Live!

The track started out as me fucking about on my guitar with the capo on the second fret. D, Bm, F#. That's all there is to it, really. 

The bass line spices up things a bit, holding on A# for the third bar of the loop, the major third of F# major, thus retroactively making the third chord a weird A#m chord.

The track opens with strings, followed by a piano, setting the scene whilst being caked in distortion, perverting them from what they originally sounded like into something new. The vocals are distorted and indecipherable, becoming more quiet as the mix engulfs them.

Then the song kicks off properly. Almost overloading your sound system. It's dirty and withered. But it's strong and passionate. That continues into the first verse, where it's almost impossible to decipher what's being said, even if you know there are words there. Although there are only bass and drums there, it's very suffocating. Someone's voice is being drowned out by the music that surrounds it. That becomes more apparent in the chorus, hard to hear, easy to feel. The end sounds like a voice is trying to break free of the distortion.

The first break comes in the form of part of the solo, foreshadowing for things to come. Then comes the second verse, the first half of which is the same as the first. The second half is more spacious, the bass disappears and everything feels a lot more free and understandable. Then a second chorus. And then the solo starts for real, gradually making way into this strangely ethereal bridge and then it all comes crashing in for one more reprise of the chorus where that voice from before has come to the surface.

The song ends with another stripped back section, with the same distorted vocals heard in the beginning. Before ending on a D.

Hypnopompic Bardo

Live! (Instrumental)

It's You,

I wanna tell ppl what this song is about, but I also kinda like it when artists leave the meaning up to the audience so I'm going to try and have my cake and eat it too. So that'll be fun.

It's a very personal song. It's about compromise. It's about stubbornness. It's about expectations. It's about freedom. It's about death. It's about rebirth. It's about pride. And it's about shame. It's mostly about me, although it's also about other people who are/were in my life.

I had the first verse written all the way back in Feb 2020. But I laid my version of it to rest as I gave the instrumental to someone else to try and make it their own. They may have done, I don't care, nor do I mind, my music is free for a reason. But as the years came and I came back to this to try and actually finish it, and I did.

It took me a little over 10 months but I turned a one verse 2 minute demo track into the almost 5 minute song that accidentally became the first track I've done vocals for in 4 years. 

It's almost symbolic, considering what the song's about. My first track back in the groove, my first track that I've finished in 4 years, is THIS one.

I'm proud of it. I'm proud of what I'm going to make next. And I'm proud because I made it my way, and it worked.

a one-stop shop for all my audio misadventures.

Live!

The Surreal Lamb Music Box