more from
Dear Life Records
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Evil Joy

by Fust

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Eco- Wallet packaging, limited edition CD

    Includes unlimited streaming of Evil Joy via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    edition of 50 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD or more 

     

  • Limited Edition 'Evil Joy' Cassette
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited edition Cassette Tape

    Includes unlimited streaming of Evil Joy via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
At least we can say that we made it to the last days At least we can now ride out across the great plains I tip my hat to the bad days And I lift my arms to the wrong ways That I couldn’t be all and more Couldn’t be all and more in my days I’ll rise up to all of these people I’ll rise up to all of these people There’s Jackie and Billy and Mama and Baby All here Now I keep my ears to the rail lines And I keep my eyes to the night sky So I can know there’s something more Know there’s something more than all this I’ll rise above all of these places I’ll rise above all of these places There’s Georgia and LA and the Tennessee Valley All here
2.
Well you left town on a bad day It was an awful day I know that now Yeah you left home without a thing to say But that’d been the way And I know that now There was nothing I could do But to stand aside and to know it true That there was nothing more to say The day that you went away But believe me You’re the reason I’m anything The reason I know things Anything upon which to call But sometimes anything ain’t anything at all Yeah you left town on a dog day We’d spent the summer in pitiful shape Still I did not foresee you leaving me On that awful day But I’m somehow proud That there that was nothing I could do When you stood back and understood That there was nothing more to say The day that you went away
3.
How am I to know where the good ones like to go When everywhere I’ve turned in my life’s been wrong and low But when you got back on Sunday it was like it had been years It was so good to see you and so tough to hear That I’ve been hard to live with I’ve been so angrily I’ve been trying hardly And you’ve been none but loving me I’ve been so low and hard I’ve been tied to anchors deep But I’ve been working to remind me Of the life I rarely keep How am I to know where the good ones like to go Cause I’ve never been much for lingering on But something has changed and I like it this way Just taking it slow, tit for tat And going where the good ones at It’s been too long baby Since we went out and saw all the ones we love I’ve been trying to get out and have some fun Just trying to be a good one
4.
Night on the lam Alone I run from them Night on the lam I pray That my old friends still think well of me I hope they do think of me I hope they do think of me Though they’ve got better things to do Than sitting around here lugging you Yeah they’ve got better ways to be Than waiting on some memory You left town with a bound You left town and you sailed around You left town with a bound And all the trouble that you made They won’t ever forgive All the lying and the lion shares you kept They won’t ever take you back I’ve made mistakes Sometimes my mind can’t fend And on those days I can’t take the pain I wish I’d kept close watch on my friends I wish I’d kept close to them I wish I’d kept close to them
5.
Evil Joy 02:16
My friend said he saw her driving down Main With no aim Just riding free My friend said he her singing “devil may care but I can’t” So loud it rang And my friend says that she was better off leaving On a back porch summer day As the rain came And my friend calls them the roughshod riding days Cause like a devil on horseback in the wrong Oh was I wrong My friend says that I should sing out “devil may care but I can’t” Too But that time of my life’s now over my shoulder And that image sends an evil joy coursing Through my veins like cannonade
6.
Let’s get going Wild or under It doesn’t matter to me much, no Now that’s it’s all backwater Holding to the wrong places Still in this old age It’s like a company town now Of your friends and family Do they all remember April? When what seemed hard Seemed hard in all the right ways Like harder to stay apart But there was a long way back A long way down the hatch And with everything that happened We couldn’t put our goodwill back Let’s get going Wild or under Just trying to make my way back To that April hunger Where dust and lace Were in a country corner And every time I tried to leave I was a little older Then they said they saw me Running down every which way Without a light on They said I was all wrong So somebody save me Just herd my scraps Cause with everything that’s happened I haven’t put my goodwill back Long hard days in April Let’s go back Forever
7.
Pure Joy 02:19
Have you ever been to daybreak? Have you ever had it tailor-made? Have you ever been okay? Have you ever had a perfect morn? Have you ever felt a little peace? I hope I someday have the means To get pure joy when I wake in the wet wood To get pure joy when I wake in the barn To get pure joy when I’m there at the labor To get pure joy when I first see its arms Had I known that you were there for me I’d have had a little modesty I’d have had a little shame Have you ever gotten good praise For the fact that you are here today? I try to give it to my friends And I pretend one day when I get pure joy when they visit my lane
8.
When the trial ends And you’re on your own again You won’t recognize your body Oh how hard on it you’ve been When the trial ends And you’ve got your home again You cannot look for love like you always did Though drained and beat you’ve got to steal away Ride out, ride out Don’t try to stay Though long and spent you’ve got some stillness now Ride out, ride out And leave this town But please do not come to me You will not find me in my distance You’ve got to find your distance And keep yourself at bay You cannot come to me You will not find me in my distance You’ve got to go your distance Don’t look for love again Just steal away Well aren’t you good and free and wild I know how hard it’s been in love this while Just steal away Well aren’t you good and free and wild I know how hard it’s been in love this while But when the trial ends And you’re on your own again You won’t recognize your body Oh how hard on it you’ve been When the trial ends And you’ve got your home again You cannot look for love like you always did
9.
How I missed you when you were gone I learned of highways and I learned of milage Oh how I missed you I missed you through rain and snow And when you came on back in August I looked at you and thought How I could live without you Though we had a good day We sang songs together And watched the eagles play It’s almost like we were still up in Wyoming County But did I miss you when you were gone? I cannot know now I can barely remember the sound of your yelling The sound of you revving The sound of you turning over But not catching anything When you let me down Though I’m a red bird now With the wild blue yonder’s arms around So what’s it matter if I missed you anyhow? It’s almost like we were still up in Wyoming County

