Couple of things I think are fun here - 
1. I don't ordinarily use echo or delay on anything, but I had a heck of a good time playing around with it on this track. I think the last delay pedal I ever owned was a DD-5, which I loved, but it never got used in live setups so I eventually parted with it. This one comes from a computer, but it's making me consider repurchasing an older DD-5. 
2. The chorus - like maybe the first 7 chords of it and some of that melody over the top are SUPER similar to the Welcome Christmas song from the Grinch. I "wrote" it. Then I realized. Then I talked myself out of it. Then a year passed, and I convinced myself it was okay. Is it? We'll see!

That The Earth Beyond Is Still Moving

It's like a pun, only it isn't funny. Some puns aren't either, I guess.

Perpendicularism

Lesser Visions | Fewer Edits

Parabolic Stroll

I put my doomscrolling on pause and I started reading articles instead. This is one of the most fascinating things I have ever read:
https://www.wired.com/story/oysters-that-knew-what-time-it-was/

Some day, I'll compile all the weird and interesting articles and share them. There's another one about how vibrations are the foundation of consciousness, and one on the history of travelling with cats.

The Clams Knew

Additional articles, as promised:

On spooky smart crows:
https://www.inverse.com/article/46535-how-do-crows-make-tools

On consciousness:
https://theconversation.com/could-consciousness-all-come-down-to-the-way-things-vibrate-103070

On the top 10 Canadian birdsong charts:
https://gizmodo.com/a-viral-new-bird-song-in-canada-is-causing-sparrows-t-1844245103

On the history of the composition notebook:
https://www.format.com/magazine/features/design/who-designed-composition-notebook-history

Penultimate

Arright! Last one off this album. If you haven't snagged already, the full thing is available for free on Bandcamp: https://mayorofdonutville.bandcamp.com/album/perpendicularism

A couple of notes:
This is the track where, when I got done recording, I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "Am I that much of a Monkees fan?" And the answer is yes. I am that much of a Monkees fan. I particularly like Nesmith's writing, but to be honest, the more time goes on, the more I'm totally okay with the whole catalog. Mickey had some pipes, and he wrote at least one banger. Pete had some weird stuff that I can get behind. Davy? Davy? That was the hard sell for me the whole time, but believe it or not, I'm warming to him. If you haven't watched their bizarre Jack Nicholson acid trip movie, Head, I highly recommend it. Yes, you will say "What the heck was that?" when it's over. But you'll have some laughs along the way, and you'll maybe better appreciate how THEY felt about being a fake band. 

Ok. Monkees Rant is complete. 

Next, I need to re-up my apology on being a bad SC friend. I have only been popping on for a few minutes here and there, and when I go to dig in to someone's catalog, I realize how long it's been since I've listened proper. I suck, and I apologize. 

The NEXT PROJECT: Apart from working on some still way overdue collabs (sorry Austin and Micah) I am fully-entrenched in what I consider to be the best thing I have ever worked on. That's the joke, I guess. Whatever I'm working on HAS to be the best thing I've ever worked on, otherwise, why bother? Right? This one, though... It has the heavy guitars. I've been getting a real workout. Like the Wren Hollow project, it's also a selection of very old writings that never got finished, only it lives in a different place from Wren Hollow. It's got the memory interpolation. Really stoked to share. I'm probably gonna drop those tracks on the Mayor profile, and I'm considering dropping a couple early, because I'm just eager to share. Also considered making a whole new profile for it, but I think my memory for accounts is officially at capacity. Recordingwise, I'm at 7/10 complete, 2/10 instrumentally complete, and 1/10 totally not started. You might think it'd be easy to track out older stuff, but I have a fun little thing I do where I record all the instruments in the wrong key TWICE. lol. 

I hope you all are well. Thank you for the support.

Downcast the Clouds

Something kind of pulled from near sleep - an overwhelming revelatory feeling that I'd cracked some universal truth about the strange prevalence of historical stories that include apples, and how certain stories grow and become larger than they ever could have been. I couldn't ever put it into words that made sense, so don't judge. I'm aware it's nonsense, but it was so close to sense when my eyelids were shut and I was about to drift away.

