Nudge You Alive (2004)
this was first envisioned as a mr. sinister project without tyson. i toyed around with that ethereal female vocal effect on a few songs, but to my surprise it sounded very wrong. maybe that sound only belonged to the brief window in early 2002 in which it barely flourished. this time i was pursuing a different sound—quasi-electronica, but more concentrated on atmosphere than any kind of “hip” factor. this was music with more importance placed on the bass part, to the extent that it sometimes was the first thing i recorded and it dictated where the song went. in any other setting, the bass is pretty much always something i leave until after the guitar or piano has been recorded, working in sort of a lopsided inversion of the standard build-it-from-the-rhythm-section-up method. a new effects processor also played an important role, allowing me to do things with my voice that built-in digital mixer effects wouldn’t allow with any amount of ease, to say nothing of the huge difference in quality.
this was a pretty radical departure for me, because i had been all about keeping things organic for a number of years, and yet here we had the revenge of the synthesizer. only two songs feature live drums and a few brief flashes of guitar; all the other noise came from the neglected yamaha W-5 synth. the music is heavily improvised throughout, though most of the lyrics were written, usually after the music had been recorded. i tried to keep things fairly stark, and i managed to inject some of the weirdness and spontaneity that had been missing from OH YOU THIS, even if the sound quality is a bit inconsistent. surprise, sunrise, turpentine alone kills just about everything on the last album, and the messed up “organ solo” in the middle of the song is one of my finest moments ever. i’ve always had a thing for that song. it seemed like i had tapped into something completely new and exciting for me. overall, i felt this was easily the best thing i’d done since BEAUTIFULLY STUPID, though the two cds don’t have much in common. so, by the inside-out transitive property, everyone else should have hated it. strangely, they didn’t, but tyson initially seemed to like it less than OH YOU THIS; the change in atmosphere was so shocking (at least to him) that he said it made him picture me “in a goth dance club, playing digital folk tunes for vampires”. i kind of like that image.
the lyrics for green ribbon hippopotamus came from my attempt at free association writing, where you just put pen to paper and keep writing without giving any thought to what you’re going to write. i’m not sure it was entirely successful, but the loop still stands as one of the more demented things of its kind i’ve concocted, and the lyrics are pretty fucked up. there are quite a few instrumental tracks here, some of which i tried to sing to, but they seemed to open up and gain something when the words were gone. the best of these songs is probably pictures of lillian, which is a lounge-y, long, winding thing that follows the same unchanging bass line for a little over six minutes, while organ, electric guitar and various synth sounds appear and disappear. it’s all about the groove, and i manage a pretty sexy one-handed drum fill on the snare and toms early on. eggshell embryo, meanwhile, has to be the closest i’ve ever come to something that sounds like proper idm, with reticent not too far behind. saturday night at my favourite dive is probably the catchiest thing on the cd, and merapi used to fill me with a strong desire to shake my ass, which isn’t something any of my music normally does. i think a lot of it was that moment halfway through when the drum loop suddenly gets a lot thicker and basically becomes the lead instrument.
this cd got me some unexpected airplay on CJAM when i decided to give a few cds to some random hosts i didn’t know, and angela desjardins decided she would give it some attention on her show, braille radio. i think she was the only person who gave me any serious airplay back then, when pretty much no one cared about what i was doing and it seemed like i couldn’t even get most people to bother listening to a cd. she also misread the title as “nudge you to death”, which i found an interesting change and subsequently nodded to in “touch me to death” on GROWING SIDEWAYS. i like the spiky-haired guy my sister erin drew for the cover, and this was the first cd of mine that looked something like a proper cd, instead of just a cd-r with my handwriting on it. i was becoming more interested in the visual representation of my noise, and it was surprising to me how easy it was to get things looking borderline professional.
TRACKS:
toss it around
surprise, sunrise, turpentine
reticent
eggshell embryo
pictures of lillian
your purgatory
conversation double
merapi
saturday night at my favourite dive
green ribbon hippopotamus
jumpoff
STUFF TO LISTEN TO:
LYRICS:
TOSS IT AROUND
we walk
like we know where we’re going
we walk
with spring in our step
we walk
like we’re both the same person
we walk
until we collapse
we run
run out of room
run out of words
run out of creative lies
you dress like you’re wrapping a present
you groom like you’re selling a car
you talk to taste the movement of language
hug strangers like you’ve known them forever
where’s the incidental music?
what about glossy repartee?
when we meet, there are supposed to be fireworks
not bloodshot eyes & dry, cracked leaves
i can’t stand the sound of a rake
scraping across sidewalk
SURPRISE, SUNRISE, TURPENTINE
(pick up…
pick up…
i won’t leave a message…
i won’t leave a message…)
use big words
polysyllabic words
they make you sound poetic
even if you don’t know what they mean
i tend to be a bit more blunt
i use four-letter words
why say it with flowers
when you can say it with a knife?
you know, what i’m about to tell you—
it isn’t nice at all
i don’t mince words, & neither should you
but some habits are hard to kill
we all want someone
to hold our hair when we puke
the hands are too feeble
surprise
sunrise
turpentine
don’t wear your heart on your sleeve;
keep it in your sock
twirl your hair around your fingers
twirl it into a knot
a clever invitation
or more of the same
your face is every face
every face is yours
RETICENT
i licked your ass together
i pulled your eyes apart
there was a celebration
drugs were circulating
we smoke some marijuana
we smoked some pcp
we spun around in circles
until our heads exploded
are there bullets in the gun?
you bet your ass there are
are you having a good time?
no?
jump up & down really fast
faster
fast as you can
eyes of coal & a mouth like a throbbing scab
you shouldn’t say things you can’t take back
you shouldn’t fuck with the mind of a martyr
satyr
always shooting the mouth off
like a diseased parrot on crystal meth
the body wastes away until it becomes “beautiful”
a group of homeless children join hands
& start screaming about the rising gas prices
one girl, about seven years old, splits my head open with a tire iron
i laugh while my brains leak out onto the ground
she’ll make a fine mother someday
CONVERSATION DOUBLE
some people will ask you a question
ignore your answer
& then repeat the question
you’ll dream of disappearing people
head-juice tailspin
jumping to hang yourself
but you never die
some things you just don’t say
unless you’re an ingénue
you buy yourself time
with counterfeit money
& it’s good time
it does what you want it to do
hangs around just long enough to hold your interest
you should fill it with something
SATURDAY NIGHT AT MY FAVOURITE DIVE
there’s a certain smile that makes the face appear frozen
you’ll uncover the cracks—all the little imperfections
some consider them charming
but you feel let down
wrap your arms around yourself
find a loophole in the law of diminishing returns
you don’t love anything
you say you do
you say you do
you just take anything available to you
& fuck with it
fuck it up
you took your horseshit lingo to a less oppressive place
they took your coat at the door
you were cold, but you wanted to be
it’s the best way to play pool with yourself
JUMPOFF
satan likes you soft & young
so sayeth the snag
sweeter than a porcupine
any sound could wake her up
hold your breath & think of something to say
bare feet tend to stick to the floor
volume is always an issue
the last time i jumped off of my roof
i only broke a nail
the things i do, i do for myself
they’ll sell you a new face—
one that pouts more effectively…