about

Fust is a songwriting project of Aaron Dowdy, carried out with friends Frank Meadows, Avery Sullivan, and John Wallace. It began as a home-recording attempt for Aaron in 2017, self-releasing seven four-song EPs on Bandcamp before it shifted to a live group. The four had played together in a combination of different bands for over a decade in Virginia and North Carolina. This permutation formed in 2018 in Brooklyn where they all lived at the time, meeting in Gowanus to play the lonesome, somewhat hopeless songs as quietly as possible—or as the group would call it, evilly, as it seems a violation to play gently songs of wrongdoing and despair. But Fust is also interested in these themes and moods as tropes, embracing the melodrama of country music, especially the idea that life isn’t adding up to much, or that one’s goodness isn’t being put to use. Fust—the word for the mildewy smell that lingers on unused things—is now based in Durham, North Carolina, and Evil Joy is both their record label debut and the group’s first recordings together.

Evil Joy was recorded sporadically from 2019 to 2021 in New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Lake Gaston, but was primarily put together in a shed in north Durham during the winter of 2020-2021. The songs were written for a record initially titled Wind and Wet and Wing after Wallace Stevens’s poetics of middle age, a failing marriage, the want to be an unfeeling “thinking stone,” and ultimately of sublimating into verse the desire to break away like a bird joining its flock. In this way, each song takes up these themes of dispossession, surrender, withdrawal, telling an a-chronological story of a relationship and its discontents. Its themes evoke a kind of temporality where days, months, years start to pass by faster and begin to feel much heavier, held together by a number of loose markers—the final days, days of leaving, days of returning, better days, and the days to come. The title of this record is Evil Joy, two words that when combined suggest a conflict, bringing together two extremely different affects in order to name the scope of pain and pleasure in a deteriorating relationship. But, as with most things in a story like this, the title is also itself an overreaction, a blowing-out-of-proportion, calling evil what is more rightly just a difficulty, one shared by most people.

credits

released May 28, 2021

recorded by Fust in Durham, Eastern Pennsylvania, New York City, and Lake Gaston, 2018-2021

Aaron Dowdy: Guitar, Voice
Frank Meadows: Bass, Piano, Voice
Justin Morris: Pedal Steel
Avery Sullivan: Drums
John Wallace: Guitar, Voice

M. Deetz: Mastering
Peter Lewis: Hand writing
Sasha Popovici: Painting

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Fust Durham, North Carolina

shows

contact / help

Contact Fust

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Fust, you may also like: