my sample collage phase was from roughly 1998-2004, and i stepped back from adding samples to the music afterwards. it was actually largely a reaction to it being misinterpreted. but, i also just got to a point where i became sort of wary of ruining the music with a political message. i didn't want to get stuck with music that had a political purpose, rather than exist as pure sound art. to me, the ability to separate these things was natural and obvious, so it was sort of a rude awakening to realize that people had difficulties with that sort of abstraction. and, i kind of didn't know what to do with a lot of these pieces for a long time afterwards, as i'd felt i'd sort of ruined a lot of my own work with these abstract social and political messages that nobody really understood - when i wanted them to dig the tunes, first and foremost.
it's a kind of an inversion of punk rock, in a sense. the punks were all about criticizing the rock music culture of their era as bloated and empty, and wanted to reestablish something a little bit more primal - partly by interjecting politics in the place of, like, references to greek mythology, or something. i found myself with the opposite problem - my political references were so opaque that it just baffled people, who struggled to grapple with it, and therefore couldn't enjoy it. referencing oscar wilde would be a step down in abstraction.
i never really wanted to discard all of these sample art collages, and there are indeed a few more on the way. but, when i made the choice to strip all samples and all vocals from the final recordings (with the exception of a few very early sound collages, the war of the worlds sample in ignorance is bliss, a lingering bush sample in curious george, a star trek sample in gravity's rainbow, the electric folk track stress and the poem about afghanistan in like divine amoebas), it left these collages in a limbo. i didn't want them in the records, but i didn't exactly want to delete them, either.
in the end, i think this is the best way to present this, even if it overlaps with the main record sequence in period 2 & 3. three of these tracks come from the deny everything project (which was completed as a sample art project in mid 2000 and stripped entirely of samples by 2014) and three come from the fuel true anarchy in the americas project (which was completed as a sample art project in 2004 and is nearing final reconstruction as a fully instrumental work - it was really done in 2015, i just haven't uploaded it yet). the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj records in between did not contain any sample art experiments, but were rather either intended as classical music compositions or rock songs fronted by sean. this is consequently comprehensive over the period 1999-2002, and includes the proto-ftaa collage eat my fuck as a bonus.
this cannot be the final version of the ftaa record, but is closer to it's initial vision.
the trivial group material will also be stripped of samples in the end, so there may be a spoke part two dated to around 2007 or 2008. there will also likely be an inricted pt 2 with discarded vocal parts.
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the ftaa project, much like it's namesake, was never an idea that was carefully developed, which is very much an anomaly in this discography, where almost everything is developed at such a microscopic level of detail. the idea initially developed as a means to protest the government's response to the 9/11 attacks, from what most people would identify as a libertarian perspective. however, rabit is wolf ended up becoming my main focus in that period, instead, and by the time i got back to the idea, the initial impetus had largely stalled. all activism was necessarily diverted to stopping the war....
....but, i also found myself in a much different reality, starting in late 2002. for the first (and only) time in my life, i had a partner, and it took away most of the time that i would have otherwise spent in music production. on top of that, i found myself working long hours in order both to maintain a dating lifestyle and to deal with real world expenses that the relationship created, and i hadn't ever had to deal with before. i did create some music over 2003, but my head was almost entirely inside of this relationship.
the ftaa project (now inri079) initially completed in may of 2004 and was composed of some of the parts of this recording plus an anti-war song. it will re-release in that space as my 7th record, but as an instrumental recording like the rest of them, thereby jettisoning both these sample collages to their respective singles and the idea of a record of sample collages altogether.
i considered re-releasing the ftaa project as a double with the samples on the other side, but there's something asynchronous about this that i don't like. further, in hindsight, i ended up putting the deny everything recording through more or less the same process, so it makes more sense to combine the jettisoned tracks together into an outtakes disc, and release it at the end of the second period.
another way to look at this recording is to interpret it as a reaction to the presidency of george w. bush, and i've left the tracks in chronological order for that reason. the first two tracks were initially on deny everything (inri041) and have the thematic unity of being a warning regarding the bush presidency, even if the trudeau character sounds more like trump, in the year 2017. the next two tracks were an explicit reaction to the 9/11 attacks. the fifth track takes those ideas to their conclusion, in exploring the thesis that the attacks were the catalyst to end the period of liberal democracy in the united states, and potentially also in it's satellites, and usher in a period of totalitarian rule. as of 2017, that process appears to be nearing it's completion.
(edit: and, as of 2021, we seem to be in the throes of full on fascism due to the pandemic response)
so, this is really the actualization of the intent behind the ftaa project, even if it isn't quite in the form that it was initially released in. as such, it should be viewed as almost an official record - despite the overlap and the historical revisionism.
written and recorded between dec, 1999 and july, 2002, except the hidden track (which was created in the summer of 1998). none of these tracks were remastered or otherwise modified after 2002. disc simultaneously created and finalized as lp016 on nov 26, 2017. as always, please use headphones.
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 (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2017).
released april 23, 2003
j - guitars (electric, nylon, acoustic), mandolin, electric bass, digital & analog effects processing, synths, sampling, pythagorean sequencing (sounder), drum and other programming, drum manipulations, drum kit, voice, flute, sound design, sound raider, noise generators, cool edit sequencing, digital wave editing, composition, production
sean - ring modulator (5)
greg - drum performance sample source (5)