more from
Run For Cover 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.

Like Dying Stars, We're Reaching Out

by Runnner

/
  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Like Dying Stars, We're Reaching Out via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $22 USD or more 

     

  • 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

     

1.
plexiglass 02:32
am i wasting this chance to be better than whom i’ve been?  swallowing everything air in my mouth’s getting thin  i went back to the parking lot pressing my hands on the glass  ghosts at my fingertips  closing my eyes till it passes 
2.
i’m an idiot  i cried in your car  when i couldn’t find the words i was looking for  i overanalyze i never let if feel good  i only think about death  i only sing about food  is it obvious?  if i say it will it change?  cracked your coffee mug i’m always making stupid mistakes  i loved you so much then  down and tangled on your floor  moved your body with my breath  i put my face onto yours  but i’m still so far out can i turn it all around?
3.
bike again 03:04
i washed it off i’m coming down to nineteen again  telling myself i should see it better do i miss you yet? do i miss everything else?  i miss that place  i miss myself  and i’m still there on the pavement savoring familiar clouds  telling myself that it’s time to get out  fell off my bike again  it’s so embarrassing how much i want to call you now  “hi, i’m
4.
raincoat 02:25
i don’t want to live like this forever but i’m still too scared to die  unresolved in how to make it better  but i don’t know if i ever really tried  buying dandruff shampoo at the rite-aid am i making a positive change?  fifteen pack for sixteen dollars  plastic waves like corduroy  neon lights beam through the water  occupied in all this noise  i should remember my coat when it’s cold out  cuz i keep getting sick from the rain  i thought i would improve when i’m older but i’m mostly just staying the same  (what’s on your mind? does it fit into language? will it change if you say it?)
5.
trace the tiles semicircles on the floor  i’m not tired i just get lonely when i’m bored  got your voicemail  driving home at six pm  didn’t call back took my turn in chess instead do you want it to be different but you don’t know how to say it out loud now?
6.
reach 02:27
is this reaching out? did i forget to make it sound? am i slipping back and falling in?  how do i stop this?  am i better now? did i let myself let it all out?  did i run myself too thin too often?  when did i soften? 
7.
i don’t want to say it like that but we’re up in your bedroom  and we’re walking it back  the crease of my elbow stretching outward from you  we were pushing away without letting go like we always do saying “sorry for that too”  sorry for that too i just want you to like me when my hair gets long and looks dumb  sick with anticipation, the press of your thumb to my thumb  what are we falling out of if we were never in love?
8.
stuck on the couch slow sinking down  the room’s getting quiet  there’s dust in my mouth  i fucked up the rice i cooked it too long  the tv’s alight  the moment’s dissolved  and i know i know i know i know  was i better then:  when i sang about my dog with my friends? can i understand what’s curving away from my hands?  wasting the day painting the scene stuck on the ceiling  repeating  i wanted to speak  i’m just choking now  at the edge of the map i’m still trying to run out 
9.
scabpicker 02:23
driving southbound ‘other desert towns’  static cuts out caught in silence now  i’m scared of what i’m thinking  confused, headlights leaking  through my fingers oozing muddy-red  parts of pictures  things i should have said  like air, but so much thicker  is it even a love song if it’s called ‘scabpicker?’ 
10.
string 03:20
i’m replaying it now is that not really what we were talking about?  just driving around  new england’s all right but the road kill is bumming me out  we talk once a year  we lived in the same house but now we just live sorta near  i don’t know how to start i wrote you a letter last fall but it’s still in my car  am i projecting this?  on all this emptiness?  do you know?
11.
nye 00:46
new year’s eve at home recording  thinking: “how’d i get so boring?” and how i miss my friends/my loves  am i choosing what’s important?
12.
a map for your birthday  i’m trying to write this clearly  through nervous hands illegible memory  we’re walking through your old hometown  like dying stars, we’re reaching out  so much i can’t say  but you nodded anyway 

about

ALBUM OUT 2/17/23

For the last five years, Los Angeles-based musician Noah Weinman has been Runnner, and for much of those five years, Runnner has been working. Working on his 2021 collection album, Always Repeating; working as a producer on the Skullcrusher records; and, of course, working towards his debut full-length, Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out. From LA to Ohio and the Northeast and back, he’s been deep in the craft of sound. This is music made at home, using anything and everything: cell phones and handheld tape recorders, the hum of an a/c unit, voicemails from friends. Rubbing cardboard together, stretching acoustic sounds out to near liquid, or stacking delay pedals at random to scramble the smoothness of a song can make something known into something unknown–something ordinary into something cosmic. These are songs where the edges have been left deliberately rough because perfection invites predictability, and imperfection imbalances, and those imbalances ask the listener to listen again, and again. And in that listening, the sound can become earnest, can ask a question, can hold a conversation. 

