To be released Aug 2 with the Camembert Electronique label on Bandcamp.

About Real Strange Delusions

Imagine thinking multiple people are playing the role of your friend....

Or that you house has duplicated itself and another you has moved into the other house next door?

This concept album's titles refer to actual conditions that people experience. Some might happen to anyone during a migraine or bad fall, or when exposed to incredible art. Others might arise from halving a brain, temporarily from mysterious causes during adolescence, from having a persuasive partner with a delusion, from watching too much TV, from noticing being surveilled in a world that isn't as it's presented to be ... and so much more.

Each story song has a different protagonist POV singing (me) a dramatic depiction of his or her dreamlike world. Their stream of consciousness fugues are supported by lush rhythmic, electronically produced music taking advantage of modern technology, riffing off sounds like future-synth and adventuring into wilder sonic territories and consciousness vignettes. Elements of industrial, post-romantic, avant-garde soundtrack...

These are portrayals of fictional characters, and some of them are more accomplished singers than others. They're just expressing their subconscious ponderings as they work through their bewilderment. 

As always, Sound Animal music is Experimental. There are elements of ambient and dark ambient, though there's no black and white line drawn here. Some characters wander lost and wistful, wondering, bewildered in a dreamy surreal landscape with quirky, vividly colorful surprises everywhere. One trudges through an emotional storm on a cumulatively reverberating circus merry-go round in Grass is Greener Syndrome. One listens to her other self in the house next door through the pipes in Reduplicative Paramnesia. But they all do their best to adopt gracefully to their unnerving cinematic situations. Respect.
I'm a fiction writer used to empathetically entering the minds of literary characters to dramatize their experiences. These little stories are all inspired by these fascinating psychological delusions, neurological malfunctions, amazing conditions, weird syndromes, little known behaviors, common obsessions. One of the syndromes is named after what an author dramatized: The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. A lugubrious duet between someone's hands who are perpetually fighting references a syndrome named after the film Dr. Strangelove Syndrome.

Some delusions could happen to anyone under normal circumstances, like when a fervent captor begins to favor the captive, called the Lima Delusion. (Assuming holding someone hostage for political reasons is normal for you.) That character's voice, as he urged his captive to show her love for him before he killed her, was inspired by a video of David Bowie imitating various singers, including Tom Waits.

I've known many people with delusions on this list, some closely, and I had one as well. (I’m sure we all feel a large part of the world experience Folie a Beaucoup.) Cheers to individuals who suffer from these beautifully poetic beliefs and behaviors. The characters in the songs are meant to be specific fictional stylized individuals rather than representing the groups. 

We hear people who believe they are turning into animals living in a forest, gently humming together, in Clinical Lycanthropy. And an absurd bouncy version riffing off the easily startled lumberjacks in “The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome,” aah! ahh! ahh!

A man rants to his future afterlife slaves in “Delusions of Immortality”. He could easily be in charge of some global decisions that affect us every day. He could be the one using propaganda and theater to fool the populace into a Folie a Beaucoup. He could be the one watching the "paranoid" man in “Truman Show Delusion.”


Credit: Rosemary Bensko

Real Strange Delusions

Electric guitar, silver flute, electric water bottle, overtone drone vocal, bodhrán. Don't be coy and sweet: walk your mastodon.

Art commissioned from Grimfrost.

Walk Your Mastodon

Dystopian transhumanism.

http://www.droned.eu/ art by Waclaw Traier

Death of Ages

Plasma Fields

Double wind wand (similar to a bull roarer) and penny whistle.

Whistle the Wind Home

Accompany

By Voicelight

A Life

God loves a sinner
On Valentine's Day
So come on, baby
Let's have another lay

God loves a sinner
On Valentine's Day
So come on, baby,
Say okay

I drew you while you were sleeping
I drew you while you were a cat
I drew you while you were on me
You know God loves that

God loves a sinner
On Valentine's Day
God loves a sinner
Okay?
Baby, okay?

