Lost Sessions is Tired of Dreaming’s first release since 2009’s Three Pass System. One of the reasons there’s been such a lag in released material is that I lost a lot of recordings when a computer went kaput. This is also why I have a number of my personal releases with “(Lost Session)” in the title as a marker. Unfortunately, Tired of Dreaming had material that was not spared from this fate. But three of ToD’s songs were in good enough condition for release… down in California… on a CD-R. CD-R’s often acquire scratches, so I was a little worried until I had it in hand!

Luckily, it was in perfect shape. We added one more song (A Wasted Life), and there you have it: our Lost Sessions EP. Take a listen! :D

This album can be downloaded for free on Bandcamp. It is also available on iTunes and Spotify!

-Brian

THE MUSIC

This song is definitely one of my more experimental ones (thus far), and I’m not so sure it’s for everyone. The lyrics sat in a notebook for years, waiting to be put to music, and the original concept, which can be heard in the song’s beginning moments, waited in my head. The time eventually arrived where Isabelle NEEDED to be explored. So that’s what happened. It was supposed to be a fairly easy song to record, but like so many of the “easy” ones, it spiraled into a monster. It took a lot of time. It took a lot of time, AND I don’t think many people will enjoy it that much… but I’m proud of it. :)

Also, this song is the recording premier of The Doctor, a guitar given to me by my good friend, Alice.

THE ART

The artwork goes back many years (~2003?). In fact, it was my first attempt at painting. It’s drab; a perfect cover for Isabelle.

THE ART
I’ve always been fascinated with special effects in films. One of the greatest techniques that’s ever been used is to simply make a model, and that’s exactly what I decided to do for the cover of this single. I went to my local Home Depot, kinda-sorta pieced something together on the spot, came home, and made it happen. Some pictures of my prop robot coming together follow.

The Start! Coffee included!

Springy feet!

Arms!

Head!

Tanning!

Tanned!

Hanging out!!

BZZT? BZZT?

Photo shoot!

Annnd… the final product!

THE NAME
The name I chose for this one is Alien Robotics… Or Robotic Aliens (abbreviated, ARORA sounds better than RAOAR). I always enjoy naming instrumentals, because the simplicity of a name can say so much, much like a sutra. As for the meaning behind the name, I’d like to leave it pretty open to interpretation. But the one thing I will say is that I’m often interested in concepts that are widely discussed but never defined by consensus. Some examples would be God, love, and consciousness.

THE MUSIC

The music for this one is definitely more experimental. And I can’t say I’m really that surprised given how it was recorded. The summer of 2005 would find me in a hotel room in Lake Oswego, OR, for three days. I was determined to record an entire album’s worth of material in my time there. The drapes were closed, the lights were off, the A/C was blasting, and I was coming down with a serious case of cabin fever from a small room and the claustrophobia of headphones. The results sounded like someone losing their mind. Most of this song was recorded in that 3-day binge, but I did add some guitar, a touch of theremin, and some sound effects afterwards. The end result, in my opinion, is a track that is intense but somehow manages to have a quirky sense of humor. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it makes you dance like a robot.

My music can be found for free on Spotify and right here. It’s also available on iTunes.

The Artwork:

That picture is of me. At age 6, I believe. I really haven’t changed that much in the past 24 years… or maybe I’ve come full circle… either way, I’m thrilled to have it as the artwork for Unstoppable. As for the censored eyes, that is a nod to the artwork for the international version of AC/DC’s legendary, 1976 album, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. I was a HUGE AC/DC fan in my youth, and that album cover has always stuck with me. In fact, you can hear some of Angus Young’s influence in my lead work throughout Unstoppable, which brings me to…

The Music:

While Angus Young’s influence can be felt in the song’s lead work, I was probably channeling NeilYoung more than anyone throughout the writing/recording process, as I was trying to combine rock with some more folk-like influences.

The only other interesting thing I can think to say about Unstoppable is that it took an incredibly long time to get from conception to final product (about a year!). It was originally put together for possible placement in a TV show (that will remain nameless), but I got extremely sick during the recording phase, and couldn’t make the deadline. Turns out the sickness was actually an allergic reaction to a new laundry detergent… of all things. Anyways, I decided after this song to start shying away from licensing music. It’s not that I won’t do it if a song is already recorded, but when I’m writing for other people/shows/podcasts/whatever, things seem to get bogged down more often than not. And I’m much, much happier now that I’m recording whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like. All that being said, I’m extremely pleased with this song, and I hope you enjoy it, too! :D

Unstoppable is available for FREE at bandcamp.com and is coming to Spotify soon. It’s also available on iTunes.

Of songs I’ve recorded and released, This Body Is Mechanical (But This Forest Is Not) is one my favorites. And relatively speaking, it seems to get a  lot of attention, so I thought I’d write about it.

This song really started to take shape with an image in mind: a robot, on the outskirts of a futuristic, highly industrialized metropolis, examining trees along a roadside while pondering its existence. I’m pretty certain this scene was taken from something Xine, my wife, had either said or sketched.

I decided early on that this was an excellent opportunity to over-use a pitch corrector on the vocals to the Nth degree, because the song would be from the point-of-view of a robot. I often joke about all the “robots” in mainstream pop these days, but the truth is, I actually enjoy the sound of pitch correction as a vocal effect. And to me, for some reason, it seems to accent the pain in a person’s voice. Maybe it’s because pain takes on a degree of starkness while enveloped in “perfect” pitch correction. (Almost like showing some aspects of the human condition in a “perfect” dystopian society, like in Logan’s Run or Aeon Flux).

Writing the lyrics was an easy, flowing process (same with the music), but the most interesting thing was that the song acted as a pre-echo to a lot of topics I was to become interested in (minimalism, consciousness, finding answers in nature). It’s truly shocking how often this happens in music: an artist records something, and when they look back on it, they realize that their subconscious mind was somewhere their conscious mind hadn’t caught up to, yet. I wonder if artists working in other mediums experience the same thing… my guess is yes.

As with most of my stuff, My Body Is Mechanical (But This Forest Is Not) is available for FREE on Spotify, for FREE download on bandcamp.com, and it’s also on iTunes if you really want to donate your hard-earned money.

Have a good day in The Forest. ;)

In the Experienced Pre-Dawn is now up/out. :-)