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perfect forever

by sean thornton

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jax0601
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jax0601 Sean and I have fought in multiple wars together but none were as brutal as the mixing and mastering process of this album. Nonetheless, it is the greatest piece of art I have that exists I'm pretty sure. Sean, forever! Favorite track: four angels.
darrel-f
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darrel-f This is absolutely one of my favourite new albums, and I’m a pretty old guy who’s listened to a crapload of albums, old and new. It’s soooo emotional, musically and lyrically. Albums I can really feel have always been the ones that get me and that I listen to over and over again. Sean Thornton is a true artist.
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1.
edith says 05:42
'when I was your girl, I was beautiful and dependent, and heaven existed in your red hands . god swimming through your palms, painted blue by your bruises— sodalite on tiger's... eye (I) grew tired of the world! I was (am) pale and I was (am) starving, i taught my Self how to hate Its body, and I need a light that'll burn on forever , something that I might feed myself to, because if I can never reclaim the life that I lost, well, then, what is there left to do? I could have been your daughter, could've been your girlfriend too. you could've been my June sky forever, the stars the only things more powerful than you! fading now, asterisk stick-n-poke tattoo , (and I'm sorry that I yelled, I know that I had no excuse) in the heat of the summer, and the smoke in my room, singing "let's stay together" , driving to the hospice with you... I need a light that could burn on forever, something that I might feed myself to. because if I can never reclaim the life that I lost, well, then, baby, what do I have left to do? let me be your reflection ! I’ll be your everything to lose! smoke thru a vacuum tube, thru a vacuum tube! let me be your reflection! I’ll be your everything to lose! smoke thru a vacuum tube. thru a vacuum tube, smoke'. (...painted you from memory, threw it on my body to live on forever and ever and ever, cocoa butter on my skin, --- ------ ----- --- ---, nobody told me that this isn't love, this is obsession...) let me be your reflection! I’ll be your everything to lose! smoke...' I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and all that I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. all was vanity!
2.
ruby giants 07:08
picture me somewhere where I don't have to make up my scars for you , and we could lie down in all our liberty picture me somewhere where I, I could still drive to you, and let our skin rot out in the artificial heat... but last night I watched you turn into her, and now I don't know who I’m talking to, so what's another 12 or 15 (or 9) songs to "you" ? (o! compress me and tonicize me, and call me your baby as you fuck me, o! compress me and tonicize me, and call me, and call me your baby) so, darlin', build me a window over breakfast , and darlin', write me a poem I could sing! I used to be the paradigm, now I’m standing on a stepstool peeking through a garden-level window I haven't opened my ultrathin reference bible in a long time, oh, not since my skin's grown pale and hairless, pink and orange sunset kept me warm and kept me golden , last time I saw it, it dug into my own skin, and I got the scars to prove it, lord, amen. "I hope that my voice never comes back and these scars last forever" suck the weight out of me, and make me your diamond , tell me I'd be more healthy, it goes on forever and ever and ever, and suck the worry out of me, and make me your dream girl, feed me dependency! it goes on forever and ever and ever, but what could it mean to me if we were separated? who would feed me the agency to go on forever and ever and ever? forever and ever and ever... picture me somewhere where I don't have to make up my scars for you, my love's defined by my own stability! picture me somewhere where I, I could still drive to you. my love's defined by my boundless agency! @bluegoldforever , now ruby giants tower over, tell me we made it through november, and I've got those scars too, lord, "amen"
3.
four angels 07:59
please tell me that I look like my lips are soft, and tell me that I look like I’m trying very hard because it's true— I want to look pretty for you! I’m threading sutures through our hearts I hope, or I’m tearing sutures from our hearts, I hope, because what could mean to live in a warmth that leaves me so alone? if you know, I’ll score down my throat, take what's inside, with fistfuls of clay, i will reshape every line, I’ll grow out my hair, matted and fine, from nothing to nothing , that last night of my life, when I tried to drive through the flood, I felt my size , my limbs untethered, and the day after we met, my melodrama penned: "i want to die, die, die by your side", now (twenty-) six months since that flood, I’ve lost to detachment, i can guarantee this is not what I meant. can you convince me that heaven is not a formant shift? could you convince me that heaven