You know God loves
A little this and that
Come on, do a little splat
Ha ha ha ha
God loves a sinner
God loves that.
God loves that

Let me draw you again
Let me draw you in the bin
Let me draw you on the floor
I won't say it, little whore

God loves that
God loves a sinner
On Valentine's Day
God loves a sinner
On Valentine's Day
credits

God Loves a Sinner on Valentine's Day

God Loves A Sinner On Valentine's Day

AJ Kaufmann on bass with wah
SA on keyboards, vocals, lyrics, production. 



Alligators in the sewers gonna getcha again
They wantcher money 
Come on and gamble
You know they’re gonna win
Yeah, yeah

Hold onto your honey
The gaters are gonna grab
Gonna grab her and your money
Nab, nab, nab  

Gaters are commin’, 
Gonna gotcha now
Somehow  

Gater's got a suit on
Dandied up
Gater’s got a getcha on
Better wash up
Uhuhuhuh

Gater's gonna getcha
Gonna getcha good
Gaters’d getcha
If they only could
Again and again
Oh no

Bonkers at the end

Run Play Now

Gaters in the Sewers Gonna Getcha Again

Sound Animal X A.J. Kaufmann - Gaters in the Sewers Gonna Getcha Again

A.J. Kaufmann on guitar
SA on drums, keyboards, production

Glory Storm

Sound Animal X A.J. Kaufmann - - Glory Storm

The armada has come together and apart, flying, swimming, stuck in the ice, breaking the ice, made of ice. The wind is brisk on the cheeks. The man is dead at the helm.


SA on keyboards synth, production.

The Crystal Galleon

Fleet

A.J. Kaufmann on guitar.
SA on drums, keyboards, production

Outlaw Edge

Sound Animal X A.J. Kaufmann - Outlaw Edge

A.J. Kaufmann on guitar
SA on drums, bass, keyboards, production

Back Room

Sound Animal X A.J. Kaufmann - Back Room

A.J. Kaufmann on guitar. 
SA on drums, melodica, slide whistles, penny whistle, harmonica, voice, lyrics, production.

I like you a lot I like you I like you I like you lots I like you a lot I like you lots I like you a lot. Haha ahhh haha ahha I like you Ah haha Ah Yes I do like you a lot I like you a lot We’re kindred spirits you and I We’re kindred spirits you and I I like you a lot You and I Look at you all the way over there Look at you everywhere I like you very very much very much Like

Paradise Birds

Sound Animal X A. J. Kaufmann - Paradise Birds

The exploding head syndrome is said to affect around 10 percent of the population. Non-existent explosions are seen and heard. Sometimes voices and other sounds are hallucinated briefly.

Lyrics

(Be my baby)
The exploding head syndrome
(Be my baby)
The exploding head syndrome
The exploding head
Explode head
Told ya so 
Right? Right. Right. Right.
Pew!

Exploding Head Syndrome

Capgras Delusion is a psychiatric disorder of identification, in which the person believes someone close to him has been replaced by an imposter.

It can be brief, intense, or long-lasting. 

Sometimes they believe time has been manipulated. 

It seems to arise from structural damage to brain, such as the frontal lobe, which affects the sense of familiarity, and right hemisphere issues affecting recognizing someone by sight. (Why only people, I don't know.)

It may come about due to schizophrenia, brain trauma, dementia, neurodegenerative disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and migraine attacks. 

Fascinating: "Further clues to the possible causes of the Capgras delusion were suggested by the study of brain-injured patients who had developed prosopagnosia. In this condition, patients are unable to recognize faces consciously, despite being able to recognize other types of visual objects. However, a 1984 study by Bauer showed that even though conscious face recognition was impaired, patients with the condition showed autonomic arousal (measured by a galvanic skin response measure) to familiar faces,[18] suggesting that there are two pathways to face recognition—one conscious and one unconscious." Wikipedia

Lyrics

Who are you? 
You're not you.
Let me check your fingerprints again.
Who are you? 
You're not who you say you are.
You're not who you used to be.
You're an imposter, 
Aren't you, aren't you, again?

Capgras Delusion

The Fregoli Delusion is the belief that multiple people are all the same person wearing disguises or changing appearance.

The syndrome may be related to a brain lesion. 

