This song-cycle (or tone poem or demo) started as a unattainable sound I kept imagining about 7 years ago on a trip with some friends to the West Coast to fill-in as a guitarist for Subservient Fuck. We had long drives and two shows a day blasting ourselves with 10 minutes of unprotected feedback soaked hardcore at a time. The tour ended with me feeling unable to go home, and in a dissociative state staying at Sterling’s house, whom I’m sure was just as confused as I. I spent a couple of days just walking around Austin spiraling and finally took a megabus home. 

As someone who is happiest when learning something new, I dove all the way into whatever music made me wince, and fell in love with the cognitive dissonance that happens when something takes time to come into focus. The results should be apparent here. Gloria Coates broke my brain wide open with compositional and tonal possibilities. After discovering her, I gleamed more inspiration from and adoration for the music of Ellen Arkbro, Martha Forsberg, Kali Malone, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Caroline Shaw, and so many more. (largely by way of the “Meet the Composer” podcast by the amazing viola player, Nadia Sirota and the Big Ears Festival, where I was able to hear and meet some heroes of mine, in a non-pretentious setting in Knoxville.

Besides these influences, there’s clear usage of Heavy Metal. Those who know me know exactly where that part comes from. I’ve always loved extreme music, and metal keeps making people more and more immune to extreme sounds. The logical conclusion here has already been found and is having it’s boundary shown by The Body, Pissgrave, Corrupted, etc. The most interesting thing to do there is clear, it’ll be a lot more transgressive and extreme if you try to tenderize some parts. Metal has a bad history of misogyny, racism, etc. and needs to be constantly reinvented. Besides, as Thor Harris said one time on Instagram, “Metal is Always Funny.”

   The songs together attempt a structure like Death and Transfiguration, but tries to evoke an ego-death rather than literal death, which the male western cannon, like me, has already ruined. Or maybe trying to find an answer to the violence of the music I love, instead of just noting it. I hope this makes an attempt at an answer, instead of just violence without context or respite.

At a moment when I saw the bottomless nature of the project, I had a panic. Sarah and Ben and Bill helped pick me up enough to finish this. Thank you, so much.