Camouflage Heart, by Cindytalk

Camouflage Heart

by Cindytalk

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rammingmode Heard it for the first time recently and happily ran over here to make the purchase. Phenomenal stuff. Favorite track: Everybody Is Christ.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Camouflage Heart via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

ships out within 3 days

edition of 500

Purchasable with gift card

$24.99 USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Camouflage Heart via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

$22.99 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

Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

$9.99 USD or more
Pink Vinyl LP (ltd 100, Dais Exclusive)
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Camouflage Heart via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

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1.	It's Luxury 03:41	lyrics	buy track
Desire Twisting As doubts fall down Not touching Moved to destruction Desire (desire) Write on the mirror to me This is the perfect message: You have the twisted head of fate my love I see the world when I look into your eyes Say this to me Ours is the Ours is the glory We look to the skies with wild attraction I live for pain I live for pain Hold onto the railings, my friend We're just one step away From the big hit, hit Oh, we've been laughing much too much Our faces start to crack An open space A playground park Running all over our faces It's luxury It's luxury It's luxury Still now Don't look down…….
2.	Instinct (Backtosense) 04:04	lyrics	buy track
Back to sense Back to sense Back to sense… I'm hauling myself Through a sleepless stupor No light becomes the drug No light becomes the drug
3.	Under Glass 01:58	lyrics	buy track
Walk in, walk into my menagerie… The knife that touches the heart And splits the soul in two It rages in the ragged cage And spits no silent storm The knife that touches the heart And splits the soul in two It rages in the ragged cage And spits no silent storm Under glass the reptiles flinch Pandoras' box does open Controlling open and precise Let the steam rise slowly Ahh the sweetness chicken head Full of western promise Is it her Is this her.. Tonight the prostitute takes all the chances Left for someone not so dear, left for someone Not so dear, so dear, so dear, so dear And we can pour the wine out Sing the last song The song that makes our hearts thump In time to that proud beat But will the power last between our teeth Or only between the sheets..
4.	Memories Of Skin And Snow 05:35	lyrics	buy track
Those memories of skin and snow Of skin and snow I dream of crossing into madness before the slumber... hits Some white vision A naked trust Never there A falling madness... Something howls But only sounds in my head I follow further... An attempt at something beautiful Something of a blissful mess The howl continues... The beauty rests on me then disappears Being replaced by the smell of burning Burning like a torch of tar (A light in this darkness A sign...) My hands are held and pulled along Coughing and screaming My body is dragged until unconscious In the grass-like snakepits This wholesome body is a love-nest stranger All locked in embrace Some language of love gets me down on the floor All arms flailing It was a violent kind of sex And some fucked up baby lies staring at me It's a slow slow death It's a slow slow death Down! down! running at the light-flash And moving with no sight Hindsight just fucks me This wholesome body Is a love-nest stranger Still locked in embrace Some sick embrace Waking at the edge of snakepits And loosening the grip My eyes are tired My body dying My head is raging Questioning The snakepit was never in sight for real I stumble backways into some glare A mirror reflected this all And made some garbled point Failing to understand I move on... Nothing else existed No sleeping dreams No film-like nightmares Just a walk without defence A falling madness A falling madness…
5.	The Spirit Behind The Circus Dream 04:35	lyrics	buy track
Caressing Caressing… The fountain sits on edge and sings The spirit cannot be broken if the spirit is true Make the snake in your eye Penetration Make the snake in your eye Caressing Caressing… I won't drop down I will drag you under with me I want to bleed, bleed this earth dry Wipe the tears from your eyes Wipe the tears from your eyes Caressing... Make the snake in your eye Penetration Make the snake in your eye Pierce the camouflage heart Pierce the camouflage heart
6.	The Ghost Never Smiles 06:44	lyrics	buy track
The ghost in the squalor Alive and so well Thriving on the mess And the noise The ghost in the dirt And falling around Inside... Maybe only for sunday Maybe only for sunday The mass and the worship Inside the old system of hanging the martyr We kneel and stay happy We kneel and stay happy There's safety in silence And dance with the statue It's cracking the bullwhip It's cracking the bullwhip And laughing in madness It's cracking... Ahhh ahhhhhhhh ohhhhh There's a wildness inside me A strangeness coming over There's a wildness inside me It's kicking out It's kicking out… The ghost never smiles Only to worship the soldier In his neatly pressed uniform Holding his weapon and ready to fire Maybe the ghost could walk right through The smart young soldier so eager to fire Simulating-masturbation Simulating-masturbation The ghost never smiles You can tell this is real For the soldier has died And his body is fear Now with the sunday singing quietly... (Maybe the ghost is crying for the smart young soldier, crying for the smart young soldier) Touching my body is fear Touching my body is fear Touching my body is fear Holding my body is fear
7.	A Second Breath 01:52	lyrics	buy track
Recall... We can't move Packed together Like some kind of Fish in a box No room to breathe A grotesque figure Leaning from a window Waiting for something to fall Recall... He sees a big parade With slightly bemused children Waving flags and smiles Recall, recall... I touch the blindspot A costly pleasure It must be beating without a sound It must be beating without a sound Another breath of life A second breath
8.	Everybody Is Christ 04:13	lyrics	buy track
Heaven can't help you now Everybody is Christ Everybody is Christ Heaven can't help you now Heaven can't help you now The window-like shattered And we all fell down on our knees Laughing... The joke was us my pretty friend Laugh now... Everybody is Christ Everybody is Christ Everybody is Christ Everybody is Christ Imagine all the people living life today... Heaven can't help you now
9.	Disintegrate... 04:38	lyrics	buy track
The temple is burning down Faster than you could ever imagine Faster than you could ever imagine The temple is cutting through Into the sacred shrine I drink from a strange fountain Knowing it can never last... Ich liebe dich Ich liebe dich Ich liebe dich