A person suffering from the Fregoli delusion may misremember locations, things, and situations.  Any face at all resembling someone the patient knows, the patient may impose it.

Similar to Capgras delusion, it seems to be a physical problem with facial perception at the core. 

Lyrics

Who.
Why are you everyone around me?
Why are you everyone today?
You are him. 
You are her.
Put your mask away.
I don't want to play.
Hey, not today.

Fregoli Delusion

The Fregoli Delusion

Folie a Deux consists of two people who share a delusion. One person begins it and it becomes "contagious" as the other person is persuaded to take part in the fantasy and believe it. Common with people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and their partners.

Lyrics

We live in the sea together you and I.
We live in the sea together you and I.
We couldn't live on land if we tried.
If we tried we would die.

You and I and I and you and I and you and I.

Folie a Deux

Folie A Deux

The Jumping Frenchmen of Main Condition is named after a small number of 19th-century lumberjacks who developed an exaggerated startle reflex causing them to jump, and there was also yelling, dropping, throwing, and hitting involved.

People with this condition repeat vocalizations and movements made by other people.

They were ticklish and shy.

Lyrics 

Wah! Ah! 
indistinguishable Nah! 
Parlez vous Francais? Parlez vous Francais?
Ah na! Wah! Ah! Yeah! Ha!
Parlez vous Francais? Parlez vous Francais?
indistinguishable brbrrbrrbrr
Parlez vous Francais? Parlez vous Francais?
indistinguishable Ah! hahaha! Ah!
Trees! Trees! Ah! Trees, trees, trees
indistinguishable hahahaha!
Ah! indistinguishable Argh
Trees!, trees, trees trees trees 
Trees trees trees trees trees
Trees Trees Trees
Ah! Brah! Ahbuh! Grrrrrrah! Rauh rauh 
ARggggggg, lesgrrooooo
Rllllllllll Rbrbrbrbrbrbrbrb Arrggggggggggle
Argggggrrr!
Bllllllllggggggrrrr
Fulcibible Auuuuuggggggghhhh

Jumping Frenchmen of Main Condition

Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Condition

Stendhal syndrome is becoming overcome by awe for beauty they admire, such as art of historical importance, to the point of perhaps fainting, fast heart rate, bewilderment, and even hallucinations.

It was named after French author Stendhal because of his 1817 visit to Florence, detailed in the book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. At the Basilica of Santa Croce he described being in sublime beauty, celestial sensations, hearing everything deeply so that much it affected his body. 

I'd certainly like to think most people have glimpsed this state. I mean, what about a Rothko?

Lyrics

Ah! Look at that! 
Look at that!
Ah! Oh! Oh ah! 
Ooo! Ooooo! Oooooahhh!
I'm overcome, oh. Overcome.
Oh!

Stendhal Syndrome

(what is real? what is real, what … is real, what is wrong, what is real, what is real, what is real, what is is wrong?...) 

I want to die while I’m in my prime 
And not be taken by Mr. Evil. 

Goin’ outside for a little wonder 
Don’t think I’ll live to be a hunderd.
 But I don’t care
No one will 
Still be real by that time
I want to die while I’m in my prime
And not be taken by Mr. Evil
Yeah, there ya go. 

Goin’ outside for an over-under 
Before the world is ripped asunder  
But I don’t care; no one will 
Be able to feel; it’s a crime! 
I want to live while I’m feeling fine, 
And be gone before I’m unreal. 

Going outside for a little blunder 
Might as well take a little plunder. 
But I don’t care, i hope I get killed 
Be able to die on the hill I climb 
You won’t find me about to whine 
That I’m getting under-tilled. 

This whole world is all inside 
Everyone is trying to hide. 
Mr. Evil don’t care; he’s got nano gel. 
You know he is coming after 
Us all with Digital ID disaster, 
Take our avatars to virtual hell.

(want to stay real, real,  real, really, really real)


(what is real? what is real, what … is real, what is wrong, what is real, what is real, what is real, what is is wrong?...) 

I want to die while I’m in my prime 
And not be taken by Mr. Evil. 

Goin’ outside for a little wonder 
Don’t think I’ll live to be a hunderd.
 But I don’t care
No one will 
Still be real by that time
I want to die while I’m in my prime
And not be taken by Mr. Evil
Yeah, there ya go. 