“I was sifting through my demos trying to decide what songs would go on the album, and I sort of started to notice this theme about the limits of language,” explains Weinman. “You’re trying to articulate something to someone, and it either doesn’t come out right or you end up not saying anything at all. It’s a pattern I see in my life, just having a hard time expressing myself to the people I’m close with.” So it’s no surprise that from a young age, Noah was drawn to other modes of expression: first studying trumpet and jazz, then falling into guitars, banjo, pianos and synths, and along with them discovering a love for stitching together songs and recordings. “It wasn’t until I got out of the studio environment and started recording at home that it became something I really love doing,” he says. 

Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out is the result of years of writing, recording, and tinkering in Weinman’s home, a lovingly crafted patchwork of organic instrumentation and otherworldly digital manipulation. The unexpected sounds and lush production elevate Weinman’s already impressive skill for melody and warm vocals, always pivoting between sparse intimacy and sweeping grandeur at the right moments. “I think I just want to try to make sounds that are a little original, that you couldn’t easily identify,” he explains. “But I get there by keeping my options pretty limited. I only have one input, so I don’t record  things in stereo; I only have about three microphones and a few instruments, and I try not to use MIDI. I keep the ingredient list short, but that pushes me to be more creative in the genesis of certain sounds.”

This musical approach is reflected in Runnner’s lyrics as well, where the familiar is made unfamiliar, and then familiar again. With humor and heart, Weinman sifts through isolation and anxiety in the everyday: ruining the rice, buying shampoo, the way boredom and loneliness are tangled up together. And from these fragments, he makes something new, but also something already known and felt at once. “A lot of the songs have this narrative arc of rising tension that just leads to me not saying or doing anything,” he says. “It’s like there’s a signal loss between thought and speech.” Tracks like “i only sing about food,” “raincoat,” or “chess with friends” explore these different mental and sometimes even physical barriers to communication, while skittering drum beats and scrappy acoustics guide the listener through Weinman’s crowded thoughts. On mid-album standout “runnning in place at the edge of the map,” Weinman likens his catatonic self on the couch to a video game avatar stuck at the end of its digital space with nowhere left to go–tying the image to our desperate attempts to be who we want to be, despite knowing that our attempts will fall short.

Often Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out sounds like life caught inside a moment, unsure of what comes next, but there is hope and lightness here too. The album’s final track “a map for your birthday” closes with the lines “like dying stars, we’re reaching out / so much i can’t say / but you nodded anyway.” Despite our inability to be what we want to be, to know where we are going, feel we belong, to be present, and to present ourselves fully and completely to the world, Runnner offers that perhaps it’s this longing to know one another, to understand each other when we’re incoherent or when the words just don’t come, that just might connect us. 

credits

released February 17, 2023

everything on this album written, performed, recorded, & produced by me (noah weinman) at different points between january 2019 and february 2022

except for the following credits from people i love and for whose contributions i am extremely grateful: 

mixing: matt emonson 
mastering: jj golden, golden mastering 
vocals: helen ballentine, olivia gerber, evan rasch
slide guitar: evan rasch 
drums: sam graf, madi vogt 
(drums recorded by sam graf and mallory hauser) 
woodwinds: jordan leicht, ben mcpeek, ben weinman 

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Runnner Los Angeles, California

bandcamp songs for soundcloud kids

Management: ethan@rosegardenartists.com

US Booking: greg.horbal@teamwass.com gavin.stacey@teamwass.com

UK/EU Booking: mattpcopley@primarytalent.com

Public Relations:
james@letsgopublicity.com

Production Inquiries: noahweinman.production@gmail.com
... more

shows

contact / help

Contact Runnner

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Runnner, you may also like: