Does that title, "Selenophiliac Librations," even make sense? I suppose it does - something like, "the perceived gentle rocking motion of those infatuated with the moon," perhaps? Whatever, I have a long history of making up words and terms that only sort-of make sense, and that's an artist's prerogative. Anyway, it was the best merging of these two titles I could think of, which I'm featuring in this article because they are available for FREE DOWNLOAD for a limited time!
I released these because it's been really getting to me that I haven't put out any new music since Elemental on July 30th. Those familiar with my level of output know that I'm generally a workhorse when it comes to writing music. I generally put out a new EP every month or two, and those EPs lead up to full-length albums. And while these releases don't necessarily have all-new songs on them, there's usually at least two that are entirely original. Well, I haven't completed a new song since "Signor Fancypants." There are several works in progress, but I keep failing to get into the songwriting groove. I tell myself that it's okay - I have one-hundred songs published on iTunes, Google, Amazon, and multiple streaming platforms from a year-and-a-half of almost nonstop work. That's pretty rare for a musician. It's been necessary to take time off for my mom's wedding, and to move and get acclimated to my new environment. And one-hundred songs across five full-length albums and six EPs is a good point to stop and examine the work thus far. But no matter how I justify and rationalize it, it's been seriously bothering me how long it's been taking me to get back into my groove.
Part of that is how long it's been since my last post on this blog! There was a time I tried to publish a new article every two weeks. Well, take a look at how long it's been since I wrote that review for (IAM)WARFACE. It's been even longer than the last period between articles, and that had been my longest absence up to that point! I generally feel that I have to be constantly putting myself "out there" (in cross-promoting social media and the music scene) to make sure that I'm generating an audience and to hold the attention of the followers/listeners/readers I already have. So partly in self-flagellation and partly because offering free shit helps draw people's attention, I've released a couple of "updates" an old, no-longer available releases.
First was an Anniversary Spin of Libration, a seven-track EP that I put together on September 20th of last year (click here for the original release article). This was during the era of The Lady anoNYMous releasing non-commercial EPs that led up to album-length compilations (all available for free or pay-what-you-will) that in turn led to widely-released commercial albums. It was a period during which I lived with the romantic idea that I could live as an artist off of tips and streaming royalties. After publishing music for a year under this model, I came to the realization that I need to behave as if my art is worth something and that I can ask for compensation without guilt or compromised principles. Also, I had an overwhelming amount of EPs/compilations/albums available at my Snail Tunes store. A little Spring-cleaning was called for. In short, it was time for the non-commercial releases to go, and so Libration is no longer available.
But once upon a time, it had been my most popular release. It was the most-downloaded record from my Jamendo page for quite some time, and the release article on this blog was the most widely-read. It was also a pretty unique little collection, focusing more on the alternative-rock style of my music, by which I mean it had a more classically "rock" sort of sound than the neoclassical/industrial/trip-hop styles that I tend to focus on, but fused with some electronic pop elements. It had the '90s grunge-era feel in "Momentum," "Insults," and "Pentadactyl"; a prevalent electric-guitar hook in "An Arcane Son"; piano-driven dance-rock in "The Manic Widow"; and upbeat ambient-rock in "I Will Dim My Light Only Enough To Not Blind You." And there was also the first publication of the psychedelic-rock epic "Lily White" to include the vocals of The Arcane Insignia frontman Alejandro Saldarriaga Calle. The overall theme of this release: rock.
For the Anniversary Spin, I replaced some of the tracks with newer incarnations. "Momentum" was replaced with its "Higher Gain Mix" from Revolutions; "The Manic Widow" with its "Feral Bitch Mix" from Jaded; and the original published version of "Lily White" was replaced with a version with remastered vocals and slightly altered instrumentation that appeared on Jaded. Now, my original intention was to only make this Anniversary Spin available for a week, during which I failed to publish an article for it on this blog. However - even though I distinctly remember clicking the "remove this album forever" button on NoiseTrade - when I went to publish the new version of Selenophilia, it was still there! So, now we have both Libration - The Anniversary Spin and Selenophilia 2.0 available for free download.
The original Selenophilia was the first non-commercial EP to follow the publication of Occultation (being released on September 1st, 2015; click here for the original release article), and therefore made four of its songs ("The Last Waltz," "I, Supplicant," "Slowly Scooting Closer," and "Wrong Pocket Kinda Day") available for free download. Actually, it would be three of its songs, since "Slowly Scooting Closer" was originally published on the non-commercial compilation Nefelibata (a title I'd like to reuse in the future because it's such a great word!), but I digress: it was an Occultation-centric release. It also offered a glimpse of what was to come on Jaded, including the first version of "Umbra," and a demo of "Lily White" on which I sang to give listeners (and, later on, Alejandro) an idea of what I was aiming for. As a hidden bonus track, there was also a song called "Mattresside" that turned out to be a rough-draft of "The Tranquil Isles." So Selenophilia 2.0 has all those songs from Occultation, along with the Alternate Spin of "Umbra" and the final version of "Lily White," and it closes with "The Tranquil Isles."
The original Selenophilia was extra-special for containing a newer (and ultimately final) draft of "The Cloud Walkers" than appeared on Occultation. I later subtitled this the "Selenophilia Spin," as its differences were significant enough that it warranted a special distinction. It's definitely my preferred version, and when I removed Selenophilia from the Snail Tunes store, I couldn't stand to not have that version available as part of my "official" discography for long. I decided to include it on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, even though I had the feeling that Selenophilia would someday be rereleased in some form, and I'm glad that I made that decision, as Selenophilia 2.0 (as with most non-commercial releases I'm putting out these days) will only be available for a limited time. How long is a good question; I'm thinking that I'll take it down when I release my next EP. Since Libration - The Anniversary Spin is (accidentally) still available, I figure I'll leave it up until then, as well.
My goal as of now is to put out a new EP (although it could be more of a four-track "single" such as Cold Sunlight) by the Days of the Dead (those holidays coinciding with the triduum of Allhallowtide), aiming for a Halloween release to Patreon patrons and a public release on November 2nd. Although it would be lovely to do the rerelease of Nyctanthous at that time, I'm not sure if that's what is lining up right now. The plan for that release is to have a small collection of short stories about Jade and her friends to publish as a companion for the extended/altered version of that EP. The record itself it to include (as planned so far) five of the original tracks with the Alternate Spin of "Jaded" and a new rendition of "Jade's Theme," as well as the Nyctanthous B-sides "Sublime Like Swine" and "The Between" with newly recorded vocals. Actually, it's my hope that Matt Warneford's remix of "Sublime Like Swine" will be available for it as well. So while I could probably compose a new version of "Jade's Theme" (which I'm already cogitating on for another project) and record new vocals for those songs by the end of this month, the stories and Matt's remix are not likely to fall in place.
But speaking of the other project for which I've had the idea for a new version of "Jade's Theme"... As I mentioned earlier, I've been thinking that it's a good time to examine the work I've done so far, and part of that is to call from Instrumentality to Elemental a good span of time to draw from for the track list of Nothing Left To Lose, the album I still hope to be my first release on CD and possibly vinyl. So, as a nearly-finalized demo for this album, I put together a playlist of the twenty songs I consider to be my best achievements and/or essential to such a release. The opening track is the second Alternate Spin of "Introducing...", the song that provided the melody for "Jade's Theme." What I have in mind is to take the cello from "No Introduction Needed," record a variation on the piano from "Introducing...", write new parts for the accompanying synths, and record new beats. While it will stay truer to "Introducing..." and "No Introduction Needed," it will likely be considered a new rendition of "Jade's Theme," which is what the melody has become known as.