Goin’ outside for an over-under 
Before the world is ripped asunder  
But I don’t care; no one will 
Be able to feel; it’s a crime! 
I want to live while I’m feeling fine, 
And be gone before I’m unreal. 

Going outside for a little blunder 
Might as well take a little plunder. 
But I don’t care, i hope I get killed 
Be able to die on the hill I climb 
You won’t find me about to whine 
That I’m getting under-tilled. 
This whole world is all inside 
Everyone is trying to hide. 
Mr. Evil don’t care; he’s got nano gel. 
You know he is coming after 
Us all with Digital ID disaster, 
Take our avatars to virtual hell.

(want to stay real, real,  real, really, really real)

  (want to stay real, want to stay real, real, real,) 

Really, really really real. 

Really, really really real.


Many people are concerned about the ongoing biodigital transhumanist agenda and thus may appreciate the metaphoric concept of this song. 

While some of the basic lyrics are sung, most are spoken, because it's basically a Trap song. Trap music has a specific drum beat, and it's about Trap Houses, in which denizens are stuck there, unable to work any longer or maintain a normal life, desperately addicted to the street drugs sold to them by the criminals who feed off them for profit, becoming wealthy themselves. 

The addicts living there, and visiting to purchase, very often become criminals themselves in order to pay for the drugs, and this many times involves gang murders. 

Other than living in a neighborhood that surely has some of those, I've never been associated with anything like that in a literal sense. I do feel compassion for people who have been deluded by such places (including musicians such as Paul Kossoff.)

My vision for this song and other Trap music is that we are all forcibly stuck all in a kind of Trap House in our current society. The criminals are corporations such as BlackRock and Vanguard, oligarchs, global elites, Big Pharma, the WHO, and so on, who are destroying the harmonious planet, our natural bodies and innocent ways of life. Constantly mandating more control, surveillance, propaganda. Turning everything into a fake pixilated version. 

This song is an expression of what it's like emotionally for many of us to struggle inside that situation. Determined to stay whole as we were originally created, even if that means the wish to die when it's time, in order to maintain our principles and integrity.

Glitch in the Dominatrix

Wish To Stay Real

Oh My Flower

Midnight Plans

Hisssstory, you'll do what I say to do.
Hisssstory, you'll be what I say.
Hisssstory will come true today.

Pet me. Pet me. Pet me. 
Pet me now.
Pet me now, pet me now.
Pet me now, history.
History. Hisssstory.
Pet me. Pet me. 
Pet me pet me pet me pet me pet me pet me.
Now. 
Raow. Raow, Raow. Raow.

Ah! Ahahaha! Ah!

Transformed History

Unravelling After Work

After Work Unravelling

As with all the songs in this album, the spoken voice snippets are public domain.

Who Is

As with all the songs in this album, the spoken voice snippets are public domain. Cheers to Mrs. Magillacutty!

Can I Get You

Music To The Matrix

What can I get you, sir?
Can I get you, sir?
Get you, sir?
What can I get you, sir?
Can I get you sir?
Get you sir?
Get you.
Get you.
Get you, sir. 
What can I get you, sir?
What can I get you?
Can you.
Get you. Sir.
Get you, sir. 
Get you.
Get you.
Get you.
Get you, sir.
Get you, sir.
You won't know what's coming.
You won't know where you've been.
Like you ever knew before.

As with all the songs in the album, other that my voice, the speaking snippets are public domain.

Glitch In The Dominatrix

What we have here is a case of the subconscious.
I believe there’s a subconscious at work,
Taking it down into a kind of cellar of our being.
Storm cellar, mind you.
With lots of strange pickled things in old jars
On the shelves covered with spiderwebs.

There’s a ladder that goes down to the storm cellar
Of the subconscious.
Sometimes we forget where we put the ladder.
But it’s pretty sturdy and it’s pretty interesting
To go down there and see if you can live out 
A whole storm there. You know, sometimes storms
Go for days. Could you live in your subconscious
For three or four days? -- that’s the question. 