is not in anybody else's arms? if I find love will it be because i had made it? if I find love will it be because it wasn't hard to steal? score down my throat, take what's inside, throw away all the parts you don't like, from distillate smoke to finasteride , from nothing to nothing, from ashes to light, so I opened the windows, and I opened my hands, I felt the pressure from the seatbelt, the bubbles through my skin, and the windshield, it shattered, the weight I carried rushed in, so I closed my eyes, resurfaced, and looked down at them, them, them, them four angels holding out a trampoline atop the hudson, dark and icy, glorious and unnerving, atop the palisades, I can see the broadest shoulders, my yellow teeth, I fall in love with everyone i see, I can hear her voice from five hundred feet, lord, come apart inside of me, my body twists, my stomach howling, my palms upturned, now all is wavering, and I’m spitting out light, spilling on your cheek, everything came to life, and now i am nothing through suicide or fantasy, what could it mean to leave your body? ask me again what it means to me , she tells me one more time "come apart inside me" and I hear that voice, and I am released, my body catches flame, my dead love exhausts me, the angels swim away, and the river reaches out its hands! o! reach out both of your hands and try to catch me! "come apart inside of me, and tell me i'd be more happy"
4.
"last year you were still 18 and i still thought I could be a boy" when i saw you, you were as big as a smokestack, ("I have not been doing anything...") and i felt small, as if i were a man, ("worthy!") like my dad watching mass on tv, oh lord, exorcise me , pennsylvania dream! the splits in my love line, and the faintness of my fate, i'll no longer hold out my palms and wait for you to redeify me, still, when it all settles in, in a year or two or three, i will want you to be proud to've held me! I want a love big enough to contain me (steady!), I want something so big, it could hold me steady! I want a love big enough to contain me (steady!), I want something so big, it could hold me, I want something to own me, and I want something to hold me and tell me it's all transitory! I want that great wide everything to throw me down on its bed and fuck me! choke me hard! choke me entirely, and feed me a warmth to live inside for the next four (or twenty-six) awful months of my life. (compress me and tonicize me, and call me your baby as you fuck me) ("I have not been doing anything... worthy of that... I have been doing lesser things, i haven't been memorizing scripture...) last summer, the earth was warm and balmy, and everybody smoked cigars, I dug my feet into the mud, before I slipped from your skin, o,warm and dead and dry , ferris wheel sunset now february sunrise , and I saw you again, last night and the night before, but I’ll admit your face has changed, I’m not sure what you look like anymore, still, I’ll dream and I’ll dream, until there's nothing left of your face, oh, it's just blue light, a power, and nothing. august forever (can't you see who you're hurting?) I want a love that could kill me, I want a love where i can't see to the other side, could I be perfect forever if you fucked me hard and choked me always? could I look thru your eyes as you look down at me? could then I be small the way you know I’ve longed to be? I’ll stop scratching at the screen door... (night falls in my room, maybe it was more than love but it fell just like all the others do) (so I sit and) pick at my skin like it's styrofoam, march-april dyed the grass yellow, but it's been months since I’ve seen any snow! don't expect things to change when they won't don't expect things to change when you won't wait for anything or displace any of that agency, yeah, oh, baby...
5.
pull on my hair until it falls out. I’ll never be anybody's angel , as much as i may pine, and I pine a lot, (it's me, cathy!) so tired of living like this giant, with ruby-red hands, and a bloodclot necklace to match, so when I ask you to destroy me, just know I don't expect you to hold back. when I ask you to destroy me, just know I don't expect you to hold back anymore. I wanna sing country music in the passenger seat, and you will try to sing along but eventually resolve to, like, I don't know, maybe defenestrate me? I wanna sit on your lap around the backyard fire as all your friends make so much fun of me. push me off of your lap onto the ground, yeah I want matching scabs on my elbows because I love my symmetry, baby, I wanna shave off enough bone that I might hide behind you, I want to feed off the power that you left in me, I will shave off enough bone, and I will hide behind you, and I will feed off the power that you left in me. now that I am your landfill, I will file my fingernails with your baby teeth, now that I am your landfill, I will feed of the power that you left in me! so when I ask you to destroy me, just know I don't expect you to hold back, when I ask you to destroy me, just know I don't expect you to hold back yeah, so when I ask you to destroy me, just know I don't expect you to hold back when I ask you to destroy me, no, I don't expect you to hold