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Winter Sun

by Trapped Mice

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Housed in a delightful card digi-file with full artwork by Captain Ian Tilling.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Winter Sun via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
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1.
An Ending 02:06
2.
Cancel Shift 02:55
snow falls on snow grows slowly deeper, slowly harder to fall upon and i swear i could flow across thawed-out pastures and desert valleys come with me we'll decorate each day in different ways and i know you can't stay but we'll keep the cold at bay in certain ways please stay i fell from a leaning tower trying to prove my innocence prove i'm innocent of rational thought cos babe we'll never conform we were never born and we'll decorate each day in different ways and i know you can't stay but we'll keep the cold at bay in certain ways please stay and you know i'd never allow you to die i couldn't even save myself from the most decayed old burnt-out hound of hell so come and tow the line we'll find the perfect balance we'll sail out and behold the perfect pitch along the mid-atlantic ridge because the centre's ripe to mine please most the people most the time and from the grape that ate the vine the most benign insipid wine inside the rubber circuitry of a robot bride-to-be amongst the frail elastic wires the tiniest electrode fires a sailor drowning in a sea of long-forgotten memories of a love we'll never see
3.
when she walked into the room i knew somehow no one different would do i knew somewhere in those two great plains there lay, in swathes of dust and clay the same tiny grains of truth when i saw her standing there i knew there were greater reasons to care i know there's a starry ball in a distant hall and our dreams, they'll squeeze them all into some small sad illicit affair but i challenged them all to find a dream so explosive and awesome and kind the dream that devoured my heart in a dimly lit bar and all the stars are too fucking far to really exist anyway and summer spoke its name decreed there's a sweetness in all pain the rain from a thousand skies couldn't taint these eyes and we dance while winter cries at its so slow steady demise and just around the time you feel like no warmer sun could shine the moment the bomb first struck first stroke of luck that's when i knew she'd always be mine
4.
Mona Lisa 04:15
mona lisa said she'll have to run all this sitting's made her legs go numb but leo caught her in the web he'd spun and no one knows if leo made her come so much wasted on a meagre sum so much lost and so much never won a recent survey shows you're almost done but never mind, it's just the piss-stained carpet you wish you were born on there's this tree i see it bends and it breathes with its thorns and its leaves galore oh! please climb with me i'll show you what you knew before i'll drink sweet fresh juices, squeezed to soothe a tender tonic to make me sing in tune but i've seen dylan smoke in pictures too and i don't believe you this guy camus, he wrote some words in french i guess they made no sense i still feel i'm living based on circumstantial evidence come on! rearrange my mind for me
5.
Hermit Point 06:19
my son held my hand as i surrendered all the land signed away the only stage for this one man band and the gold trickled down from my slowly melting crown and it drowned out the sound as the walls fell down they came so very fast so many new faces and they named the beach at last as the planes flew past and the sand they piled so high setting the sun in the summer sky where the birds all came to die glowed so brightly in the night and god spoke to me said "listen to everything i'll be telling you shortly" and he said to me: "your home isn't everything just think of the joy you can bring to this town look around as the hands slowly swing to the future, and everything" i climbed the tallest tower growing taller by the hour gazed with wonder all around as the rain came down and i jumped into the sea fell away so suddenly and the current, it swallowed me with such comforting certainty
6.
Quiet Place 06:42
lay me down under the stars make sweet sounds while setting off car alarms and dream of the fields we used to farm when we were young before we surrendered to the reasoning of a modern king, in some commercial coup the bright city lights shine trying with tentative taps to trace our quiet place a secret smile on a silent face we found a cocoon sweet soft walls a tender light, and fucking room soon we'll remember our bodies too when we were young we felt such freedom in our hearts around all the parts where we used to run we used to run
7.
and so it goes the victims never know how it came when the blood so sweetly flows into the blessed virgin snow that shines so serene in the light the clearest crystal winter's night sky's in flames, so many still the same but i'll be coming home tonight this stench, this stain on my hands they say they'll clean this whole damn land suicidal brides and best laid plans so very hard to understand well i'm just some guy from the fields what understanding could i feel? as they hug my knees and plead and scream and squeal well the pain it can't be real the spluttering spent sparks in their eyes some kind of blessing in disguise they told me first as my mother gave birth pulled aside and whispered: "son, take heed the devil dwells in greed" and the whole fucking village could see every rescued soul but me in school they fed us evidence and rules soon even i was full and the doubt dulls down after time push to the front of every line soak in shit too long and soon you're it every homicidal bit every breath and every inch every superficial glitch every long-forgotten itch every skull they calmly split every child in the dirt of a thinly covered ditch every gramme and every grain of the body-smelling grit every wire in every fence every stone and every brick every train bound for glory in a dreamt-of bedtime story as your daddy tucks you in before the hammering begins before the sledgehammers begin
8.
Cameraman 01:10
9.
i climbed some kind of hill last night and stood there in silence and through both aching ears there blew a skyful of sirens too the most dilute, redundant boast of promise, potential the phone that rang on summit stones a beacon for the great unknown as i slurred the words that tumbled down from the top of this town arthur lost his seat and found his crown i slurred the words that tumbled down from the top of this town "settle down, settle down" a hole your own brand new hole in your hand a hole your own tender hole like fucking sartre or something
10.
the air was cold and the light was dim on the day the devil wandered in with a plastic knife and a silver skin oh the light! when the devil wandered in and he spoke his name, and he sang the blues and he ran in every working man's hand-cobbled shoes i can see over the sunrise and i can hear what you can't hear and i live a glorious half-life between the insatiable sleep and the thighs of love's long-lost quivering landslide and i know you believe i can see it in your eyes the light of life so we saw his face, and we felt his arms and we felt, in any case so very safe, so so safe from harm yeah! he showed us love, and the stronger stuff on the day the devil wandered in and our leaders complained and the elders proclaimed such danger but we felt so safe like colours in clay bathed in flames
11.
Demons 02:18
when our demons come for their winter sun when the cold bright breezes blow through the blinding snow then away we'll go and it's different now colourful somehow in a soft and shaded scent, of a summery bent i'll drive you wild my eyes were red on the day we fled and i know i seemed so low but i loved you then how i love you so

