Godwit is Beloved Binge’s 7th studio release. (Previous album: Signals.)
Godwit
The Bar-tailed Godwit is one of the great migrators. Alaska to New Zealand, non-stop, 6,800 miles. While flying, they absorb parts of their organs (liver, kidney, and digestive tract) in a process called autophagy (“self-eating” in Greek). Their heart grows to provide extra energy and oxygen.
Will you grow your heart for art?
Godwit explores whether we tiny creatures navigating a world beyond our control can (rather than devouring the world for pleasure) find internal sustenance to sustain our individual and collective migrations?
The songs, a partial love letter and mourning dirge to nature (yes, including humans) were written in the USA and Greece.
Socials
Press Photos (link)
Contact
EleniBinge@Gmail.com
More press photos
Song titles & credits
In order of release. First release, 11/14/24
Awaiting your arrival for the journey
The song Awaiting Your Arrival for the Journey builds on three decades of Aikido practice by its primary songwriter Rob Beloved, where he explains his attempts to sit (meditate) and work through illusions of himself and others. What is our small place in a vast world that outlasts us?
The song also explores joy and the happy release of our own limiting preconceived notions of who we or others should be. What kind of trip can we take if we free ourselves from expectations?
Lyrics and melody: Rob
I’ve got to clear I’ve got to cleanse my mind
You’re not the woke person you thought you were inside
Sitting quietly trying to break free
Lovely illustrations in our being
Born to remain in past life beings
In stillness we strive to set our course
Collective minds keep us anchored to the stream
of consciousness yet unseen
Go past the layers that we spin
Recycled tricks within a dream
Trips cycled idyllic in our Holocene
All these instincts Don’t mean a thing
Epipen
Release date: January 2, 2025
Epipen is a song for anyone who has ever struggled in a relationship–romantic or not–where the transitory nature of feelings can hit like an allergy attack. What are the promises we make to ourselves and others in our often fraught relationships?
Lyrics & melody: Eleni Guitar solo: 100% Rob
You’re absolutely right
I don’t want to fight again
I’m allergic to last night
So I’m pulling out the epipen
You said you wanna meditate
Lift up levitate
But maybe it’s too late
Hate hate hate
You said you were the quiet type
But I never liked silent knights
Subtlety is strength
Even if I can’t wait
Walked out leavin’ here
Free but heavier
Maybe I can disappear …
You’re absolutely right
I don’t want to fight again
I’m allergic to last night
So I’m pulling out the epipen
Beats
Lyrics: Jack Kerouac, from On the Road
Melody, Keys, Drums: Eleni
Guitars & Bass: Rob
“Beats” is for anyone who wants to break free and live their life free of convention. The song celebrates an abandonment of conformity and perceived expectations.
The lyrics are from the heart of the Beat generation classic On the Road, expressed also by Ms. Binge’s other favorite author Nikos Kazantzakis’ in Zorba the Greek: “A man needs a little madness or else – he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
Be free with BB.
Lyrics: Jack Kerouac, from On the Road
Keys & Drums: Eleni Binge
Guitar & Bass: Rob Beloved
The only people for me are the mad ones
The ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk, mad to be saved
Desirous of everything at the same time
The ones who never yawn or say
a commonplace thing
But burn, burn, burn like fabulous
yellow roman candles.
Exploding like spiders across the stars
And in the middle you see the blue
centerlight pop
and everybody goes
“Awww!”
Godwit
Lyrics: Eleni
Guitar melody: Rob
Lake Shawnee
Lyrics: Eleni
Guitar melody: Rob
Like Me
Lyrics & melody: Eleni
Reasons You Can Understand
Lyrics: Steven Jesse Bernstein, from his posthumous book More Noise, Please!
Melody: Eleni
Entity
Lyrics and melody: Rob
Paper Eagles
Guitar melody: Rob
Lyrics: Eleni
Anamnesis
Lyrics & guitar: Rob
Resting in Peace
Lyrics & melody: Eleni
Shadows of the Mountain
Lyrics and melody: Rob
Album credits: About creating Godwit
Beloved Binge moved to Athens, Greece in 2022. The songs on the album were written both in a dusty old building located in the port of Piraeus and in a cramped rowhouse basement in South Philadelphia, PA (Epipen, Like Me, Reasons You Can Understand, Resting in Peace).
The album was recorded in two days with Nikos Chalkousis, recommended by Konstantinos of the band Hex. Nikos had the perfect temperament to record — his suggestions made the songs even better than when they arrived. He was organized, creative, and quick. The band loved working with him.
Off went the songs to long-time BB friend Dawn Dineen, whom the band met in 2006 during their second ever tour-stop in Washington DC. In contrast with the night before (where the owner of a pub in Richmond, VA shut the power off while the band was mid-song and cranked up Lynyrd Skynyrd) Dawn’s band, wife, and friends warmly welcomed BB and became lifelong friends. To say that Dawn has an “ear” for mixing is an understatement. More of a fine-tuned instrument, sensitive as a spider in its web, hearing what is possible beyond the songs before her. Her suggestions, encouragement, and hard work and talent were instrumental in creating the sound heard on this album. She is also a tremendous artist (her Instagram and Spotify).
The art — the final piece but such an important one! BB met Alexandros through a poet friend Andrea Applebee, and immediately took to his art and saucy personality. He listened to the album and drew the cover. The album was originally entitled Anamnesis when Ms. Binge became consumed with the idea of the remembrance of things past (as in Proust’s madeleine). Both joy & mourning accompany this remembrance for the time with those lost, or the loss of habitat {our own bodies, a relationship, or planet earth}. However, the word is decidedly Greek, and as Alexandros aptly informed both Binge and Beloved that to him, in Greek, the word meant something dead. And the album, he said, is very much alive. The three reviewed current titles in the course of seconds Godwit presented itself.
Godwit Album Credits
Bass & Guitars: Rob
Drums & Keys: Eleni
Lyrics/Vox: Eleni & Rob (& poets – see below)
Sound engineer & recording: Nikos Chalkousis
Mixing engineer: Dawn Dineen at Yarner Studio, Knoxville, TN. Her Instagram and Spotify.
Mastering: Tom Borthwick at SI Studios
Art: Alexandros Georgiou
Press highlights
” …upbeat, stripped-down and muffed-out indie-pop rock. Taking turns strumming, humming and drumming (while swiping pages from the K Records playbook) Rob Beloved and Eleni Binge conjure up happy memories of indie rock’s fun-loving and far less pretentious past.” —Colorado Springs Independent, on Blender Theory
“Beloved Binge create a superb aural soundscape to big city indifference on the title track [Signals]…If the entire contents of their 6th album are just as raw and atmospheric as this track then it deserves to consume our attention.” —Jangle Pop Hub, on Signals
“Pockets is a tremendous record.” —Shuffle Magazine
“Reminiscent of groups like the Moldy Peaches, [Beloved Binge adds] a humorous touch to lyrics that might seem dark otherwise. Beloved Binge pulls out lighthearted pop-punk jams with its fourth studio album, Pockets. It will certainly leave listeners with plenty of catchy riffs to get stuck in their heads.” —Daily Tar Heel, Diversions