Also for Nothing Left To Lose, I'm planning on producing a new mix of "Winter's Salve" that will be more minimalist and closer to the original than "Winter's Remix 2.0." But other than these variations on two of the songs, the "finalized" (still subject to change...it ain't actually final until it's published, right?) track listing for Nothing Left To Lose is as it appears in the following playlist:
I really think this is the loveliest, truest representation of my work so far, and it would be an absolute dream-come-true to have it realized as a physical album, but to make this a reality, I either need the help of a label, or more patrons on Patreon. For now, it's just this little playlist that I've made exclusively available here. And even though all these songs are available on other releases, I put together a digital download of it with some unique artwork for my top-tier Patrons. To contribute to the cause and gain access to the download, you can make a pledge of $10.00 USD or more at http://patreon.com/theladyanonymous.
Well, that summarized everything I've been up to lately. I hope you all can forgive me for taking so long to bring you up to date. May your inner snails remain resilient and determined.
Many of you who follow me or read my shit know (or have guessed) that I am friends with a certain industrial glam-rock band called (IAM)WARFACE. At least, "industrial glam-rock" is how I describe them. Another reviewer once described them as "if Nine Inch Nails and Placebo had a baby, and it's pissed off," and while I find that description to be apt, I'd be careful to compare them to Placebo, a band that I love but has its glam-rock roots firmly fused with the music of the '90s. (IAM)WARFACE has its roots firmly planted in the '80s, but brings it forth into an era evolved from metal, post-punk, and industrial music. There is also a pop sensibility to this music, that means it is catchy and accessible, but a hardcore stranger always lurks in the shadows.
If you haven't already guessed, this is a review, my first since considering making reviews a regular part of this blog when I reviewed Max Lilja's Morphosis (an album I really didn't do justice to, and remains a regular part of my life's soundtrack). However, I felt I'd be remiss if I didn't review WARFACE, to belatedly celebrate their success in releasing the EP Say My Name and their status as the winners of Starlight Music Chronicles' Artist of the Year. You see, a long time ago, I promised frontman Matt Warneford that I'd review his song "To Die For." I failed to do that (which couldn't have helped his self-esteem), but he kept on sending me music and making overtures of friendship which have cemented a lasting and lovely relationship. So here is the review, at long last, that I owe him!
I would like, however, to not focus on a single song or achievement of WARFACE, and to preface by saying that, yes, I am a friend and a fan, but I'm going to do my best to give an objective and honest account of my relationship with the music of this band, and how it has evolved to become a lasting part of my psyche, and to be on permanent rotation in my life's soundtrack. How it started was with the song "The Vampire," which was recommended to me on SoundCloud based on my appreciation of the music of Suzerain (who, incidentally, are personal friends of WARFACE and have since become online friends of mine as well).
"The Vampire" is pretty unique among WARFACE's songs. It focuses more on a speed-metal style of guitar, one that I am no stranger to as a former vocalist for various metal projects, which initially drew me to this music. This song still has its roots grounded in the '80s, and there's plenty of pop sensibility in its lyrical hooks (as well as the almost-universal appeal of Matt's vocals) but this is a song that made me want to bounce off the walls every time I heard it, and that I wanted to share with the metal enthusiasts amongst my friends, fans, and followers.
Imagine my surprise when the mind behind this music, who seemed to have hundreds - if not thousands - of followers, graciously accepted my praise on SoundCloud and accepted my friendship on Facebook. Matt Warneford has been almost-famously accessible to his fans, and has befriended many fantastically creative minds because of it. He also has a pretty devoted following. It seemed foreign to him to accept that yes, I was a friend, but that I was also a fan as well. His humility and self-doubt have been a part of his winning public persona and the wide appeal of his music. But I shall try to refrain from praising the band's composer and frontman too much; I will, however, also mention that he's an accomplished 2D artist (he created the cover of my album Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), who accepts commissions and has prints available on his main website (http://iamwarface.com).
I have to admit that, when approaching the rest of his music, I wanted more of the sound presented in "The Vampire." I have never been overly fond of the music of the '80s, with its overly apparent synths and overly-stylized electronic sound. I do, however, have a passion for Goth fashion, industrial music, and the homoerotic presentation of glam-rock. These are all very apparent in Matt's music; he once said that, if he had a different job, it would be as a drag queen. And he makes a beautiful drag queen! There was plenty for me to appreciate about the rest of his musical endeavors, from the music itself, to the artistic presentation, to the live performances I've sadly only seen on YouTube.
Regretfully (and blessedly), I've gotten most of my (IAM)WARFACE illegally, though some if it has been from the artist himself, and I do have what is legally available in my Apple Music Library, in rotation on my "Another Soundtrack for Another Life" playlist. But there is so much that isn't officially published! Still, every song I was able to get my hands on went onto that playlist so I could hear more of it, and many of them have taken their turns as my "favorite," replacing "The Vampire." They have the ability to get stuck in your head with their catchy hooks, and to make you marvel at the composer's ability to coax such unorthodox sounds into cohesive arrangements. I must say that "Wake Me Up" has become one of my favorites to find myself driving to, while singing at the top of my lungs. But before that - as I was still more of a novice fan, and more enamored with another musician who considered me a peer - I was swept up in the publicity that surrounded WARFACE as the Artist of the Month for Starlight Music Chronicles in the month of June, 2016. I was thrilled by Matt's success and engrossed by the publicity circus surrounding an exclusive-to-Starlight music video for the song "Fear the Future." Of course, I had to listen to that song over and over as an overture to it's fitting Halloween release, and then rewarded with a creepy and disturbing social commentary that was all I had hoped for and more.
This video represents so much of what I love about the compositions and the image that Matt has crafted. The macabre and blatant commentary on man and his demons in modern society enveloped so much of what I respect about subversive artists, and was a stunning demonstration of what director Yohan Forbes can accomplish on a small budget. It also shows that this music has potential way beyond that of shallow or self-centered pop. Though Matt has said he wishes his music was more emotionally honest, I believe it speaks louder than he might expect. While one of my most prevalent criticisms would be to agree that his music could benefit more from raw emotion rather than catchy pop hooks, his music admittedly has a wide reach and the potential of having an iron grasp.
It was mostly with the release of this video and the creation of the fan group that I realized I was a poor (IAM)WARFACE fan. There was still so much of their music for me to explore, which was mostly made accessible to me by other fans. I found myself hearing songs as if for the first time (and sometimes it actually was the first time) and being blown away by their ability to strike an emotional cord with me, or to move me physically. Much of this is music to dance to, or sing along with. I am admittedly jealous of Matt's ability to accomplish this while still maintaining undisputed status as an avant garde composer. This is pop music for fans of industrial-metal. This is complex, modern music for fans of the '80s. And there's so much material to draw from that a full-length album could easily be accomplished, yet there were only singles and a demos first as A Major Work of Friction and then Golden Army before we were finally treated to an official release, the EP Say My Name.
Prefaced by the release of this fantastic music video - featuring the current band's line-up playing together - the EP treated newcomers and current fans to four tracks that, in my opinion, are wonderful, but not Matt's best work. The title track is definitely one that is catchy and memorable, and grew on me like a fungus, despite my initial dislike of the backing vocals. It is now amongst my favorites, and I get excited every time it comes up on my iTunes shuffle. "Trigons" is a fantastic display of Matt's abilities as an electronic composer, being primarily instrumental, though when vocals come into play, I wish they were louder, because they are a haunting juxtaposition with a song that could otherwise be categorized as "electronica." And let's zero-in our focus to Matt's vocals for a moment: sure, you can compare his music to Nine Inch Nails and Placebo, but neither of those bands have vocals half so strong. He may not scream like Trent Reznor or vocally bend his gender in the manner of Brian Malko, but his voice is powerful and gripping, and he can wield it deftly in ranges varying from your standard post-punk frontman, to devastating falsetto. Say My Name, while not consisting of my favorite WARFACE songs, nonetheless demonstrates Matt's strengths as a composer and as a vocalist.
