my first cd demo represents a dramatic shift in sound that, at the
time, was meant to be permanent but that ended up being merely a step in
a long journey. on one hand, the shift in sound reflected my changing
tastes away from alternative rock and towards industrial music. on
another level, it was a return to my childhood roots in 80s synthpop. i
was also expanding my tastes into glitch, noise and what could be called
"musique concrete".
the shift to using drum machines
was dominant in the new sound, as was the reality that i had a
synthesizer available to me starting in the beginning of 1998. another
major factor was the use of a pc. however, my main songwriting tool
remained the guitar and these are still mostly guitar-driven pieces.
the
guitar work is one of the things that separates the sound from a
typical industrial aesthetic. i've never been a fan of heavy metal and
largely shied away from creating that kind of thing. yet, i found myself
connecting more with psychedelic guitar at this point than punk rock.
industrial psych generally implies something like trance, but it need
not to. industrial hendrix? well, maybe it ends up sounding more like
synth pop, which has historical roots in psychedelic music and
progressive rock. the point is that the music does manage to carve out a
unique space between industrial music and synth pop that i don't know
of any clear comparisons to. people have suggested mid-period swans, the
legendary pink dots and nine inch nails - only the last of which was a
significant influence, and none of which are really that close. a better
comparison, although still not a significant influence at this time,
would be joy division - who would become a significant influence after
this phase. my actual influences at the time would have been more like
brian eno (through his 70s and 90s work with david bowie, as well as his
work with u2), early prog (genesis/floyd/crimson), peter gabriel, the
beatles, radiohead, the smashing pumpkins, REM, sonic youth, the tea
party and a bit of contemporary electronic music (prodigy, nin, coil,
foetus, autechre, nitzer ebb, ministry, econoline crush, gravity kills,
stabbing westward, skinny puppy and side projects). the sense of humour
is coming from frank zappa and matt groening, if they are not actually
the same person. i wasn't listening to much tears for fears, i don't
think, but you can hear them lurking underneath everything.
some
of these songs are reworked versions of tracks i had recorded
previously. in almost all cases, i consider the versions here (and on
the follow-up demo, inriched) to be the authoritative versions of these
tracks.
the demo is consciously constructed to
alternate between "conventional songs" and "experimental pieces",
although both definitions are stretched. it generally takes the form of
connecting passages. it's meant to give the record the feel of a
cohesive work rather than a collection of songs.
lyrically,
i'm still a teenager, but i'm starting to grow into myself a little
more. there are still some points of embarrassment, but it's really only
the 8th track that is causing me any serious grief. my singing style
has changed quite a bit though - most of the lyrics here are in a spoken
word style, rather than sung. it's partially the result of insecurities
with my voice, but it's mostly due to the shift to something
electronic. i found the dead pan vocal delivery more appropriate. it's
something that stuck with me though until relatively recently.
some
of this material was written as far back as 1994, but was only
sequenced in the second half of 1997 and recorded in the first half of
1998. unfortunately, i decided that the songs sounded better in mp3 and
consequently compressed everything before burning. i understand now that
i was hobbling together a crude mastering process, but it means
(unfortunately) that the closest thing i have to the finished tracks are
low quality mp3s and a cd-r. these tracks were taken off of a cd-r and
edited mildly (mostly the removal of badly placed simpsons samples) over
the second week of november, 2013. this is my first official record; as
always, please use headphones.
credits:
j -
guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, sequencing,
sampling, vocals, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, found
sounds, strategies, soundraider, hammerhead, sound design, metronome,
digital wave editing, production
released june 20, 1998
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-lp