Friday, November 8, 2013

demo #27: nothing to say

this is really the only thing that's quite like this in my discography, partly because the synthesizer is a tool that wasn't fully available to me at the age that i would have written more upbeat psychedelic pop songs like this (15-17). by the time i had really secured access to a synth i could use on my own terms, i had defaulted fairly heavily to a type of structured synth pop - and i then grew out of pop altogether rather quickly.

this is also the absolutely last thing that i recorded before i lost my studio for the first time due to moving across the city. specifically, the drums were sold (i was given a drum machine as a replacement, which worked out just fine) and the 4-track i was using went back to my dad's friend, who owned it. i ended up getting a 4-track for christmas, and a synth for my birthday. i spent the next six months refocusing in various ways, and honing in on a more electronic sound.

i think i needed that time, and this song (along with the few before it) are evidence of that. the music was tightening up, but i was getting a little bored with the topics i was exploring.

so, this closes this introductory experimental/learning phase of my musical career.

the explanation of this functions on two levels. i knew this was the end (for the foreseeable future) as i was recording it, so it's written as a reflection. maybe it's true that i didn't really have anything worthwhile to say...

however, the lyrics are all restatements of things that i heard other people around me say at school. i'm reflecting equally on the irrelevance of daily conversation, and suggesting that if this is what we're wasting our time doing then maybe we should all just give up and go home. so, it's a little tongue-in-cheek at the same time as it's not. as always...

musically, this is one of the more developed pieces in the early demos - it's the second keyboard driven vocal track i did, and required sneaking into my sister's room to record the parts. i think there's something forward-thinking about it as it kind of foreshadows a strain of indie/psych/punk/pop that was popular in the mid 00s. but, i'm honestly not sure what i was drawing on. like i say, it sort of stands out...

recorded in may, 1997. remastered on nov 8, 2013.