back, when I ask you to destroy me, no I don't, no I don't, no I don't... ("...you don't love me, you don't care about me, and the faucet was dripping, and the tears were flowing...") silence rises over the hill, and lifts its empty hands up to the sky. silence pulled back down I-95, magnetism, baby, stars or fireflies? magnetism, baby, look me in the eyes one last time, and tell me how you don't love me. look at me, how small I’ve become, look at all of the bone i wish I could shave off for you, I am pale and wiry on the floor of your room, make me shut up! I will make it worth your time, make me shut up, stars or fireflies. it's been a long, warm winter, and they just called off the spring, but what could it mean to live in a warmth where nothing comes to life? I’ll stay cold in the air conditioning. forever and ever, oh it never ends, a loveless return, it's only grayscale again.
6.
my red hands 07:14
FATE ...but I can't experience the heat of the sun through foggy mirrors, gods, or abstractions, deliver yourself or die trying baby, your body is a mirror, baby, did you know that? do you want that? ...and I don't hate them for what they've done, I only hated their awful abstractions, deliver yourself or die trying, baby, your body is a mirror baby... I’ll cover myself in reflective tape! I’m only powerful when you're looking at me, I’m only pretty when you're looking at me, I’m only real when you're looking at me, I’ll cover myself in reflective tape, but I won't beg for you to shine your light on me, I’m not begging, I’m not scratching, I’m not entitled to my identity, I’ll cover myself in reflective tape, unless asked I will say nothing nothing nothing , hibernality, and a white hot razor in my leg. (everything to lose, I’ll be your everything to lose , come down from heaven, and let me, become your, muse) four angels pull me out of a deep-blue sea , and throw me on a hill, wintry and sun-bleached, one looks at me before turning away, (and) tell(s) me all my love is illusory! I am nothing in the light of the holy fire , my final dream last night, the last time i'll see you... your body gets bigger until it implodes, and there is only a blue light, a hum, and nothing , a mess of soft skin packed into shrunken clothes, and i am naked in the light of your wholeness. I am too afraid to speak as you slowly motion toward me. it is first my hands that dissolve into cells, tiny magnets that embrace your confounding shape. suddenly and silently I am pulled into you with all the force in the world. i close my eyes and become. i only ever wanted to love you as a mirror . I saw nothing in myself as alien or as gossamer as the light behind your eyes. my fumbling hands could never hold anything so delicate. i should have cut them off for you. ...and i can still feel your power as it grabs me by my shirtfront and pulls me zigzag between worlds. it is pure and holy and I want it to absolutely destroy me. I want to see a light so bright it burns out my eyes. I want to see a hand so powerful it snaps my wrist . there is a power so big that I cannot obfuscate it with my words. there is a power so big that it can withstand my blasphemous abstraction. there is a power so big it can make me shut up
7.
holy fire face reveal , watch me --- ------, watch me cut my hair, look how wide you are to the world! welts around your chest and on your red hands . last night I saw you again, one more time, reused old cels , I know you were thinking of me. you made a promise, you said: "I will raise a ball of blankets over your bed, I will raise a ball of blankets over your bed". holy fire face reveal, I could kill myself, tape my mouth shut, your skin transformed in the blue light, it took me down and it shut me up, take those words out of my mouth! and chip away at my gold paint . I can be small for you, I can be perfect for you, I can be your baby now, if you raised a ball of blankets over my bed only raise a ball of blankets over my bed if you don't kill me, then take my will instead, my love it is indelible, my love is adequate [see "ruby giants"] holy fire face reveal, I’ll keep it to myself, I’ll keep it to myself, but whose palms did you print me on? the flowers are dead, the flowers are dead, august forever  
8.
hallelujah hollow me out hallelujah hollow me out —and I will relate with no intention to conquer or equate, yeah. —ground my mind to slate so you can press your palms flat on me. hallelujah hollow me out hallelujah hollow me out you are faceless, you are nameless, your true power is alien! I am faceless, I am nameless, my true power is alien! ("I climbed out of the wailing ocean's mouth, and its teeth fell out when it saw the sun's hot ground") now I see you as big as a smokestack. "sew up my throat, leave nothing inside, lobotomize me, and make me your bride" , ...but I asked that you leave just one grain of hope floating around in me so that I could be complacent and stupid and "free", but I was dumb and silly, my findings incomplete, because I failed to recognize that... sunny-golden hope and antagonizing pride arise together and once again I’m alive! hallelujah hollow me out hsiang-sheng teach me to sing! hallelujah hollow me out hsiang-sheng teach me to sing!
