mirror glitch

The text for this piece comes from a podcast by writer, Ross Sutherland, called “Imaginary Advice.” I first encountered “Imaginary Advice” during the long treks between Baltimore and my parent’s house in North Carolina. I was immediately enthralled by the wit of his stories and the thoughtful way he spoke about art. While I have a deep love for the whole podcast, the episode “Repeat After Me” has captured my imagination since my first listen and serves as the foundation of this work.

This episode is a survey of repetitive artforms. In it, Ross discusses minimalist music, palindromic poetry, Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus,” the “Speech to Song Illusion” discovered by Diana Deutsch in the 90’s, and a myriad of other ways repetition appears in both life and art. What makes “Repeat After Me” especially striking is that Ross filters all these thoughts on repetition through the lens of being worried he’s telling his partner “I love you” too often; that by repeating “I love you,” he will cause those words to become empty, hollow. 

And haven’t we all experienced this feeling? Saying a word so many times, it loses its meaning. Repeating something over and over until it becomes a dull hum, an echo. It’s all too easy to view repetition as a destructive force; a way to erode the value of a thing. What Ross concludes however, and what ultimately inspired me to write this piece, is that repetition doesn’t strip language of meaning. Instead, by repeating the phrase, “I love you” it is transformed into something greater. By repeating, “I love you,” those words have now become song.

Text:
I love you
I love you

But sometimes I worry that I say it too much
I say it when we end a phone call
I say it when we watch the news together
I say it when I feel sad and want to feel better
I say it because of the tiniest pause in our conversation
Immediately those words appear
I can feel them changing shape
Getting smoother
Lighter

Is this a sign of things to come?

Repetition changes things

The first time I told her I loved her
We were walking along a canal together
It was winter
Our hands clasped together in my jacket pocket for warmth
We kissed under the orange glow of the street light
Preserving us like amber
I told her that I loved her
Those words felt like lightning

Things change repetition

Maybe some things need to be weakened
If every time I said, “I love you”
It felt as powerful as the first 
I’d never leave the house
Perhaps those words need to be diluted
Just a little

I’m afraid of saying “I love you” too many times
Of turning into an echo
Like a photocopier running low on ink
That repetition is a sign of weakness 
Instead of strength

Perhaps, instead 
I can start to think of those words becoming music
it has migrated to a different sphere
Those words have now become song

Premiered by:
Bergamot Quartet
Mira Fu-En Huang, S1
Nicole Stover, S2
Shauna Kreidler Michels, A1
Claire Galloway Weber, A2
Cam Falby, T1
Joshua Bornfield, T2
Michael Manganiello, B1
Richard Bell, B2

but sometimes I worry

Sculpting a single, static drone via slider moves on a Buchla 295 Comb Filter.

Drone Sculpting

Play Fields

Live performance recorded at the 1.30.2024 Modbang show @ 4B's in Seattle.

Written and recorded on the Elektron Digitakt
Mastered in Ableton

fluous (Modbang @ 4Bs)

Odesza inspired vocal chops, Jai wolf style 80's atmospheric arrangements and synths, juxtaposed with a fun jazzy/fiery piano and a donk bass. An unlikely combo that somehow works well together as a playful but also heartfelt, fusion sound. Inspired by electronic music and styles of the southwest united states music; we put ourselves into this song and hope we created something enjoyable. Lyrics are about our need for being accepted, as who we are, from those around us; and how lucky we are to have that from each other. About how that authenticity guides us forward and gives us the comfort and confidence to be the best versions of ourselves.

Our process for this song:

Instrumental - John created the instrumental and threw out some ideas for the song to see what sticks. Initially the piano riff was just a midi placeholder melody to explore other instruments. However, Sumi really liked both the piano and the melody. We then worked together to setup a structure and general idea for the core song. Sumi would give ideas like having an 8 chord progression instead of 4, or change the piano in the second verse, and then John would write the arrangement. The rest of the song like drums, snares, synths, sound bursts, impacts, arpeggios, etc. were fleshed out later by John. Synths were created by using vital. The synth was 3 different synths, stereo imaged across different areas of the soundstage. The arpeggio at the end was a modified basic shape in vital with an arpeggio plugin. The note order was automated to change with each chord change. Some additional notes were sprinkled throughout to make it more melodic.

Lyrics and Vocals- Looped sections of the song and Sumi sang ideas. We picked the best ideas and recorded around 15 attempts of each verse and chorus; refining as we go until we felt that we had a good recording of each line. John spliced together the best takes and also cut them up for the rest of the song's vocal chops. We sang some additional backup vocals on a whim and kept the crude recordings as another placeholder but stuck with it to add a low fidelity contrast to the cleaner sounding instruments in the middle of the song. 

Mastering - Is still a work in progress by John but the song is at the point of listen-ability. Just lots of pushing for loudness and cleaning up the mix as more issues present themselves with each boost. -5 LUFS for the original file baby. Pretty proud of that. Totally not worth it though because I can't find video editing software that can handle that level of loudness without completely butchering it in the render. Thanks for sticking around this far and reading all that. 

Photo taken by John.

Samr (سمر) as a name means "gathering of those who spend the evening in pleasant conversation usually with poetry or music” in Arabic. As SAMR Nights we hope our music accompanies you on those pleasant nights.

Single

As Long as You're Mine

TPC 336
Samples Used

Alan Parker-Blue Shadow
ABSOLUTE ELSEWHERE - Earthbound

Love or Insanity

Bobby EP

–•Ω ﹏ Ω •–

collab song with
https://soundcloud.com/harkson

hark x Roopen - You ＆ Me

Girl + Robot - 2011 Remaster

Beatrice speaks with Liz Jackson and Rua Williams about the history and ongoing practice of design objects ostensibly created for accessibility being repurposed into tools of war.

Transcript:
https://www.deathpanel.net/transcripts/wheelchair-to-warfare

Read their article in the New Republic, “How Disabled People Get Exploited to Build the Technology of War,” here:
https://newrepublic.com/article/179391/wheelchair-warfare-pipeline-disability-technology

Find our book Health Communism here: www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism

Find Jules' new book, A Short History of Trans Misogyny, here:
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3054-a-short-history-of-trans-misogyny

Death Panel merch here (patrons get a discount code): www.deathpanel.net/merch

As always, support Death Panel at www.patreon.com/deathpanelpod

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Death Panel "The Wheelchair-to-Warfare Pipeline" w/ Liz Jackson and Rua Williams (04/11/24)

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"The Wheelchair-to-Warfare Pipeline" w/ Liz Jackson and Rua Williams (04/11/24)

Politics, culture, and public policy from the left. Stay alive another week.

w/ Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Artie Vierkant, Phil Rocco, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Abby Cartus. 

https://www.patreon.com/deathpanelpod

"The Wheelchair-to-Warfare Pipeline" w/ Liz Jackson and Rua Williams (04/11/24)

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