So one of my nagging questions for Matt is always (aside from "where is that remix you promised me of 'Sublime Like Swine?'"), "When will we have a full-length album?" But Matt's primary concerns are elsewhere, from touring and promoting, to cementing his live band and getting a record deal. All of these things are on the verge of happening, if they're not happening already. A distraction may have come in the form of the prize for the winners of Starlight Music Chronicles' Artist of the Year (an achievement accomplished just a month ago), which may send the band to LA for an exciting apprenticeship. Needless to say, this is a band accomplishing much - thanks primarily to the talents of a single remarkable man - and they are not going anywhere. We may have to wait forever for the first full-length album, just as we did with Suzerain, and which we are currently also doing with The Arcane Insignia (forgive the name-dropping, but I love these guys and their music), but it promises to be worth it! No pressure, though, Matt...you know you can always vent on me.
Wow, my bad! It's been a whole month since I've written in this blog, the second-longest period of absence my dear readers have endured! While I haven't been off on another bender, I have been a bit off the rails, lately. Some big changes are headed my way in my personal life, the biggest being that I'll be moving from the outskirts of Kansas City, Missouri, to the outskirts of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Central Missouri. Why on earth would I move to a land mostly populated by ticks, poisonous snakes, snapping turtles, and rednecks with the Confederate flag painted onto or flying from their trucks? Unfortunately, I don't have much choice in the matter. I'm in a physical, mental, and financial state where I have to live with family, my mother being the only family I have left, and she's marrying a stubborn old goat who owns 33 acres at the described location. On the plus side, he lives on 33 acres, which means plenty of surrounding forest for me to wander in (I haven't lived in the woods since I was 19) and plenty of land for my dog to roam and explore. I've spent the some of the past month visiting this place, and my dog has passed the off-tether test (he always comes back, and usually comes when called), and I find the place to be peaceful and invigorating for my soul. I'll have to adjust to living with stepfather number four, but that will be the biggest challenge. The second-biggest is poor Internet service, which will hopefully be remedied around the time I move in. As you can guess, Internet access (particularly high upload speeds) are essential to my job as an Internet-based musician, so my visits to my home-to-be have somewhat hampered my productivity, as has my anxiety over my life's impending changes.
So, y'all will have to forgive me for a record that is mostly rarities and Alternate Spins, with only two new songs, though once you give it a listen, I'm sure you will. Personally, I think that (aside from Dissonance) this is the best EP I've put out in a while. I'm just so enamored with each of its six songs, and so thrilled to share them, that I can forgive myself for its not consisting of all-new material. And it has the very attractive quality of yet again featuring artwork by Cyril Rolando (of the EPs Carnivale and Interlude), but this time in a different way, as this is somewhat of a companion piece to a series of his called The Human Orchestra. This is most apparent in the Artist's Edition of the record, which expresses this theme in individualized track art and a PDF booklet of artwork and liner notes. While all the Artist's Editions available to my Patreon patrons have individualized track art and PDF booklets, the way I've attached them to Elemental is unique, and I've decided to share this with you. Hopefully, it will do something in making up for my absence.
First, I'd like to draw your attention to the parchment-style piece of Cyril's, "The Human Orchestra," in which several of his other pieces play a part.
Now, on its own, the series tells the stories of 12 characters from 12 individual pieces of artwork. When I was casting about for a title and artwork for this EP, I had already decided to look at pieces from this series. But I had never looked at this particular piece. I found it absolutely inspirational and wonderfully imaginative, the way he weaves stories and two-dimensional artwork, and then interconnects it all with the iconic zodiac-style wheel of instruments, elements, and emotions at the top. I couldn't pass up using that wheel for the cover image of the new EP, and it instantly gave me its title.
Normally, when creating the track art for my Artist's Editions, I create a background derived from imagery associated with the album and then feature the release on which the song originated in the foreground. However, I felt that, when using this piece by Cyril, I had a certain responsibility to keep the focus on his artwork, and to tie this record into The Human Orchestra as best I could. I've taken some liberties to best fit his imagined worlds to the songs I was presenting, and it makes me feel somewhat guilty, as what this piece really deserves is a 12-track album with a song devoted to each character, featuring their instrument, and one day that is exactly what I hope to accomplish. But for now, this is what I was able to come up with, and I'm relieved to say that Cyril was delighted with the results.
Starting off the EP is something of a rarity - the instrumental predecessor to "They Delving 3.33." First introduced on the limited-release "Christmas" album Yule Tide Carols, this version has actually become my favorite version of this song. I love version 1.0 for being the original, and marking the beginnings of several new approaches I was making to composing; I love 2.22 for having the best vocal recordings I've achieved for this song; and I love 3.33 for its intentions, which would be to have the best instrumentation and the best vocals, though it fails at the latter. But this version does indeed have the best instrumentation, and I often come to love the instrumental versions of my songs over their con palabras counterparts, with the exceptions of "Cold Sunlight" and "Lily White." I had always intended this song to have a dark, industrial edge, creating a "piano-industrial" style uniquely my own. I started achieving that with version 1.0. But, to me, "industrial music" is practically synonymous with "industrial-metal," and if there's no electric guitars, it doesn't quite fit the mold. So when I went through and added electric guitars, among other changes, I took a big step in accomplishing the original song's intentions. I succeeded at making this song (as I have with several other songs since) piano-industrial.
Notably, the track art here isn't from the Human Orchestra series. I just didn't feel any of those characters, their stories, or their pieces quite fit with this song. So I took a look at Cyril's extensive back-catalog of work, and came across two images that might fit. I didn't feel the need to fit the imagery with the existing Snail Tales mythology for the song, so I really just needed something that reflected the song's title. One very appealing image was of a ship following a treasure map across the landscape of a naked woman's body (guess where the treasure was), and the other was this piece, titled, "I Want You To Talk To Me." Since it could be seen that the camelback riders are about to make a descent into the giant ear, I felt this image to be the most appropriate. I was sad to deviate from the Human Orchestra series, but I feel like I made the correct artistic call.
I'd been wanting to take a crack at "Vainglorious Wrath" again since my self-perceived failure in "Inglorious Wrath," an alternate take on the tune that ended up in the limited release Revival and the "anniversary gift" Progress Report - The Anniversary Spin. Although "Inglorious" seemed to be well-received by audiences, I found that I still preferred "Vainglorious" and, to me, that means I failed. In fact, I never feel the urge to listen to "Inglorious." As far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty big red flag that I didn't do something - if anything - right. It would be unfair to say that the song had no lessons to be learned from it, though, and I applied those lessons when I went to work on "Vainglorious" again. This time, I didn't remove any of the piano. Instead, I listened to it intently, rerecording where I felt the timing was off and remastering the rest. I followed suit with the rest of the instrumentation. I changed the drums to give the song a better flow, and I really brought out the bass, while trying not to diminish the treble. I played around with adding more synths, but only one actually stuck. Man, it's a really strange sound that I absolutely love, but I was careful to keep it subtle. Probably the most glaring change in this Alternate Spin is the addition of more electric guitars. It seemed to me that the original guitar solo was rather lonely, and I rerecorded it and changed its levels to try to really make it pop while not making it overwhelming, but it seemed to me that, when all the instruments come together in a fury at the climax, the electric guitar should be right there alongside them. It was a bitch to compose a guitar part for that section of the song, and even more of a bitch to play, but I'm satisfied with what I came up with.
There's some minor changes in the instrumentation where I had the inspiration to try a "what if." A few things were rerecorded simply because I felt that, with more experience, I could accomplish a cleaner sound. And, all in all, I came up with a version of this song that I may actually prefer to the original - at least, I'm so excited by the end result that the original has gone to the back-burner - coincidentally on the day my longest financial supporter, who once said this was her favorite song on The Hypnotic Jamboree, had her birthday. So I released this song as a Patron-reward as a birthday gift to her.
When constructing this EP, I was very tempted to leave this song as a Paton-reward and a rarity. My initial plan had been to construct 5-track EPs leading up to albums, but I already broke that rule with the 7-track Dissonance, and I was too excited about this Alternate Spin to not share it. Hell, I was too eager to share all six of these songs; it was impossible to choose one to leave off. When it came to trying to choose one rarity over another, I decided, to hell with it - which is how this became a 6-track EP.