about

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation.

"We were trying to find our own space," says Cinder of the formative period 'Camouflage Heart' emerged from, amidst a move from Edinburgh to London and Cinder's evolving exploration of gender identity, well before culture at large was equipped to understand. With contemporary discourse we see that the project manifested her transgender ideas as visceral music. The guttural, feral sound marked a notably darker turn from The Freeze's six-year run on the fringes of punk. Changing the project's name became vital, not just because they kept hearing the former was already taken, but the desire to embody the spiritual and sonic shift, "to uncover new pathways…to feminize it," she says. Cinder, with bandmates David Clancy and John Byrne, arrived at Cindytalk, a winking nod to Sindy, the British fashion doll rival to Barbie known then for its pull-string talking mechanism. "The goal was to have a more interesting narrative, more interesting dialogue. Music was ultimately my only way of talking to people. That was my conversation with the world, an abstracted conversation…an attempt to make some kind of tiny, tiny mark, if possible, you hope somebody will notice." Over the years, Cinder has heard from fans who did pick up on the signals and find refuge in 'Camouflage Heart'. Subtle then, but she connects the dots more clearly now, playfully suggesting Dais reissue the long out-of-print vinyl in pink — "It had to be Barbie pink" — underscoring the mischief that's been there all along beneath the silvery surface of Cindytalk.

'Camouflage Heart' plays with tension and pace, from creeping to feverish to claustrophobic. The percussion moves between restless marches and barely-there pulses; for some parts, they scratched and hit a tin bath, among other objects. Guitar lines vibrate and stab as Cinder contorts her voice freely. She pulls poetry from a cerebral abyss, like "make the snake in your eye, pierce the camouflage heart" on the slow-droning centerpiece "The Spirit Behind the Circus Dream." In that register is raw power, both vulnerable and menacing, an ability to locate something deep and emotionally charged within. "I still remember that person who was way too intense for their own good," Cinder reflects. "I couldn't make a record like that now, certainly not vocally, while that anger hasn't dissipated; there's still a kind of warrior."

For all the destruction and disintegration of Camouflage Heart, Cinder maintains the objective was never full-on fatalistic; these songs seek not to destroy but to poke and provoke, to transform and heal, to find cracks of light in a crumbling world. She points to the last lines of the opening track, "It's Luxury": "Don't look down," the lyric pines through static and rhythm. Cinder extrapolates, "I'm essentially saying, just keep fucking going. As time went on, for me, that falling became flying. Camouflage Heart is the beginning of believing in flight."

credits

released May 23, 2025

Cinder - all words
Cindytalk - all musics

Cindytalk:
Cinder - voice and instruments
David Clancy - instruments
John Byrne - instruments

Richard Hurding - cover photography
Mick Harvey - drumming on "Under Glass"
Bruce Corser - label photograph
Cliff Ash - sleeve photography

Recorded at Gateway Studio, London, Jan-July 1984
Engineered by David Ros
Except "Everybody Is Christ" – Recorded London, 1982

Remastered by Josh Bonati
Layout by Vinnie Massimino & Nathaniel Young
Dais Records 2025

"for those who came and will come closer"
"elizabeth ... is there room in the rosary for three."