumb to my duality perfect blue a colour the shade of renewal stretching out sideways in the dark of my room withholding joy emerging soon to feel half is to not feel whole if i could remember those words that i’d said two banks of lies in shallow beds i am ready to remember again perfect blue a colour the shade of renewal perfect blue i’ll be anything you want me to be
6.	Kind of Light 03:47	lyrics	buy track
pull back start to make out of your arms another bed to keep pull back all the ways you count her gone spend a year trying to hold yourself to a certain kind of light oh darling you didn’t have to meet me we breathe and lose it at the same time oh darling i’ll make a mirror out of the things you left behind i’ll make a mirror out of a certain kind of light a certain kind of light a certain kind of light oh darling you didn’t have to come and meet me we breathe and lose it at the same time i wanted to see how far the colour goes i wanted the light to grow i’ll make a mirror out i'll make a mirror out
7.	One Day Clear 04:16	lyrics	buy track
one of these days you get to go again tie your hair in knots again place your fingers on the rail try not to lose the steps smile if you see someone on the way down the weather’s dead the work’s cheap the neighbourhood thrives on pylons and apologies sorry about your friend and the sweat you can’t wash off one of these days it might all all seem like paint chipped off your nails like an envelope or a bad night you were saving for later like something you meant to say to someone better you were waiting til the sink was empty which seemed like the right strategy at the time and now seems like a good excuse for watching water pour down the drain he’s unmoored and overread consumed by archives worried about a girl who won’t call back one of these days you dive the lake when no one’s looking buy a friend a drink toss the can the mess was bigger than anticipated compulsion and bad manners handed down you can’t lose the years or stop them dripping but you look good lately happy enough to disagree and go again eventually and leave only the best behind leave only the world and leave only the best behind and leave only the
8.	Sterilizer 03:20	lyrics	buy track
step outside, sterilized till your bones come forward look alive and shift the blame till it tears you open don’t you feel it fading with the sunset don’t you know that i can see the way it is don’t you feel it fading with the sunset don’t you know that i can see the way back in cut your ties and atrophy on my knees i take my reprieve we talk inside of swallowed pride still i warm your sleep tonight don’t you feel it fading with the sunset don’t you know that i can see the way it is don’t you feel it fading with the sunset don’t you know that i can see the way back in
9.	Dessents 01:49	lyrics	buy track
(i descend, i descend) you don’t see anything beyond you don’t see anything beyond you don’t see anything beyond you don’t see anything beyond anything beyond anything beyond
10.	Ascents 03:02	lyrics	buy track
drive at five in the morning call me to say you don’t have a place to love drag me down from the edge of a breath i’m at a wreck it’s only sound it’s only a fever burning out call me to say it’s only for now and i have always been descending and you were always in the leap and i have always been as fast as i can after i land and you were always beneath drive i’ll spend the night holding my head and counting the red lights going by break you’re in another kind of ache hand on a back all i can do is stay and i have always been descending and you were always in the leap and i have always been losing my mind for somebody’s line and you will always remind me you will always remind me of driving
11.	Patina 04:17	lyrics	buy track
i wish i could give anything to you to elevate my fall from grace sweet-bitter sleet can cover me but i won’t mind till it’s over wishing you all the best with your statement of intent as i wait my turn in line for the scalpel to my spine and i don't really need to know what you're holding out for a flower for the care we lost a gordian forget-me-knot i wish i could give anything to you to elevate my fall from grace sweet bitter sleet can cover me but i won’t mind till it’s over cover my patina
12.	No Repair 04:27	lyrics	buy track
the fact of harm slips between cool on a day you ask for the way back in to something given god the trees pass easy take the job take the city and i’ll keep my hands free laugh in between and if this is as far as it goes i will draw you when i can if this is as far as it goes i’ll try to smile to see you in familiar places i held the shape while i could while the centre was out of it try to remain something good you took the fight out of it possible ends they bloom and descend into the bend and sometimes when i’m quiet and alone i need no repair if this is as far as it goes write it in handfuls of air you were there

about

There are many places like home. On I Held the Shape While I Could, the sophomore record from Montreal duo Bodywash, home is a mutable thing; a location that is fixed until it isn’t. Over the album’s twelve tracks, Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter reflect on their separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the fallout.

