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lyrics

This world is crowded with spirits.
Some are attached to places and objects, while others belong to individuals or even whole family lineages.
If you stand very still and squint into the middle-distance, you can sometimes make them out, wandering around our city. They're easiest to spot about an hour before dusk, when the light is at its syrupiest, or else just on noon, when the sun hits its zenith and the heat haze rises from the bitumen.
They come in all shapes... They're usually silent, and mostly transparent. There's a wombat the length of a bus who lumbers down Adelaide Street once a week or so. There are twin kangaroo brothers, each taller than a four-storey building, who can clear Breakfast Creek in a single leap.
The river (who is also a spirit herself) is particularly crowded, not only with naiads and the ghosts of drowned ferry passengers, but with an ancient cruise liner-sized bull shark who journeys daily from Colleges Crossing to the coast, chasing after recreational fishing boats.
Most of these have been here a very long time. But there are newer spirits also, who travelled here in the dark bowels of convict transport ships or squashed into the suitcases of ten pound poms (there's even a tiny yellow-brown dragon – originally from Beijing – who settled here in the year 1426 when a Chinese trading vessel was shipwrecked near present-day Redcliffe).
I sometimes wonder whether these newcomers get along with those whose lands they've invaded. Do the fox and the quoll fight with one another? Or does the spirit world have enough room for both?
There's one bird who visits me regularly in vivid dreams, but also sometimes while I'm half-awake. This being takes the form of a large owl, at least a metre tall, who somehow remains stationary in mid-air despite his huge silent wings beating far too slowly to keep him airborne. He's all that remains of a giant owl species that once inhabited northern Europe, but went extinct in the Middle Ages.
In one dream, my mum points at the owl outside our window and tells me that the bird is an ancient Celtic spirit-guardian who followed her father's family over from Scotland almost two centuries ago. But outside of dreams, my mother has always denied any knowledge of the bird.
I don't know what to make of this.

credits

from Subtropical Metropolis?, released May 15, 2021
Written and performed by Rivermouth
Recorded and mixed by Luke at Hunting Ground Studios
Mastered by Matthew Gray Mastering
Artwork by Anna Carlson

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Rivermouth Brisbane, Australia

Hi, we're Rivermouth
Our vocalist is a cross between a typewriter and a megaphone. Our keyboardist is a classically trained virtuoso mad scientist. Our bassist plays in the Richter scale. Our drummer's great-grandfather was a metronome.

Our music is a blend of spoken word, hip hop, jazz, reggae and excellent chai. Lyrics are critical. We want to tickle cerebra and tug heartstrings simultaneously.
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