How well... stocked is your subconscious cellar
With stuff that you really like, I mean…
Cause how much pickled stuff do you really want to eat
For days at a time. You know, 
It puts your teeth on edge, honestly.

Do you want your teeth on edge when you’re living 
In your subconscious for days at a time? 
I don’t, anyway.

Oh well. If your subconscious storm cellar is not…
Not well stocked, well, I guess you’ll just die. 
I mean, some people can live without eating
For a pretty long time, so you might be all right.
As long as you don’t have to die eating nothing
But pickled stuff.
I mean, who wants to die eating nothing but pickled stuff. 
Would you rather stay alive?
Or eat nothing but pickled stuff. 
I guess you could survive on nothing but pickled stuff
If you like surviving on nothing but pickled stuff 
For days
In the subconscious cellar.

As with all the songs in this album, other than my own, the spoken voices are public domain.

Subconscious Cellar

Oh no not again.

As with all the songs in this album, the spoken voice snippets are public domain.

Caught

Doppleganger. I don't smile if you point a camera toward me.

Doppleganger

Cat In The Matrix

As with all the songs in this album, the spoken voices are public domain.

Glitch In The Cat

Oh Go On

When you look into the mirror
And it ain't right
What do you tell your reflection to do?
Get used to it. 
That's how it is.

When you see your reflection 
And it's just not right.
What do you tell it
With all your might?
Get used to it. 
Get used to it.
That's how it is.
Get used to it.
That's how it is.

Get Used To It

Ah, ooh, ah. Ahhh ah. Aha. Mmmah.
When you haven't put your head on
And your head is a hand
What do you say
To the dominatrix when she demands:
"What say you? What say?
"What say you? What say?"

Hayabbobblebalbablahoou wowanuanaaaanuanah
Whatsayuahauah

What say you? What say?
What say you? What say?

Habohobnobbleah Vahhh

What Say?

What does the abyss say to you?
Do you even know?
You know you know.
I know you care.
Do I care if you care?
You'll have to find out.

You'll have to come begging
To me on your knees to see
Oh, I see you care.
Oh, I see you care a lot.
Quite a lot indeed.
I see you care very, very much.
The message is:
Cheek cheek cheek cheek cheek cheek
Cheek cheek cheek cheek cheek cheek.
(Um um)
Cheek check cheek cheek cheek
(What are you looking for in there?)
Cheek cheek cheek cheek cheek cheek
(Feeling totally what you're doing now.)

Message From The Abyss

Experimental music that ranges feral beyond human constraints. 

The music covers a lot of non-genres. Multiple resonances include Dark/Ambient, Psych, Doom, Drone, Noise Rock, Kosmische, EDM, Trapwave, and Romantic Era and Post-Romantic, with special nods to the bands Swans, Earth, Caspar Brotzman Massaker. Dystopian Inspirational for noble outlaws.

Electric guitar, bass, drum kit, lap steel slide and electrified dulcimers played with a violin bow, bodhrán, Peruvian triangle drum, snare drum, silver flute, double shepherd's flute, regular duclimers, spring reverb tank, suling, jaw harp, pungi, khaen, melodica, harmonica, broken cymbal, double wind wand, recorder, boatswain's pipe, penny whistle, slide whistle, MIDI controller to trigger computer's internal synth, voice, found objects, electric tennis racket...

Labels: Kryrart Ambient, Kryrart Records, Camembert Electrique, Cousin Silas Emporium, Dark Stereo, Sounds for the Soul Records.

My name is Rosemary Bensko, and SA is my artist name. While most songs are just me, and I do all the production, when other contributors are involved, they become part of the band for those songs.

Collaborators who contribute a stem to a track or were involved in a jam are always credited: XAW, Igor Iofe, Chris Nolte,Tom McCarthy of TM's Sundae Sauce, Steve Gilmartin, Psychedelic Mayhem, The Fall of Saigon, A.J. Kaufmann, with remixes by The Infinite Wimshurst. There are also joint ventures and SA playing and singing on other people's music.

Lots of music here you won't find elsewhere. Smaller amount is also on Bandcamp, Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, Last.fm, Instagram.

Sound Animal

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