9.
at least when I was underwater , I could feel the ice in my veins, what, with the salt scraping against the ceiling of my lungs and arteries my skin was smooth and untouchable, and I thought for sure I was dying. o! I thought I was an angel o! I wanted to be an angel o! I want to be an angel but up above the riverbed (on the new jersey side) , frosty rocks stick to my back, wind squalls made my once-soft skin dry , coercing my tongue towards my open wrists to make them wet again, but as salty as my spit may be, it doesn't cut like the real thing, such an awful thing to accept that you are not dying, such an awful thing to not be dying, so for a whole year, I staved off the fire I knew was coming with an adt security alarm (sign in the front yard) and my, my, my... four angels stand in the foyer in case the fire burst through the door fantasy kept her watching 'til she sunk down thru the floor and love was watching carefully when she fell asleep on the job and flew up thru the ceiling , dreaming of her old close touch, now, ignorance and vanity were scoring their initials into the walls when the fire started creeping, walking on all fours down the sidewalk and their blade started melting and the walls grew warm and heavy and there was silence in the flame but even silence cannot contain what lies beyond the tenuous grasp of my atrophied muscles, my red and black fingers , the infinite goodness they move within, I know that healing is change, and change is frightening—new synaptic connections in my brain that I know can change my stubborn identity, to which I fearfully and desperately cling, but my head is filled with ambivalent visions of softness and violence quarantined, the rotting and growing, the rotting and growing, these sacred dynamics within me, because my infinite body mirrors the world around me, mesh skin stretched over scaffolding. I am a God! the Tao is within me! no greater beauty than autonomy! and the other night, I was briefly visited by apparitions of a love determined, seeing sprawling patterns on my bedsheets, I realized my love is (actually) defined by my caring for myself! I will stop starving! I am deeply worried for the world inside of me now that I know what escapism means—to step outside, look objectively, and realize that you are suffering. eye-to-eye and cheek-to-cheek with the girl who lives inside of me. envision a love spanning all possibilities—return to your body and set to achieve! when i hold my breast I am beauty! I am swag! I am loved! I am loved! I am loved! , and if I am honest, enormously honest, I don't know how to love if not for profit and i must concede—oh, what a concession—that I was never your girl , I’m just a centipede baby, oh, saint chaz could never shove a soul so powerless in such a giant body tear us down, our devotion, paint our nails with good as gold 941 , smothered by my callousness, did u see me lift the razor to my bare wrist? conquer me, and carry me, and call me yours. love us all, love more than me and love this world too small to see, but I won't ask you to step on me anymore. ("three-person'd God") love us all, love more than me and love this world too small to see, and I trust that you won't ask me of anything anymore. ("three-person'd God") love us all, love more than me, open palms inside of me, look me in the eyes as I speak, as I speak. ("three-person'd God") "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" ...but my haunted body is not nourished just because my stomach has stopped grasping , fulfill me, and fill me with agate to stop crying, yeah, blue lace so I can start screaming again, I have underestimated myself. I am the center on the surface of a sphere. did you hear? each thing looks to me for its definition and I tether them to all their rightful roles, for now I know... that everything inside of me exists outside my window , indifferent but gentle , my body goes on for miles and miles made of pure blue light , food slime , and cigarette butts! from nothing to nothing, from dust to dust ! envisioning golden hands reaching down my throat, envisioning golden hands tearing out the mechanics inside, tightened cords, a smaller chin, inoffensiveness, and a vision so small it could only belong to me, "...when the earth..." lift up your chalice , and I promise I’ll never reach out to you again the body and the blood I lost when the ground met my fist lift up your chalice, and I promise I'll never ever suggest it again, lift up your chalices. lift up your chalice, and I’ll never ever suggest it again, the body and the blood I lost when the knife met my wrist lift up your chalice, and I promise I'll never reach out for you again, lift up your chalices. "I can still feel His touch" I used to feel the world's touch via surrogate, a big shiny god, and the onus fell on romance when I realized His façade, but romance was more ephemeral than I thought and so... I tried to mimic Her touch by carving gray and white scars up and down my arms I was only hurting a reflection of the world that I love. I tried to mimic Her touch by giving my pain a face to which I could look up, these abstractions of a power that could make me shut up. thank you.