Now, I'd used this piece by Cyril - "An Outburst of Violince" - before as the cover art for Wax Whimsical, which I'll get to later on. Therefore, it's also used as the track art for the YouTube uploads of "Signor Fancypants" and "Fistfuls of Whimsy," which were first released to Patreon patrons on that demo album. For this release, I almost used it as track art for those two songs again, falling back into the pattern of having the track art reflect the song's origins. When creating the track art for this song, however, I decided that this piece really went with this song - what speaks of wrath more than a violinist using a sword on his instruments? - and that was when I decided that, no matter the song's origin, each tune was going to have a different piece by Cyril attached to it that reflected its name or content. As there's also a lot of violins in this song, I found it doubly fitting, and that was the clincher.
What can I say that's ever bothered me about "The Between" other than the vocals? I'm not talking about the scream-singing. Recording that bit in a single take and being immensely satisfied with it was one of my proudest moments. When attempting vocals-and-verse tunes for Jaded, I was still on (and am still on) a long road of recovery from a period of hospitalization, during which I had ruptured varices in my esophagus, and I have yet to have my once-proud singing voice restored to me. So when I did that bit of screaming, that was a huge accomplishment. However, there's a reason I had sought out guest vocalists for both this song and "Sublime Like Swine," but no one was able to make my self-imposed deadline. So I recorded and rerecorded the more melodic vocal bits for this song over and over again, but I never got it right. I still plan to give it another go, or to (ideally) finally convince Alejandro Saldarriaga Calle to do it for me, for a rerelease of Nyctanthous with alternate versions and B-sides somewhere later on down the road. But for now, whenever I hear "The Between," what I hear most is failure. Not in the latter half of the song, nor any of the instrumentation, but in those "I exist on both sides"s leading up to the screaming. Hell, the "trapped inside a mirror"s sound okay, but that other bit stands out like the audio equivalent of a sore thumb.
So I seek refuge from my failure by listening to the version without any vocals at all, which had until now been reserved as a rarity for Patrons and Leaguers. It's mere existence has been because I believe there are those who appreciate me for (primarily) being a composer of instrumentals, so therefore, those people would appreciate the instrumental versions of my con palabras song more than their counterparts. And when I listen to this version, what I hear is a damn fine composition, a well-constructed piece of industrial-metal. Truth be told, if there were any song I would have chosen to leave off the track listing for this EP, it would be this song, except that it fit the neoclassical/industrial theme of this release too well to leave out, and I felt it had been relegated to being a rarity for too long. I wanted to finally share it with the world, and this release seemed to be the perfect vehicle for doing so.
As for the track art, derived from Cyril's "Defy The Sky," well, it doesn't really take a genius to figure this one out. If the electric-guitar-featuring piece from The Human Orchestra were to be matched to any song on this record, it would have to be the song in which electric guitars play the biggest part, and that would be this one.
"Fistfuls of Whimsy" is a new song, and I think it is one of my finest achievements in a while. I single piano riff that I had in my head started a cascade of ideas once I recorded it and looped it, and I found myself first picking out a melody on a glockenspiel, then as chords on the piano, and then as chords on an electric guitar. A post-metal crunch was introduced to the tune early on, and with a backbone, melody, and instruments creating a framework, the song began to demand bridges and movements, circling occasionally back to that simple, tinkling melody on the glockenspiel. And then things started to get really epic.
After I had laid down some synth tracks, working somewhat retroactively and mostly experimentally, I came up against a wall. And it was a single note, pulsed, on the electric guitar that sent me crashing through and racing toward a climax with stately piano refrains and epically sawed cellos, devolving into a solitary electric guitar floating a cloud of strings which brought the song to a close. When all was done, it ran nearly seven minutes long, and formed a song that sounded like something one of my favorite post-rock bands on Fluttery Records would have come out with. Frankly, I was amazed with myself. Some of the synths still needed ironing out, and it needed an intro (which was a bitch to get right), but overall it was a refreshing and somewhat breathtaking writing and recording process, and I was joyous at the result. And the title came so easily: the glockenspiel made it feel rather whimsical, while the guitars gave it such a hard edge that "Fistfuls of Whimsy" came quite naturally to the rough draft.
This song spurred the creation of Wax Whimsical, a 14-track demo-album that I wanted to use as a vehicle to introduce this and my other new song, "Signor Fancypants," to my Patreon patrons, as well as to demonstrate my abilities in the neoclassical and post-metal genres to prospective labels. So it seemed natural to use the album's cover as track art on this record, but when I decided to use that piece for "Vainglorious Wrath (Alternate Spin)" instead, I found myself feeling an entirely different image would be even more appropriate, being Cyril's "According To My Jealousy," which had just the right amount of humor and bite to it at the same time.
My other newest song, "Signor Fancypants," began as an experiment in layering two tracks of acoustic guitars, which I had never done before, the goal being to seemingly accomplish feats of dexterity that I am not naturally capable of. I found myself coming up with an almost obnoxiously cheerful tune, one that was in serious need of taking a 180 such as in "Wrong Pocket Kinda Day." Layering two electric guitars and a manipulated drum machine produced a deliciously industrial effect, yet as the song progressed, this new industrial-metal aspect did nothing to diminish its cheerful demeanor. Hell, it seemed to amplify it. The song took on a defiant swagger. I decided to roll with it.
A warbling synth and a whistling synth were introduced to the melody, and they modified it in such a way that some of the acoustic guitar was rewritten, which in turn affected the synths in a way that demanded they be rewritten. But that new industrial-metal swagger remained steadfast, and that manipulated drum machine demanded to be used in more and more of the song. Strings were fleshed out and then demanded to be emphasized. As soon as all the components were written, the ways in which to recombine them to achieve the climax were obvious. And the song swaggered to a close, and I was damned if I didn't love the end result. Sure, it's obnoxious. It makes you want to punch it in the face. You hate its cheerfulness and its confidence. But it has some infectious energy and style that cannot be denied. "Mr. Fancypants" just popped into my head when I thought about it like that, and then it seemed like the Italian title would give the right connotation of snootiness. Not that Italians are snooty. Just that the word signor sounds snooty.
When searching for track art for this song, I of course combed through The Human Orchestra first, and almost settled on "The Last Sound From Earth," but its character didn't have the right quality and the piece was too morose. I searched through Cyril's back catalog, hoping to find a jaunty gentleman in coattails, but had no such luck. The piece "Fall, Get Up, and Move" did immediately grab me, but I was set on a particular image in my head. When no such image was forthcoming, I decided to go with my initial instinct, figuring a literally radiant athlete in spandex was also a figure to be jealous of and gave the right connotations.
"Cerebellum" is a song that has never been shared with the public, being a bonus track on the Artist's Edition of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. When creating the public edition, it had really been a toss-up between including it or "Horizons," as the songs have very similar energy, and "Horizons" won out. So I decided to include "Cerebellum" on my next release. The farther I put CBT behind me, though, the more I wanted to make changes to this song, so I started creating this Alternate Spin, concentrating most on the pacing and the drums. I quickened the tempo by a couple beats-per-minute, then began reconstructing each of the three drum tracks throughout, and then found myself adding a drum machine that I manipulated in the style of that industrialized drum machine in "Signor Fancypants." I ended up hacking the existing drum tracks to pieces, cutting and pasting them into something entirely new, all the while accenting them with gentle taps on my manipulated drum machine. But I couldn't stop there. As I was reconstructing the drum tracks, I ended up listening to the instrumentation repeatedly, and I rerecorded and remastered every niggling little detail, and even changed the melody completely in one place, while adding an entirely new instrument in another. In the end, it was almost an entirely new song...but I guess you'll just have to take my word for it, since only my Patreon patrons, with access to the Artist's Editions, will ever actually know.
