Approximately 8 or 9 years ago, when I was still primarily recording via 4-track cassette recorder (as I did for 10 years before going digital about 5 years ago), I recorded several songs I had written on acoustic guitar with heavily-effected drum loops and vocal effects, plus a clean electric bass. I wanted to have “decent” recordings of these songs, and I wanted to take a different approach that would give the recordings an interesting style, even if these versions with the described instrumentation may not ultimately be the “final” or “official” studio versions of the songs.
I have often embraced this type of creative approach to writing and recording. There are some differing schools of thought when it comes to this type of thing: Some would say you shouldn’t release a record if you “have to explain it” or “have to make excuses”. While I see the point in such an assertion, this can have the result of preventing interesting creative approaches and ideas from being heard and appreciated.
To be fair, a major reason these recordings have never before been heard outside a group of 3 or 4 people is that there was terrible “tape hiss” throughout the recordings (an unfortunate result of the 4-track cassette method), and this had made them unlistenable. The levels were also a little off. However, I now have the means and know-how to reduce and mostly remove unwanted “tape hiss” noise, and I was also able to adjust EQ levels digitally, substantially bringing up the bass on several of the tracks – so a little bit of the acoustic guitar’s richness can come through and so the song recordings don’t sound too thin.
One funny thing about this album is that I had pretty much forgotten about it until I sat down with my acoustic guitar for the first time in quite a while and decided to play along with some drum loops. I got into it, and started thinking I should record something like this… Then I remembered I had already taken a very similar approach previously. I located the existing rough version of the album, did my magic over the course of a few days, and we now have something that is arguably listenable, if experimental… 🙂
In all seriousness, the album mostly consists of very traditional acoustic guitar pop songs accompanied by weird percussion and vocal effects, so the heart of the music you’ll hear is not really out-of-the-ordinary. It’s just peppered with some pretty hot & tangy seasoning! This could probably be described as “folky indie-rock”, or perhaps “anti-folk”. I like that it provides a sort of stepping stone between the ‘Acousticore’ album (all acoustic guitar and vocals) and the ‘Positivity’ album (full-band, high-quality sound).
The album cover features man-eating African lions.
One more thing about the album and its approach: I approach this as a singer-songwriter, and from a “punk-rock” tradition. I also had a sort of “K Records” mindset toward recording this, with a touch of ‘Surfers and ‘Pumpkins looming as well. The line between “demos” that help to establish a song’s existence and “lo-fi punk or indie-rock” has always been pretty blurry to me. I think lo-fi has its place, and it can be respectable. Such an approach represents an opportunity to create something that is very different from the product of fancier approaches, and sometimes it sounds more “real”. As for what this sounds like, it’s some weird mix of “natural” and “warped distortion”. I hope you enjoy it.
After about 9 years, here it is: ‘We Are Not The Government’.
(The title track, “We Are Not The Government”, is essentially about the frustration of a normal person’s reactions to news regarding war overseas and the way people and the media interact with and affect that situation. It is an interesting anti-war protest song that focuses on the cheap talk surrounding such wars and the common mistake of ordinary people to identify with the government that seeks to wield the military in the peoples’ name, while soldiers and their families and the host countries feel the consequences… Further, there is a strong distinction between The People and The Government, and any attempt to blur the line implies lying, malicious intent. Other individual song descriptions & commentary will follow…)