Steward and Long Decter met in college in 2014, but didn’t immediately share a musical language. Chris grew up in London listening to British dream pop and classic shoegaze; Rosie was raised in Toronto on folk and Canadiana. Fitting, then, that they first bonded over Alvvays, a dream pop band with a Canadian folk pedigree. Working toward their own blend of airy vocals, intricate guitar work and atmospheric synths, they released their debut EP as Bodywash in 2016 and their first full-length, Comforter, in 2019.

As they prepared to release Comforter, Long Decter and Steward both experienced alienating shifts in their personal lives, leading to a mutual sense of dislocation. They began writing new material that was darker, more experimental, and at the same time more invigorating than the soothing dream pop on Comforter. In 2021 they took these songs into the studio, sharing them with longtime drummer Ryan White and recording and mixing engineer Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes). The result is a record that lives in the sonics of decay and renewal: breaks that burst forth from a squall of fuzz guitars, drones that glitch and stutter like ice willing itself to thaw.

On “Massif Central,” stark guitars and relentless drums accompany Steward’s whispered vocals as he recounts an experience of bureaucratic purgatory: a typo in a government letter that caused him to lose his legal work status in Canada. Ear-splitter “Perfect Blue” is a psychedelic meditation on Steward’s Japanese and British cultural identity. Satoshi Kon’s 1997 psychological thriller becomes a prism through which Steward projects and refracts his mixed lineage into a murky duality. A pulsating synth motif arches and folds inwards on itself as Steward sings: “to be half is to not be whole.”

Out of this cacophony emerges the propulsive “Kind of Light,” which finds Long Decter contemplating the loss of trust in a partner and working towards a new state of being. Underwater organs and a syncopated kick erupt into an electric catharsis, suggesting that loss can also be a source of energy. Isolation, too, can lead to the formation of communities —out of necessity, or care, or a vision for a different kind of future. While Long Decter and Steward were spinning out, they learned to find support in unexpected places and especially came to rely on each other, deepening their emotional and... more

credits

released April 14, 2023

Recorded at Breakglass Studios
Engineered and mixed by Jace Lasek
Mastered by Harris Newman

Tracks 1, 2, 6, 12 produced by Chris Steward & Rosie Long Decter
Tracks 3, 5, 8, 10, 11 produced by Chris Steward
Tracks 7, 9 produced by Rosie Long Decter
Track 4 produced by Chris Steward, Rosie Long Decter and Jace Lasek

Percussion on tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12 by Ryan White
Shaker on track 1 by Jace Lasek
Spoken word on track 3 by Alicia Streijffert
Lap steel on track 12 by Micah Flavin

Album art and design by Kristina Pedersen

All songs written and performed by URLD & CMAS

Merci beaucoup to Shaun Bronstein, Estelle Priest, Kathryn Huynh, Joseph Martin, Alison Perdue, Derek Janzen, Yoon Rachel Nam, Mike Heinermann, Evan Dubinsky, David Greenbaum, Noah Bick, Ann Decter, Gene Long, Mars Zaslavsky, Sophie Ogilvie-Hanson, Taryn Fleischmann, Callum Crombie, Valerie Long, Sarah MacDonell, Tim Biziaev, Andy Mulcair, Emma May Austin, Niyousha Bastani, Allegra Moyle, Jon Deneuville, Markus Stahl, Alex Sheaf, Doug Steward, Asako Hatakeyama, Steph Michalopoulos (and Santa), Brandon Kaufman, Dan Steward, Alissa Steward, Ellie Nouel, Lukas Chung, Steve Eldon-Kerr & Nigel Ward

This project has been made possible in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada, and Canada's private radio broadcasters. Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce à FACTOR, le gouvernement du Canada, et les radiodiffuseurs privés du Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

- bw <3

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about

Bodywash Montreal, Québec

Label:
joseph@lightorganrecords.com

Booking:
matthew@versestouring.com

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