about

"Glasgow’s Armellodie label have released some fine bands over the last while, including the Scottish Enlightenment, Chris Devotion and the Expectations and Le Reno Amps. But I think this is their finest release so far... on the evidence of this whole album, the band more than hold their own against the likes of Meursault, Withered Hand and the Savings & Loan, to pick three very fine bands from the contemporary Edinburgh scene." (9/10) - God is in the TV

"Edinburgh's dynamic indie-folk scene, already boasting Eagleowl, Withered Hand and Meursault, has just got even stronger." - Alan Morrison, The Herald

"The Edinburgh five piece Trapped Mice have been around for a while now, but this debut album, Winter Sun, is as wonderfully beautiful and touchingly melancholic as you would hope an album with that title would be. And like the best albums, even before it’s over, you just know that this is an album you’re going to want to play again and again. It’s one of the strongest albums I’ve heard this year - so make sure you hear it, too." - 17 Seconds

"The new album by Edinburgh quintet Trapped Mice is absolutely rocking my world today." - Pete Paphides

"Lucie Miller’s howling violin blends perfectly with the imperfect – yet utterly perfect vocals – of Ian Tilling that make him sound like a Scottish Will Sheff. Hermit Point is a near-waltz that ought to be soundtracking a John Hillcoat film, and again it’s the deployment of the violin that lifts it to the next level. Violins are nothing new for Edinburgh bands, of course, but on Winter Sun, the instrument conveys an emotional depth on a consistent basis that few bands have managed to reach." (Album of the Week) - The Tidal Wave of Indifference

