today's post is the epic prog-folk track, 9:46 outside of the magenta box, reclaimed as the instrumental fuck boxes, and catalogued today as inri055.

it was actually sean's idea to move to a more acoustic-focused sound, out of apparent disinterest in the technology, which was my thing at the time. i've always had wide tastes, but the things in my cd changer at the time were along the lines of skinny puppy, tortoise, autechre, steve reich (specifically, a nonesuch remix collection), mike oldfield, syr period sonic youth - that's where my brain was, and wanted to be, this kind of overlap of lush electronic music with horizontally complex arrangements stemming from the jazz and classical worlds (and is heard, now, in the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj sequence). so, i kind of got a little ambushed by the suggestion that we focus more on folk music, as a way to produce a more organic sound, for the sake of being less techy, less abstract and less complicated. that was not where my head was; "organic" and "simple" were the last things on my mind, at the time.....

that said, i had mentioned to him that his vocal tone was a little like michael stipe, who was a big influence on me growing up. years later, i would realize the similarity in tone with jordan dreyer, but this was still 2001/2002 and la dispute did not yet exist, i don't think - and i even think that sean would have had more in common with a jordan dreyer at that point in life than i would have or than we did with each other. i wanted to write abstract electronic noise, as i always had...but, if anything, i was actually the one to realize that it wasn't the best way to maximize use of his vocals, even if i sort of resisted my own realization. inri054 (clarity) is more like what i wanted rabit to be like, even if sean's vocals are maybe more suited for this presentation. so, it made sense to look in opposite directions, even if i ended up shifting gears entirely within a few months, myself.

so, maybe he (i?) was right, but it didn't make me more excited about it, and if what he really wanted was to start a folk band then i probably wasn't his most ideal collaborator in the long run, either. and, as mentioned previously, he was supposed to be the weird goth kid, not me. i was just an all around total nerd. as pragmatic as it was, it seems to have also been a fairly substantive change in identity for sean, as well. i think he would have laughed at the idea of himself singing folk music, five years earlier....and i probably wouldn't have walked down this path if i knew it would end up as a folk duo, in the end.

it wasn't long after that he showed up with a neutral milk hotel cd that i found to be pretty unspectacular and undeveloped, but he got a lot out of. like, they just sounded like half-finished pumpkins demos or something - i flat out thought it was boring. so, i didn't follow his lead into that, but i got the point and made the mental adjustments. in later years, sean would become your kind of standard indie rock loser, big into pretentious garbage like the animal collective - and we haven't talked much, since.

as apprehensive as i may have been, i realized the logic in the idea, as well. i mean, this is 2001/2002. how were we going to play these songs in public? neither of us had laptops, let alone cell phones, and sean wasn't useful to me as an actual performing musician. there was really only one way to do this, and it was to haul the entire pc tower into the bar, run it out in parallel with a single guitar part and then let sean be the focus of attention on stage. it would essentially reduce to sean doing karaoke over backing tracks i had written and pre-recorded, while i sat in the shadows and diddled around with things. i still don't think that this kind of thing is palatable as live music, but it certainly wasn't at all in 2002. so, if we were going to do this, we would have to find a more presentable format.

it never got off the ground as intended, but that's how this happened - he wanted to play in front of actual people (something i've never cared much for, myself) so we had to find a way to make music that could be performed in public.

the magenta box is a reference to the hmv that sean worked at, and not a reference to female sexual organs or records by sunny day real estate, which is something i was into (there's a borrowed guitar part from 8 on my first demo, from 1996) and never heard sean or jon talk about.

unfortunately, i don't think either of us found the new direction of the project to be appealing enough to be pragmatic about it, at least not at first. so, it kind of dispersed due to my own preference for electronic music and studio musicianship and sean's need to find a way to actually perform in front of actual people. in hindsight, though, after finishing this as an instrumental recording, i'm definitely proud of it.

so, this is a pivot and that pivot finishes the project and closes the project down, but it also kills it off. 

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my memory is a little fuzzy with this track, other than that it was constructed all at once in the middle of the night on a cold february morning in a basement that wasn't well heated. 

i believe that sean initially brought in the a capella vocal that is heard in the acoustic demo under the request that it be developed in a folky style, and the track was built from there. we seem to have done the live version the next week, meaning i must have written it over the week. 

there was some hard drive corruption as the demo was being recorded. i was in a glitchy mindset at the time and decided the skips ought to be interpreted musically. i'm not sure i'd make the same choice now, but i'm not willing to second guess myself, either. so, i skittered up the bass and organ parts to make the entire track sound glitchy to compensate for the skips. i also ran the vocal file through a musical algorithm that involved slowing it down and pasting it over itself to create a collage of voices somewhat similar to a robotic choir. as the track is otherwise rather pastoral, all of this glitch provides for an unusual juxtaposition. 

as mentioned, the track was built up quickly, but it was always meant as a demo. that is to say that the vocal-driven 2002 version of the track was not complete, and was never completed. 

i came around to completing it as an instrumental work in mid october, 2014. the removal of sean's vocals required some mild rethinks in terms of melodic content, but the real additions are threefold. first, it is substantially remixed to make it sound thicker. second, some sound design or soundscaping was constructed, mostly for the beginning of the track, but some guitar parts were also added throughout. third, drums were added. this converts the track out of folk (a genre i spend almost no time in) and back into psychedelic pop (my usual home) with hints of fusion, prog and idm. as it is, this can be viewed as the definitive (if non-comprehensive) third incarnation of rabit is wolf, which was being torn between freak folk and folk punk tendencies in it's general tumbling towards "folk". 

written in early 2002 and recorded and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 15, 2014. expanded, re-released & finalized on nov 1, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the 2014 instrumental version appears on my sixth record, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj^2 (inri063): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2 

the 2002 vocal mix appears on the rabit is wolf demo (inri057): 

jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-is-wolf 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

released february 20, 2002 

j - guitars, effects, bass, electric air reed organ, electronic drum kit, voice (1, 5, 6, 8), sampling, sound design, vocal manipulations, digital wave editing, production 

sean - vocals/lyrics (2,3,4)