I had no idea what exactly I was looking for when it came time to select track art, but I looked through The Human Orchestra and this piece, "Feral Strings," immediately grabbed me. By this point, I was figuring that gut instincts, being an artist's best friend, are the way to go, so I went with it. I couldn't really tell you why, just as I can't really tell you why I named the song "Cerebellum," except that I kind of imagine that those strings are attached to the deer's brain; that our harpist is playing the deer's cerebellum through its skull. As for the title, I just kind of felt like the initial composing of this song was a cerebral experience. I have no other word to describe it, and so I went with "Cerebellum."
So now you have a taste of what an Artist's Edition by The Lady anoNYMous is like, though this is an exceptional case, as it is much more intentional and themed, but also it lacks the usual bonus tracks. However, they are all accompanied by a PDF booklet of additional album art with liner notes. But while the Artist's Editions of the full-length albums are offered as free Patron rewards, the EPs are paid for, meaning that if you signed up as a Patreon patron today, you wouldn't be able to retroactively get your hands on the Artist's Edition of Elemental. You would, however, receive an Artist's Edition of the next EP, no matter how much you pledged (you would have pledged toward it, and it'd be yours for that price), and if you pledged $10 toward each new EP up until the release of the next full-length album, you'd be rewarded with the early release of a free Artist's Edition of that album.
And before then, you'd be rewarded with all the other free Patron rewards, such as the Artist's Editions of the past five albums, and compilations such as Wax Whimsical. Speaking of which, if you're a regular reader, you know by now that I usually try to accompany one of these release articles with a full-length preview of a new song. However, I don't have one prepared at the moment, so I thought I'd keep this Patreon theme going by rewarding your readership with a private YouTube embed of the tracklist for Wax Whimsical. Now, Wax Whimsical, like my previous Patreon-exclusive compilation albums and my Artist's Editions, comes with individualized track art and a PDF booklet, but you'll sort of get the idea.
To make a pledge today toward the release of the next EP, please visit The Lady anoNYMous on Patreon and select the rewards package that's right for you!
Elemental has been dedicated to Cyril Rolando, whose artwork continues to be a huge inspiration for me, and whose generosity has been unwavering and has astounded me time and again. I can't express how happy it made me to hear how happy his Artist's Edition of Elemental made him! Please support Cyril as you would me: visit his galleries on DeviantArt, check out his online store, give his Facebook page a Like, subscribe to him on YouTube!
Elemental is now available for streaming on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, MS Groove, and TIDAL. It can be purchased from Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play. And it can be downloaded in a format of your choosing for a discounted price from my Snail Tunes store, where purchases directly support the artist and include unlimited high-quality streaming on your Bandcamp feed and the Bandcamp mobile app (also included).
Thank you all for your support, and your continued interest in my work. May your inner snails be resilient and determined!
UPDATE: Unable to let this Artist's Edition fade into obscurity by only being available to those who pledged toward it, I've now made it available as a Patron reward among the $5-or-more tier of rewards.
Well, now that's out of the way (see the previous article to find out what "that" is), I'd like to take the time to introduce Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the fifth "official" full-length album by The Lady anoNYMous, and to give various updates, including what's currently going on at Patreon and The League of Extraordinary Snails.
The theme of this album, featuring beautiful artwork by (IAM)WARFACE's Matt Warneford (visit http://iamwarface.com for more of Matt's artwork and to order prints; commissions accepted), is training oneself to react differently to one's perceptions. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is currently a popular psychological term and practice, one in which I am actively participating in my own therapy. It seems like a healthy exercise, and it can be applied to most of the songs on this record. It being current and relevant in my life, I figured why the hell not? and named the album after this pop-psychology practice.
It begins with an alternate version of "Recovery" (first published on the EP Interlude), the original writing of which followed a relapse into binge-drinking behavior after two years of sobriety, making this a good place to start for an album revolving around different changing one's responses to outside stimuli. In this case, the response was celebrating two years' sobriety with a drink. In retrospect, that probably wasn't healthy. While I've stated that I don't entirely regret it and I'm holding to it (I think I'm slowly building a healthier relationship with alcohol that doesn't involve daily drinking, day-drinking, or binge drinking and doesn't revolve around abstinence), celebrating sobriety with a drink just seems, well, silly. And I'm just full of silly reactions.
Anyway, there's a synth in this song that I've found I can tweak to make many wonderful, unique sounds, but in the original version I had manipulated it to sound quite similar to how it sounds in the song "Safe in Cars," and also used in the beginning of that song. This synth is actually used throughout the original version of "Recovery," but is so much on the low-end that it can barely be discerned over the song's other instrumentation except as an occasionally distracting hiss. For this Alternate Spin, I went back and tweaked it again until the hissing - which can't be avoided, it's inherent to this particular synth - was less distracting, while also making the sound more apparent throughout the song. There's also some changes in instrumentation, most notably the electronic sawtooth bass, which was overused and not harmonizing well in the original version. The song is also remastered in general, and overall I think this a superior recording.
The album continues with "Roughspun," which was an exercise in a different approach to composing for me, one that was fast-paced and guitar-based. It's a rougher style of music than my usual neoclassical/post-industrial stylings, for which I thought the definition of "unpolished," and "rough and ready" for its title was applicable. And CBT is all about doing things differently.
Instead of going through this album a song-at-a-time, as I was just in danger of doing, I can break down this songs included into four categories: the "best of" my post-Revolutions compositions; alternate versions of post-Revolutions compositions; songs "lost" during the Snail Tunes Spring Cleaning; and new songs. So, to begin with, I included what I felt were my strongest songs from Carnivale, which were "Fervens," "Quiet Holler," and "Safe in Cars"; "Interlude" from Interlude; and "Microcosms," "Roughspun," "Darkest Dreams," and "Mr. Douter (Sin Palabras)" from Dissonance. Yeah, "Darkest Dreams" and "Mr. Douter (Sin Palabras)" aren't actually post-Revolutions compositions; "Darkest Dreams" could fall into the category of those songs lost in the Snail Tunes Spring Cleaning, while "Mr. Douter (Sin Palabras)" is just "Mr. Douter" (from the album Jaded) without the spoken-word track, and was previously exclusively available to Patreon patrons. But this is all just confusing the categories that I just laid out. Moving on...
Aside from the Alternate Spin of "Recovery," I also did one for "Interim" from Dissonance. Really, I just tweaked the electronic bells synth that I used for the main melody and then recorded it an octave higher. That, and I changed some notes for the "theremin" part, and did some general remastering. A new version of "Once More With Feeling" is also included. For this recording, I started completely from scratch, rerecording the guitar part (which stays much the same) and backing it with completely different instrumentation and experimenting with a new drum machine. I fucking love how it turned out. I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I do.
The "lost" songs include "Odd Gastropod" and the Selenophilia version of "The Cloud Walkers," both of which I thought it would be a huge shame to not have on a record after the Snail Tunes Spring Cleaning, and both of which I wanted to include on this record more than the songs that remained from the post-Revolutions releases. "Gastropod," originally from a "non-commercial" EP called Revival, is really just an updated (and, I think, superior) version of "Trip-Hop Thing" from Instrumentality. This recording is different from the one that was on Revival, however. I replaced one of the synths entirely, I rewrote some of the instrumentation at the beginning, and I remastered the song as a whole. The overall effect is a much more polished recording. As for what I'm calling the "Selenophilia Spin" of "The Cloud Walkers"...well, after Occultation (on which the song originally appeared), I kept on listening to the song and finding new ways to tweak it in minor ways - the rerecording of a synth here, the interchanging of acoustic guitar parts there - and at first I thought these changes were so subtle that only I would notice them. But the more I listened to the different versions, the more the overall effect seemed jarringly different to me, and the more I preferred the Selenophilia Spin over the original. As I consider this song to be my magnum opus, I couldn't let my preferred version of it be erased from availability, and so I decided to include it on this album.