It's all particulate in my head, but a couple weeks after this almost-revelation, a coworker mentioned a hymn she used to sing in public school(!!) called The Lord is Good to Me. She said, "It's the Johnny Appleseed song." 

So while the song was playing, I pulled out my phone and did a little poking around on the internet, and I learned some interesting things. My query was along the lines of "why is there a johnny appleseed hymn?" and I found out that John Chapman was actually sort of a Swedenborgian missionary! You ever heard of Swedenborgianism? This is cool. About a month prior to my universal consciousness moment with the Chapman hymn, I had learned about Emanuel Swedenborg - through Thoreau (whom I love) - through Emerson (with whom I am merely ok). My interest in Emerson is primarily through his connection with Thoreau anyway and while I wouldn't diminish his significance and influence, I just don't care for his writing as much as Thoreau's. Anyway, for a while Emerson corresponded regularly with Thomas Carlyle, but they had a falling out over Emerson's leanings toward mysticism. The source of that mysticism? Emanuel Swedenborg! In fact, Swedenborg was listed in Emerson's "Representative Men" (it's like an archetype piece) as "The Mystic." 

Swedenborg lived a relatively normal life until he was about 50, when he claimed that he had been (this is approximated) contacted by God and was now able to travel at will between earth, heaven and hell. He wrote volumes of spiritual texts after this, and sort of founded Swedenborgianism. I think it's especially interesting, given Christianity's tendencies to commandeer and appropriate outside elements as though to supersede them - that a Swedenborgian hymn is still in the hymn book. 

All of that was an aside...it's doubtful that anyone could find the connections as interesting as I did. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well!

apples

https://mayorofdonutville.bandcamp.com/album/perpendicularism

I remembered recently that part of the reason why I love music is because I'm particularly impatient when it comes to creative endeavors. Guitar originally held me because it's so immediate - hit the strings - make a sound. We have to wait for so many things in life, why would I choose an extracurricular medium that also requires me to wait? Related - album is live - I was going to wait until the end of this week, but then I couldn't remember why. haha

Contemplative Stupor - Free album link in description

I work better on writing individual songs if I'm working toward a larger specific concept. I don't think you could categorize this as a "concept album," per se, but there is a theme that connects all the pieces.

Something I've realized over time is that *the* concept - as vague as it may be - is almost always rooted in a single piece that acts like a key for the larger work. This always feels like a petite breakthrough moment, in a way - having a song that's the embodiment of a direction you want to go. 

For this album, this song is the key. I wanted to work in shifting tempos and time signatures, and to have lyrics that could almost turn back and evaluate themselves...something that balanced my normal cynicism with an openness to the world outside my own experience and understanding.

Snag, if you wish:
https://mayorofdonutville.bandcamp.com/album/perpendicularism

Statues

I really like the second transition in this one. It's got a guitar trick I used to do all the time when I recorded heavier albums. Crunchy rhythm guitars take up a whole lot of bandwidth in the middle of the mix, and to get leads to pop through without cutting anything, I found a funny fix. If you roll the tone off all the way on the lead guitar, run it into a Big Muff (or a Rat), then run that into a wah pedal that's fixed in a pinchy nasal range, and then into an already fuzzy amp, it cuts through like an electrified duck. I love it. First time I did this, I was using a really weird Fender contemporary telecaster that had phase switches for each pickup. It got extra ducky, because I put all three out of phase and then rolled the tone off. This version is just a standard tele, so no hyperduck, but it still gets the job done!

Eyes Hold The Stars

This thing was all sitting as a big side a/side b in my files, so splitting it into tracks was a little trickier on some tracks than others. This was the only really hard call I had to make, because in my head, this was the end of the previous track. Largely inconsequential, right? Right.

Hope you all are doing well!

Incorporeal Moths

Sideproject of Mayor of Donutville that frequently becomes just a part of Mayor of Donutville, making one question the necessity of the distinction in the first place. Eh?

20 years of incomplete songs - also known as "pop music for young me."

Wren Hollow Wrens

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