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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    The box set includes a numbered print of the limited edition, sound art cassette, a re-release of the original chapbook “The Front Lines of the War,” as well as hand-made materials and inserts. The coda is included as an insert, hand-printed on natural fiber paper made by an indigenous women’s collective in Chiapas, Mexico, and a unique distressing process for the cassette boxes, which parallels the element of randomness and glitching that is central to the production ethos of the album.

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Front Lines of the War via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • 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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  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

A coda to "The Front Lines of the War,"
from the poem cycle "Heat Maps."

lyrics

and then the generals unleashed their armored toys
and their child soldiers
to cross the border to your home
they tied the snouts of the animals
so they could not howl
they cut the electric wires
so you could not flash
your messages to me
I connected my memories to a car battery
but they trip and stutter
over the bodies face down in the rice fields
it was inevitable as extinction
the contract signed and sealed by the presidents
ratified with the blood
leaking from your mouth
that you could not swallow
without my lips to kiss you

they threw your father in a well
he was already mute
and could only tell you with his eyes
that our child was dead
we gave shelter to the children
who grew up to hold rifles
as they marched to your village
in truck tire sandals
it was too late for me to say
I love you
those words only cause more pain
in a time of violence
the soldiers dipped your womb in salt
and ate it raw
I was bound with a rope made from your hair
I was held across the border from you
I was burned by fever
even before they lit your house on fire
you spent all your money
on cold drinks for your father
sugar and ice
a token gesture of cooling
against white phosphorous burns

the car battery ran low
I lost the signal
I didn’t know who was dying
me or you
or both
and everyone in between
our world became a coral garden
bleached the color of bone

I was ready to cross back over the border
nothing remained for the soldiers to take from me
but a message came
that you had gone down the well
to touch your father’s lips
I went anyway
but I was caught by the toys we gave them
brass marionettes guided by satellites
and a jack-in-the-box
with a weeping leer
even the oxen howled through their halters
immigration police
locked me in a guardhouse
I heard your voice through the walls
but the border between us was closed
closed by the earth you dug up with your fingers
which you ate when you didn’t believe I’d return
lime and chalk streaked your brown skin
you gave your voice to your father
when you kissed his lips
then you could only look for me
at the bottom of a well

the soldiers made me join them
as they razed your home
I didn’t try to escape
I had nowhere left to go
even my memory
was parted out to snipers and artillery officers
I searched for a well
where I could lie down in peace
but earthen walls could not soothe me
or heal me
your lips stopped trying to find me
in the dark
the sky is streaked with fire
high above
just like the earth below
you said you’d wait for me forever
but no one gets that long.

credits

from The Front Lines of the War, released August 10, 2021

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all rights reserved

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Will Klingenmeier image

Will Klingenmeier Denver, Colorado

An omnivore of sound, lover of monophonic plainchants, noise, and the dérive, Will Klingenmeier has spent the last fifteen years living as a borderline hermit developing a distinct sonic palate. He is a sound artist placing emphasis on indeterminacy, code, field recordings and synthesis. ... more

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