New songs include "Whitecaps," "Horizons," and "Dead End." For "Whitecaps," I had a frenetic, bowed bass-line stuck in my head, and when I recorded it, it seemed only fitting that I should be mirrored by some death-metal style electric guitar. With the accompanying piano and strings, however, it's hardly a death-metal song. More orchestral post-metal with electronic, trip-hop elements. It brought to mind turbulent waters when I tried to think of a title for it, and the word-association game led me to "whitecaps." With "Horizons," I wanted to do another light-hearted trip-hop ballad in the vein of "Quiet Holler." I took the same basic elements of twangy acoustic guitar, piano, organ, and strings, and came up with what definitely sounds like a sister to that song. There's another new song that's very much akin to those two called "Cerebellum," but I decided to use it to close the Artist's Edition. "Dead End" - a dark, downtempo, post-industrial tune that slowly builds energy for an electric climax - was originally a bonus track on the Artist's Edition of Dissonance, and is now made publicly available on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Speaking of Artist's Editions... The extended Artist's Edition of this album is now available on both Patreon and MIME! As usual, it features individualized track art and a PDF booklet of album art and liner notes. This edition includes two bonus tracks - the aforementioned "Cerebellum" and a radically different Alternate Spin of "Gravity Bites" (the original of which is on the EP Interlude).
After publishing the Artist's Edition of Patreon, I noticed that my page was in severe need of updating, so I went through and cleared out all the old and irrelevant posts and made several changes to the offered rewards. Sadly, A Waltz for Giger - The Completed Collection and The Occultation Sessions are no longer available. The entire point of Sessions was that it offered altered and remastered versions of songs from non-commercial releases (that are no longer in existence) only available on Occultation. As the versions on Occultation are now the only versions available, Sessions is now completely irrelevant. As for Giger, a decided to opt for offering a rotation selection of rarities instead, of which various versions of "Giger's Lullaby" will be a part of. That selection currently includes the "Step Softly" remix of "A Waltz for Giger," the sin palabras version of "The Between," the Alternate Spin of "Gravity Bites," and "Cerebellum."
Also now available to patrons pledging $1 or more is a mini-album called Embrace, for which I selected three each of the most popular songs from Occultation, Jaded, Revolutions, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (as the Artist's Edition of Instrumentality is available to these patrons, it seemed it would be redundant to include songs from that album). This track list includes, in order: "Reticulated," "Slowly Scooting Closer," "Darkest Dreams," "Simplify," "The Seventh Swan," "Matriculating," "Mr. Douter (Sin Palabras)," "Wrong Pocket Kinda Day," "Revolutions," "The Last Waltz," "The Cloud Walkers (Selenophilia Spin)," and "Cold Sunlight." I didn't put too much consideration into what songs would be included beyond their popularity, which made it extremely simple as to what I would include - popularity was measured in radio rotation and amount of plays on streaming sites, which often coincided. As for the track ordering, I've shuffled these songs so much for various releases that I have great instincts for how to make them flow together, and all in all, this turned out to be a terrific little collection when I gave it a listen. I think it truly exemplifies what the albums have to offer.
I also put together a "best of" Revolutions and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy EP for patrons pledging $5 or more, titled Revolutionary Dissonance. Those patrons already have access to the Artist's Editions of Occultation and Jaded, so I thought I would also give them a taste of the two most recent albums. These songs include, "Matriculating," "Fervens," "Passage Through The Veil," "Darkest Dreams," "A Different Story," "Dead End," and "Solace." Rather than including these songs based on popularity, my choosing was based on my personal favorites and how well they would flow together. Patrons on this tier also have access to the 24-track Patreon-exclusive compilation Vjetor.
The Artist's Edition of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy now accompanies the rewards for patrons pledging $10 or more, which also includes the Artist's Edition of Revolutions and the 22-track Patreon-exclusive compilation Love Letter from a Virgo.
A new arrival to my patron-exclusive downloads, which I actually finished recording while writing this blog post, is this new song, "Fistfuls of Whimsy," which I've decided to share with y'all as a private stream:
And with that, I'll wrap this up with one final announcement: I'm now offering my entire discography at the Snail Tunes store for 50% off! Of course, if you decide to try out membership to The League, you can get most of my discography with support exclusives for $10...just saying.
Well, that's it for now! May your inner snails remain resilient and determined, folken!
I've been having a terrible time at starting this entry. You see, I happened to be oblivious to the recent shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando while I was publishing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on the very same day. When I found out, after the fact, I felt guilty - guilty for avoiding the news and current events as much as I do, guilty for going about my daily life in the wake of this tragedy, guilty for finding out about it through social media, and guilty for releasing an album on the day it occurred and promoting it the following day, when I should have been observing a moment of silence and processing this horrible event. When I did find out about it, I did that horrible thing of trying to put it furthest from my thoughts while continuing about my business, while all my queer family were posting about how upset they were and their reactions to the media's and other people's reactions. I couldn't undo releasing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and I still had an album to promote.
I also didn't know how to post about the massacre without making it all about me. All my friends were full of such righteous anger, and so was I, but it felt seemed so inappropriate to be expressing it on the likes of Facebook. But where and how is one supposed to express such anger? When I think about it, it seems like every outlet is inappropriate in some way, and ultimately hopeless. Someone is going to judge the way you choose to express it, and it's not going to do anything about all the hatred and injustice in the world.
One Facebook post I read quoted that most righteous line of Ani DiFranco's, saying, "silence is violence." So, if I wasn't supposed to be somber and observing a moment of silence, while speaking out seems exploitive and pointless, what was I to do? In the end, I felt I had to do something, as anger was bubbling up inside of me, fueled by the social media posts of others, and the conversations those in my immediate vicinity were having. I heard my parents discussing the most recent posits of the right-wing media, making the massacre into another ISIS terrorist attack instead of a hate crime. I saw the posts of dear friends making this another case for gun-law reform. Other friends were furious that attention was being drawn away from the fact that this was yet another hate crime against the LGBTQ community, while still others were making it an issue of general hatred and violence. I felt myself mostly empathetic with the latter, that this is a crime of hatred of human-against-human, not Islamic hatred for queers. One friend of mine (who, I have to say, I consider to be kind of a nut-job) ranted and raved about how this is evidence for the world that, as a gay man, Muslims want to kill him, and this is why we, as Americans and, more specifically, gay Americans, should hate Muslims. All I can see there is hatred fueling hatred. Fear creating fear. Violence feeding violence. Killing for killing. That painful, endless cycle that just makes me want to shout, "Wake the fuck up!" And, as I saw more and more of this, I felt I had to say something.
It's hard to speak out without making it all about you. It's hard to risk being judged as exploitive. It's hard to know when silence or screaming is appropriate. Every time I've thought about typing the words, "I had the misfortune to release my album on the day of..." I've cringed, because this isn't about my misfortune. My misfortune pales in comparison to the misfortune of those were at Pulse on that terrible night. And I can't take back releasing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy when I did. It's too late, the damage is done, and it's important to not dwell on it, because that is not what matters. What matters is that I do have some feelings to express, and that silence can be just as harmful as acts of violence. What also matters is that it is the fucking duty of artists to provide social commentary, because when you get right down to it, that's what art is. Furthermore, I've made myself into a public figure, and it's the duty of public figures above all others to speak up. So this is how I've decided to express my reactions:
This is my way of acknowledging that, yes, this is another heinous act of violence against queers, motivated by hatred, and all it has accomplished is fueling more hatred. Even now, people are using it justify further acts of violence, notably against the Muslim community. But this isn't about Muslims vs. Gays. This is about hatred fueled by xenophobia fueling more xenophobic hatred. And that's why I've chosen these songs to express how I feel. First, "The Creeps" and "Xenophobia" is about fearing and hating what is strange to you, what you don't understand. Whether you fear Muslims, or you're "tolerant" of gays but don't believe they should have civil rights, or you're a closeted self-hating queer, these songs are about you and the hatred you have or don't admit you have. The next two songs are to put beauty in hatred's place. "Horizons" is an optimistic look toward the future. "Solace" is to offer comfort.
