Just Another Snake Cult

So the EP might be becoming a full-length and I’m working on it more.

For now, download the first single from the upcoming album:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tyuiim2eebm

Or if you’re in a nordic country, you can get it on gogoyoko as well.
http://www.gogoyoko.com/album/Heavensent__bw_Dionysian_Season/

Yesterday I recorded a song in the style of something I might have tried to write in high school, which is when I got into a phase that lasted a long time of listening to way too much Magnetic Fields, oldies, and oldies-influenced bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and early Shins and Of Montreal. Lets hope this is the last self-deprecating love song I ever write. Or, eh, I donno – get a sense of humor.

In high school I also listened to way too much surf rock. And before that, way too much Nirvana. Both of which I still love but contributed to my stinted understanding of arrangement and production. Verse, chorus, verse, maybe a bridge, chorus, chorus. Bascially just two, maybe three, parts; loop it a few times; and you’ve got a song. That’s all I knew, and it’s a box I’ve been trying to break free from since. That’s basically the structure of every Monsters From Mars song I wrote. But in the past years I’ve been influenced by all sorts of more dynamic music – everything from obsessing over Smile-era Beach Boys to playing music with my friends Tyler (James Rabbit) and Dylan (Antarctica Takes It), inspired by their transparently complex and dynamic, yet concisely pop songwriting. For myself atleast, there’s always first this extended phase where all you can do is clumsily emulate aspects of something you appreciate, before it really sinks in and you absorb its essence. I’ve been in that middle period for a long while – it’s taken some time, but I’m feeling myself starting to emerge. A butterfly. A beautiful butterfly.

The nihilist-sunshine-pop EP is sloooowly coming along. I have two or three songs for it pretty much finished, and a couple more I want to see if I can get in shape for it. Rachel just sent me her vocal contributions for one of the songs, and so I’ve put together a rough mix.

Rachel also sent me some back-up vocals to another track, “Heavensent, or A Valkyrie Brings the Seed of Revolution,” that you’ll also be able to hear on the EP. I’ve been thinking the original release of the EP will be available in two mediums – 1) a CD-R with linocut print envelope, and 2) a linocut print poster with download code on the back. I want to try to make the inks out of discarded vegetables, such as beats and red cabbage. I guess more on that as it develops.

In other news I rode my bike out to the music store the other day and rode home with a $65 acoustic guitar, so maybe I’ll play some solo shows soon.

Last year Rachel and I got together during one hectic weekend between her Sleepy Sun obligations with the intention of shooting a Birds Fled From Me music video and recording an EP to go along with it of material she’d been working on since her last album and some older tracks that didn’t yet have proper recordings.

For the music video she chose River Song, which we decided to do a new recording of for the project. We gathered all the materials we needed at thrift stores – costumes, green bedsheet for the greenscreen – and shot it on my digital camera’s video mode. Those files sat on my hard-drive untouched for half a year until I had enough free time to try to learn how to paint and composite it all together. Here’s how it came out:

The video was to give me a chance to improve on techniques I’d started developing during the last Monsters From Mars music video. I wanted further to explore the possibilities of putting real people in fantastical settings – in this case, a children’s book world. If nothing else, it was a great learning experience. I’m looking forward to working on the next one and exploring some new, more ambitious territory.

I won’t go into too much detail about the EP, as I put a lot of time and work into this ultimately stillborn endeavor. You can stream as far as we got with it – an 11-song collection of alternate takes, outtakes, or otherwise unreleased material recorded 2006-2009 – in low quality here for a brief period:

Tracklist:

1. Owl Song (originally a William:Kaiser song?)
2. Release Me (recorded for Spaceman)
3. Staring at the Sea (original demo)
4. River Song (alternate version)
5. Unloved Unhappy
6. Have They Found
7. What You Said When I Was Dreaming
8. Sat There Unknowing
9. Show Me Love
10. Apple Sauce
11. Phantom Hearts

Tracks 1-4,6,10,11 produced by myself; rest by Rachel. Erin Copp plays cello on 2,4. I play any synthesizers, xylophones, melodicas, and harpsichords found on tracks 1,2,4,6.

This just came out of me. Lets hope it’s the last nihilist electro-druid beach-grunge that I record.

I’ve been sitting on this little, somewhat discordant, piano theme that I thought created an interesting mood when played over and over, but didn’t have any idea what to do with it. Doomed to sit in my fragment pile. So today recorded this as an exercise in giving a fragment life.

This is the very first post in my new “Reykjavík Bootleg Series.” I’ve attending shows steadily since arriving and recently find myself having the equipment to make decent quality field recordings. So, it’s time to introduce the world to samples of the more interesting music being performed on this small, mild-weathered, volcanic rock.

If you’ve ever seen the footage of the tsunami as it hit Thailand, then you have an image of what this band delivers. Slowly and steadily, wave by wave, the girth of the ocean encroaches upon the land until you’re hitting the bulk of civilization–its desperate protests ignored and engulphed by what’s no longer a series of waves but rather an unstoppable flow. The land in this case being a desert; the vacationing Swedes, cactii; the spas, Cadillac graveyards.

Introducing to the world, The Heavy Experience. Third and final song of their first ever live performance, 4 mars. 2010 at Sódóma in downtown Reykjavík.

Sódómas overcompensated sound system saw rare good use during this set. You can’t feel it on your home speakers, but this slow meditation did indeed get heavy. While not loud to the point where it sounds indescernably bad and kills your ears (which defeats the whole point of music, duh!), it really hit a sweet spot where I could hear everything, even the sax, and could feel as each wave crashed into me. Also goes to show that the key to intensity is dynamics–a technique I wish were more widely applied.

This week we had a good deal of snowfall.  The streets sheets of white ice.  A good week for sauntering about.

Life is strange.  I was eating some soft vegetable patties and over-boiled potatoes, and something sharp is either lodged in my throat or sliced me up bad going down.  So it’s been an uncomfortable couple days.  But that passes.

I don’t have internet at my place, which is fantastic.  So updated will be much sparser.   There is where I live:

I want to paint the walls, but haven’t gotten around to it.  Not sure what colors.  I’m thinking green for the lower half, a light yellow for the upper half, and leaving the top white.

On Saturdays I’m out at Lækjatorg with Food Not Bombs.  Come by and say hello and partake in the feast – dish after dish of the finest finery.  Or, come by the apartment for tea or pancakes or something.  It’s above Noodle Station on Skólavörðustígur; my doorbell is the orange one.

I’ve been working on more songs, so expect to hear those soon!  I’ve been making lots of banana barley flax pancakes.  I’ve been eating like a king.  I’ve also been making good progress on my music video for Birds Fled From Me, which has also been a crash course in painting.

If anybody here in Reykjavík would like to play music with me, I would love that — Please be in touch.