in tandem: songs made in reaction to dissociation, discontent, and listlessness

recommended tracks: furry friend, carpet hug, dust floating dust settling, cat nap

a lot of this music was made in my apartment in new york, furiously strumming away on my guitar, piping the audio through at least 10 different chained effects, turning up the stereo volume until it hurt. i felt very out of place and detached from life in this period especially

a lot of these songs ended up being washes of sound or noisy ambient sketches that floated aimlessly. i didn't really want to demand too much attention, rather to sink into it instead. an occasional more structured, conventional song was thrown in here and there too

a lot of the sonic ideas just came from what i happened to be listening to at the time: a lot of noisy rock/ambient music

more specifically, i remember listening to fennesz, picnic, kali malone, drumloop, 7038634357, and tim hecker

a recurring theme that unknowingly shaped these songs was a desire to distort or morph well-known things beyond recognition. it didn't matter what, practically anything that hit me with emotional affect was fair game. this included:

• my guitar
• old pop vocals
• preset drum kits
• videogame sound effects
• spliced melodies & chords from songs
• youtube videos
• voice memos on my phone
• recordings my bf, friends, and others sent me

the execution of it was rather lackluster, but sometimes i feel i hit onto something. in hindsight it registers as an attempt to orient my changing self in things i found particularly meaningful in years past, portraying it as a summation of experiences. old memories now distorted by nostalgia and years of growth and new odd experiences reaching back to me as i experienced newly-graduated life and came to intensely dislike what i saw

besides that, this was the first attempt at creating a cohesive (well, maybe) project around any of my own music. because i love cds, i decided to create a self-made cd release with bonus songs that i shipped out to friends. i owned pretty much all of the process of creating the whole package, besides the actual printing of the cd booklet. below are the pages in order

while i recognize that this project was very flawed upon looking back, it was a worthwhile experience in that i grew and learned a lot from making it. posting online, spending money on creating the cds, and deliberately sending it to friends (eek! being perceived!) inherently made me consider my own work in many different ways