about

holy, holy, holy...

CW / TW: s*****e, s**f h**m, spoilers:

i began this album originally as a break-up album in very very early 2020, writing in practice rooms and in the stairwell of my dorm in new york, and then it was a "quarantine project" while i was living in my parents' house in pennsylvania because that is what you did in april 2020, and at some point after that it became a quest to find god or something. from februrary 2021—february 2022 it was something that i had given up on completely and forever as there were far bigger fish to fry (keeping myself alive).

mostly, this is an album which is about salvation through pain, reckoning with that which i had called "god", and attempting to actually come to terms with that which is ultimately and forever out of my reach: the tao or brahman or whatever, first through abstraction, then through actual submission, in turn coming to the horrific realization that i am not nor was i ever dying (i literally just went through an extremely routine break-up), and that i should probably stop trying to kill myself.

briefly:

songs 1-3 demonstrate the death of a "god" (substitutive satisfaction) in romance (the break-up album bit), and then understanding the pain of the break-up as a demonstration that there is actual force in the universe.

songs 4-6 demonstrate attempts to understand this power in human terms, attempting to submit to it first through sexuality and violence but eventually my means of submission comes closer and closer to annihilation, in song six i think the idea that i cannot capture it this way—the face of the love-object which had been mixed up with the actual power finally dissolves completely.

songs 7-9 show me dissolve, as i try to explain that i cannot explain what i am trying to relate, and eventually, in the finale, turn back to myself, as i try to reckon with the fact that i had never known (nor will i ever know) the actual face of god; that a break-up should not be the death of a god, and that trying to reflect that power in self-harm was not a great idea.

although i cannot say that i enjoyed making it at all, this album has meant a near-infinite deal to me over the past 2+ years, and had seen me through four different homes, and the also near-infinite number of pretty major and often traumatic experiences which arose alongside these primarily awful 26 months of my life :)

i hereby resolve to stop wallowing.

credits

released April 15, 2022

written december 2019 - february 2021 and recorded between march 2020 and februrary 2022 in my bedrooms in ridley township, pa, manhattan, and brooklyn, ny.

some synth + drum samples carried over from the recording of the half-aborted "ultrathin reference bible", which was recorded october - december, 2019, and even more were carried over from the recording of "blue-gold ephemeral", september, 2018 - april 2019.

everything by me except for:

jackson resnick played half of the guitar solo on "my red hands" (april, 2021; any parts that sound like they were played with a pick are probably him), and helped me endlessly in february 2022 with final mixing and "mastering" when i decided that not releasing this album was keeping me from individuation

alex peters helped me pirate some plugins and hung out with me while i recorded some of the drum samples that i eventually used for "four angels", (february - april, 2020)

but...

thank you to all the people who surrounded me as i was experiencing the making of this album: sam, rory, george, soph, jackson, trey, alex, my parents, and all (most of) the unnameable rest...

titanic love to everybody :)

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sean thornton Queens, New York

22 they/them nyc

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