"It’s an evocative introduction, demonstrating that even without Ian Tilling’s studiedly poetic lyrics, Trapped Mice spin stories with skill. For the remainder of the band’s full length debut, Tilling’s passionate vocals are an upfront focal point, and his words prove extremely effective" - The Skinny

"Some beautiful soundscapes and textures...very musical all the way along, and it only takes a shake of an angry guitar or a little more growl to the vocal before it just swoops right up a gear and pulls you somewhere else... It's an album that has an edge as well, and that lack of polish to the sound is totally to the music's advantage because it really does capture the thrill of the way they make music together" - BBC Radio Scotland (The Tom Morton Show)

"rambunctious, literate, imaginative and heartfelt songs...the spine tingling; ‘Hermit Point’, a song about the man who refused to sell his Northern Scottish home to Donald Trump to make way for his coastal development, imagining him growing old and wondering what may have been. It’s a staggering and beautiful track, with strings like an oil-slick and evidence of just what Trapped Mice are capable of and for me, along with effortless and perfectly formed ‘Night of Broken Glass’ hints at a future that must can only bring success. A fine, fine debut." (7/10) - Americana UK

“‘Winter Sun’ is a compelling collection of intelligent and fragile pieces of perceptive song-writing which demand your attention throughout the full course of the album. The set closes with the touching, delicate sign-off of ‘Demons’ – with tender, emotive vocals over a simple acoustic backing which leave you feeling anxious and yet with a hope that if people can express such empathy though such poignant words and music then maybe we can be optimistic about the future.” - Vanguard Online

"The debut album from the Edinburgh quintet shares a fair amount musically with the likes of Glasgow contemporaries Admiral Fallow, both in terms of the sounds produced and, vaguely, style. On Winter Sun, however, Trapped Mice, manage to plumb greater emotional depths as well as harnessing vocal abilities akin to those of both Nick Cave and Miles Hunt (circa ‘Welcome To The Cheap Seats’)...there is an underlying dry wit through a great many of what essentially amount to observances of (and musings on) slices of life." - Muso's Guide

“Scotland churns out top-quality indie-folksters at such a rate that sometimes it’s difficult to keep up. Trapped Mice come from the scene already fully-fledged: this debut album is knowing, witty, and indomitable; boasting spirited numbers such as “Cancel Shift” and “Night of Broken Glass” alongside the fragile poetry of “Dance While Winter Cries”. There’s a hint of Jeff Mangum in “Hermit Point”, a modern fairy-tale told by guitar, violin and drum; while “Quiet Place” goes from touching to tragic to wistfully funereal across its seven minutes. A mournfully witty gem of a record.” - InForty

“This is not a throwaway album, it is not pop fizz that evaporates all too quickly, it is what we would call a proper record, carefully crafted to be more rewarding with every listen. It is thoughtful, it is lyrical, heartfelt, sometimes sly and occasionally fragile. It is though, always intelligent.” - Mad Mackerel

“Typically, I don’t go straight out for the classic alternative sound, even with all it’s current production value and what not. But, that being said, I’ve really fallen for this jam from Trapped Mice, a band hailing from the other part of Scotland, Edinburgh. I’m obsessed with the way band incorporates lush instrumentation, wrapped around some incredible lyrics. You’ll also find a raw passion that introduces itself near the end via the vocal performance. It’s the perfect first single from their upcoming record, Winter Sun, which is now on my watch-list. If you like organically-grown rock n’ roll, then this hit’s for you.” - Austin Town Hall

“(a) blend of old school tunes with a touch of 21st Century tomfoolery. The Edinburgh quintet has found a way to be tough and fragile simultaneously.” - Here Comes the Flood

“Winter Sun is the debut album from Edinburgh five piece alternative folk band Trapped Mice. There are some good songs here and stirring instrumentation, all with a melancholy feel, yet with occasional touches of humour that lighten things nicely or add a caustic edge. Organ, accordion and violins mix with acoustic guitars and a strong lead vocal to give a well-crafted feel to much of the music.” - Glasswerk

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released November 5, 2012

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Trapped Mice Edinburgh, UK

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