Downloads are free. Share or don't, this music is to do with what you will. It's my voice. It's my way of speaking out. And it's my hope that, in some way, it makes a difference.
Howdy, folken! I'd like to introduce to you Dissonance, a new seven-track, forty minute EP that I've put out in anticipation of my upcoming fifth album.
This release wasn't really planned until a few days before I published it, and at that point it was to be only four tracks. Previously, my plan had been to only put out the two five-track EPs, Carnivale and Interlude, before launching the album, but found myself being very picky in my planning for Album Five, and sitting on enough material for another short release. Dissonance was originally only going to be its first four tracks, but I found myself really wanting to put "Darkest Dreams" on an "official" release. Until this release, it's only been available on the non-commercial album Radiate, which is soon to be removed from the Snail Tunes store (along with all the other non-commercial releases), yet it's been getting a fair amount of radio play on The Shift, and now on various radio stations of the 365 Radio Network (thanks again to Cailin Dana to whom I submitted "Darkest Dreams" for her show, Smoking' Hot Tunes). It only made sense to keep it available for folks to stream and download, now on the various platforms and websites that Dissonance has been distributed to.
Man, the simple act of submitting "Dreams" to Ms. Dana was greeted with an explosion of airplay. I woke up the next day to over twenty Twitter notifications of it being played on metal, rock, and indie subsidiaries of 365 and multiple shows. I was stunned, and it made for a great day. Plus, another event, that I'll get to soon, made that day even more awesome.
Anyway, I'd been preferring "Dreams" to its con palabras (with words) counterpart, "Sublime Like Swine," as of late, even though it often feels naked to me without the vocals. But I've never been incredibly proud of how my vocals turned out on "Swine," and there are often times when I simply prefer the instrumental versions of my songs that include singing. Such is sometimes the case with "Lily White" (even though I'm head-over-heels in love with Alejandro Saldarriaga Calle's voice) and "Mr. Douter" (sometimes I just don't want to hear myself ranting about my ex-husband, and I think that the dark, trip-hop instrumentation on "Douter" is some of my best work). The sin palabras (without words) versions of these two songs have long been available to my Patreon patrons, but I've longed to have them more widely available for a while, and felt that they would perfectly round out this release, and bring the track number to a magical seven. It also makes this one of my most diverse releases; at least, far more diverse than either Carnivale or Interlude.
While the previous two EPs were entirely trip-hop instrumentals with neoclassical and post-metal tendencies, Dissonance is all over the map of alternative sub-genres. It begins with the balladic neoclassical piano stylings of "Microcosms" - a song I feel is my most successful and straightforward work in the neoclassical field since the Alternate Spin of "Winter's Salve" - and immediately launches into a hard-to-define electroacoustic, fast-paced dance track ("Frenzied"). "Interim" treads more familiar territory, being a piano-based post-industrial tune in the tradition of "Jaded," "Dorian," and "A Good Mourning." Then this release radically shifts gears into "Roughspun," an industrial-metal rocker largely inspired by Nine Inch Nails' "Starfuckers, Inc." I wasn't sure I could accomplish a fast-paced tune so reliant on electric guitar being front-and-center, but I believe it turned out to be one of my best and funnest songs to date, and it was a great exercise for my brain to approach songwriting with such different intentions. Piano and strings shows up in that tune just because I felt it necessary to throw in some familiar elements, but I was definitely thinking outside of a box I had erected around myself since writing Revolutions. Much of my goal with Dissonance was to jar my brain into expanding beyond the downtempo trip-hop/post-industrial rut I had been carving for myself. With "Frenzied" and "Roughspun," I think I definitely succeeded.
"Dead End," a song that treads more familiar ground - a trip-hop instrumental with post-metal elements - was reserved for Patrons as a bonus track on the Artist's Edition of Dissonance. But I figured I'd share it in the following exclusive stream with my readers, whom I adore. It's a little more akin to stream-of-consciousness songwriting rather than following traditional song structure - similar to "Reticulated" - but I love it for that, and thoroughly enjoy listening to it.
Still, I'm not sure which of these songs will make it onto the upcoming album - from any of my post-Revolutions releases. There are a few certainties, but as I said before, I'm being very picky, and I decided on another short release while I continue writing songs for this album to allow myself more time and more material to work from. I can at least reveal the title, which will be Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT for short, and, for you dear readers, I'd like to share what else made the day so wonderful that I discovered "Darkest Dreams" being played on multiple radio stations: the cover of CBT. I commissioned Matt Warneford of (IAM)WARFACE, who has been at work on album covers for multiple bands/musicians as of late, to design it, and it took my breath away and made the happiest little bugger in the world!
I simply told him I wanted something that went along with Dissonance (which features "Neuron Spark" by Billy Benavides, a piece I had previously used, in extremely altered form, for the cover of Nefelibata, and felt needed to be on an official release) something to do with the brain, and he created this spot-on, absolutely stunning piece! I can't express in words how much I love it. For those who don't know (though it should be obvious just from seeing this piece), Matt is - on top of being an incredibly talented musician - an amazing artist in the two-dimensional field. You can see more of his work and order prints at the (IAM)WARFACE website.
The wonderful events of receiving this artwork and such a surprising amount of radio exposure happened to coincide with an interview for the Music Manumit podcast that I'd been scheduled for for months. I'm not sure how I feel about the end result, though I was extremely excited for this chance to talk about myself and my music. It began as a fiasco, with difficulty in getting connected through Google Hangouts with the interviewer, Mr. Tom Ray. I was five minutes early by the time I had prepared myself with a cup of coffee (a single cup of which had me wired after abstaining from caffeine for over a month) and had myself situated in my garage with the laptop so I could smoke while being interviewed. I discovered then that I don't get a very good wi-fi signal in the garage since my router died and Time Warner Cable enabled my modem itself to broadcast a wireless bubble. So I wasn't able to connect with Tom on time due to that, and then my browser decided to freeze after relocating myself to the living room. So I had to quit and then restart Safari, which took an absurdly and uncharacteristically long time, and then of course log back into Google Hangouts. Somehow, all of this made me contact Tom thirty-five minutes late. Meanwhile, Tom had been trying to adjust to Google Hangout's not-so-user-friendly new interface, and tried looking up The Lady anoNYMous to contact me, only to find some very bizarre results.
Finally, the interview commenced with me spun out on coffee, mixed with my various medications (propanelol should have assisted in calming my nerves, as should trazodone, but I found myself hyper and having trouble thinking and staying on track), and my voice slightly hoarse from chain-smoking at the time. In theory, this interview should give me a good amount of exposure, but I think all-in-all it was a bit of a disaster. Still, I'm including it here just to document the event, and if you'd like, you can listen to me and Tom talking strip clubs, creative commons licensing, and how one transitions from metal projects to spoken-word theater to composing.
As you can see, it's been a (mostly pleasantly) eventful time for me. I could go on about how the man I was dating has resurfaced with a good excuse for his absence and how that's been going, but (cellist and composer) James Radcliffe has pointed out to me that my blog posts can deviate in too many directions. I feel that my stream-of-consciousness writing is part of the charm of my blog, but I'm not entirely certain; I'd like to hear from my readers on that.
Anyway, I'm currently continuing to write material to choose from for CBT, which will be released sometime (probably early on) in June. In the meantime, you can stream Dissonance on Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, and MS Groove, and/or download it from Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes.
And that's it for me, for now. As always, folken, may your inner snails remain resilient and determined.
