6 Aug 2021> stream #21 off Tributaries = "Manú" > the Manú river = a tributary of the Madre de Dios river in Amazonian Peru, thereabouts where Herzog shot Fitzcarraldo, about the rubber baron who had his steamship lugged over the land bridge between the Madre de Dios river + the Urubamba to establish new trade routes > the song is generally about this idea of the "conquest of the useless" (the title of Herzog's published journals he made during the making of Fitzcarraldo, but more-so about the vanity of art itself + how Herzog's testosterone-fueled divide + conquer approach to film making hippocritically mimics the subjects he's portraying in the exploitation of native resources + humun labor in the foreign countries he films + also about manly artist ± anthropologist types like Claude Lévi-Strauss who seek out exotic isolated peoples + by virtue of "discovering" them corrupt them... all under the pretense of science or art > much as Herzog + Lévi-Strauss mean well this pompous pretense ain't no diffrent than other colonial or capitalistic motives... at least those are the lines we was thinking along, not sure if the lyrics reflect that > + maybe us writing a song about it is just as exploitive + pretentious but at least we din't halve to travel down to South Amerika to do it (as w/ our previous album, Tributaries was recorded @ home in self-isolation)—

Manú

el mismo me incanto rolls right off the tongue
enchanted by prospects of starting over again
every 1 they meet, a 2nd chance
to quit the sad mound of France
mistaking women for land

the pubis ain't public
trees ain't for tires
milking the saps u say u admire
publish your diaries
when u get home
invest the royalties in gold

roll the dice again
grizzly gummi bear men

rubber's a medium like watercolors or film
anche questa canzone w/ Herzog at the helm
isthmus or taint, steel-belts or skin
measured in miles or by inch
deep as Mariana's trench

a trojan horse worms inside
a no U-turn sign u deride
in the name of art
derail the train
re-enact the rape all the same

justice will never be served
if 1 lives by the word

> when we got our autoharp last November, the 1st thing we did was write this song... hear's the chord progressions:

+ the drums were 1 of the 1st recorded using our new e-drums we bought during the pandemic so are a bit sloppy but we kind of dig em that way > + hear's the video (stealing Herzog footedge from various river-conquering movies):

> Stream #22: «Sacramento»