My little "vacation" is at an end. So is a new relationship that had picked up steam refreshingly fast and then fizzled without warning, or any sort of notice for that matter. I extended my reach beyond my self-imposed isolation, and had my hand bit. Because people suck. What else is new? I think we all know that upon the friction our adolescences cause with others, and after that we have buffers and filters and we're searching for people who don't hurt us when our buffers and filters are down. My adolescence was prolonged well into my twenties (which I think is fairly common these days) and I was never quite able to master filtering what goes into or out of me. My buffers remain bitchiness or absolute isolation. In short, I'm not an easy person to get to know. Sometimes I'm proud of that. Sometimes I wish I were someone else.
Now I'm left yet again with my music, with work. However, I've learned a few lessons from my hiatus. I don't want to be a workaholic anymore. I want to enjoy making music, rather than having it distilled to "work" and nothing else. I want to continue reaching beyond my isolation...in baby steps. And I've been left with a lot of ideas to implement in the meantime.
First is the short story companion for Nyctanthous, which ideas are starting to warrant a planned series of short stories for that entire EP, with one story per song. Probably written out of order, and who knows if they'll all connect, but I'm stuck on the idea of making stories for that record, which started with an idea for a tale of a supernatural nightclub encounter inspired by "Nyctality." When these stories are finished, I'll probably collect them and rerelease Nyctanthous as a commercial record.
Which brings me to another point: y'all might want to download the non-commercial records from the Snail Tunes store while you can, because I've been itching to do some Spring cleaning. This means that all of the "pay what you will" records are going bye-bye, as the Snail Tunes store will be streamlined into my personal store for the "official" (commercial) records. I will continue undercutting all other online stores, and soon I'll be offering the collected digital discography at a discounted price. Also, I'll still be offering non-commercial "gifts" (such as the Anniversary gifts, Revival and Progress Report - The Anniversary Spin, and holiday gifts such as Yule Tide Carols) from my NoiseTrade page.
Anyway, I haven't started this Spring cleaning process yet. For the time being, you can still download all the non-commercial releases for a price of your choosing. I would recommend grabbing the compilation albums - Instrumental, Nefelibata, Wisps of Reason, and Radiate - while you can. That's the easiest way to collect most of my discography for free...but please, tip what you're able to! I'm going this in large part because I've been offering my music for free for a long time, and have had thousands of copies downloaded without a single tip, and I really want to make a living creating art. Obviously, there's interest in it, but people behave these days like music is owed to them and musicians can afford to give away their art for free. I mostly gave away my art for free for so long because (a) I wanted to generate interest in my work and (b) I've been living in a dream world where people will give what they can to artists when they're able to out of respect. And if I could afford to, I'd continue to give my art away for free. Unfortunately, I can't.
I still want to give out my art, though. I want people to have it and enjoy it, and hopefully it will whet appetites for more, when people can actually afford to pay for it. That's why I'm offering, for a limited time a free download of Carnivale, the first EP previewing the upcoming fifth album. I can't get the embed code to cooperate on this blog post, but head on over to this link for a free download (suggested donation of USD $3).
Now, onto my latest offering:
This record is my come-back from my hiatus, offering new songs with a couple of unreleased older tunes that were polished up to satisfaction after stepping away from them for a few weeks. "That Old Foreboding Feeling" and "Gravity Bites" were built on very similar bass-heavy electric guitar parts in the rhythm section, which was actually recycled for "Primordial Soup" (on the Cold Sunlight single) as well. There are tiny variations, but all three of these songs started from the same place. Interesting that they all turned into such very different songs. It started with "Gravity Bites," (which was originally intended to be on Revolutions) but there were parts of that song that just weren't working for me. I was enamored with the piano-and-strings crescendos in the song, but the melody wasn't working for me while I tried to make it piano-heavy. It wasn't until leaving the melody to the string-trio of cello, viola, and bass, with the addition of my familiar theremin-mimicking synth, that I started to find it quite catching, maybe because it's easy to hum. I also started over on the drum track for this song, using the newer drum machine that I'd employed for "Revolutions," parts of "Primordial Soup" and the Higher Gain mix of "Momentum" (I'm trying not to over-use this drum machine; it screams "electronica" a bit too loudly). The result is upbeat and catchy, with those wonderful crescendos (which had almost spawned a new song entirely) still in place.
While "Primordial Soup" has garnered praise from followers of The Lady on Google Plus and SoundCloud, it's still a very experimental song, and I'm not entirely convinced of it. I love aspects of it, and it's wonderfully successful in some areas (I've never used wordless vocals this much in a song before), but whether or not the present version will make it onto my upcoming fifth album remains to be seen. To give it a listen, refer to the post "A Carnivale in Cold Sunlight."
"That Old Foreboding Feeling" was the song I left off on when I took my break from songwriting. I left it finished, in that it had a beginning, middle, and end, but in dire need of some editing. The song was overly complex. Too many layers at once had left it muddy, so much so that I almost felt that titling this song "Muddy Waters" - a title that went to a song featured on Cold Sunlight - would have been appropriate. Upon returning to work, my first step was to clean this song up with a lot of snipping of the layers here and there, sometimes writing new instrumentation to replace them. Feedback on this song has been rather surprising, proving yet again that I don't always know what my audience wants.
The remaining three songs were written specifically for this release. "Recovery" is meant to express the period in which I transitioned from not working and pushing beyond my comfort zone, to trying to learn from those experiences and settling back into a less extreme version of "word mode." It was the first new song I had written in several weeks. I started with a bass line inspired by the Drams song "Divisions of Labor," but nothing I wrote on my piano was working with it. It took successes in guitar and string parts before my piano and I were back on speaking terms. Truth be told, we're still experiences blocks in our communication, which I guess is why my piano doesn't have such a prominent role on this record. I've had to go back to the lesson I tried to teach myself with the song "Simplify" and re-learn that simple building blocks can result in complex and satisfying arrangements. It's led to these three new songs, all of which I'm very happy with.
"Interlude" was written solely for the purpose of creating a bridge between "That Old Foreboding Feeling" and "Gravity Bites," intended to be a mellow trip-hop experiment in sounds. It's built on three chords, but some frenetic piano work and metal-style electric guitar makes it sound more complex than it actually is, in places. I was so happy with the end result, which wound up being the second-lengthiest song on this record, that I decided to name the EP after it. The title also expresses (y'all know how I love multiple meanings in my titles) the period between publishing Carnivale and working on Interlude, where I had the most adventurous time I've had in my life since moving to the Kansas City area.
Those who've known me longest will recognize a simple but addicting guitar melody that I've been playing since my teens in "Once More with Feeling." I've wanted to, and have even tried a couple of times, to accompany this song with other instrumentation, but nothing's ever come of it before now. Although extremely simple, this is my favorite tune I've written for guitar. It gradually evolves until it gives a sense of urgency, and I've played it to myself during many nights spent alone and contemplative. I had it stuck in my head the day following the completion of "Interlude," and finally had the urge to record it with some beats, strings, and synths. This will probably end up being similar to "Giger's Lullaby" and "They Delving," and will have a few different incarnations. Nothing has sprung up on me yet, but I have the feeling that I may never be quite "done" with this song.
Currently, Interlude can be streamed from YouTube, Spotify, MS Groove, TIDAL, and Apple Music. It can be purchased and downloaded from Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and the Snail Tunes store. Now, I can be almost certain that not all of the songs on Carnivale, Cold Sunlight, and Interlude will be included on the upcoming (as yet untitled) album. I've been writing further new songs to include on this album and have a few thoughts on a new take on some older songs for this outing, so the track list is pretty unpredictable at the moment. I can only say that I'm aiming to release it before the end of this month.
In the meantime, I hope y'all have been having more success than I at opening up to each other and moving through life with more optimism than I have. I'm still seeking out the right "cocktail" of medication, or the right psychiatrist, or both. My approach to life hasn't been working very well. Being so closed off and jaded clearly isn't doing me any favors, and neither has been working with barely any sleep. Interlude is the beginning to a new approach; one that, hopefully, has more balance. Stay tuned for updates.
May all our inner snails remain resilient and determined.
