Monday, March 15, 2021

in celebration of almost getting back to work in finishing the discography, which picks back up in 2003, i'm going to post each release in chronological order, one per day.

we start with inri000.

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these are the first demos i recorded, written 1994-1996 and recorded in the second half of 1996. this corresponds to the end of my 15th year and the beginning of my grade 10 school year. on the one hand, it's an intriguing document of a socially maladjusted teenage punk. on the other hand, it's a 15 year-old kid learning how to use a recording studio (and how to play the drums). influences are displayed on my sleeve just a little too loudly at times. 

i was attempting to create something that could be described by the words disturbing, schizophrenic, unique, bizarre, twisted. looking back, i think i succeeded more than i realized at the time. this is a difficult listen that would be appealing to fans of the obscurantist reaches of 80s punk and 90s grunge. i manage to maintain a strange sense of melody, though. in truth, my current adult self is somewhat impressed with my teenaged self at this current point. 

that being said, it should not be forgotten that i was fifteen. i am at times rather crude, and i display a childlike understanding of certain issues. most poetry written at the age of fifteen is not particularly insightful. again, though, i surprise myself at points. 

this is the first time i'm publishing these demos in any form. i've remained frighteningly self-conscious of them over the years. over the last seventeen years, the audience has been extremely limited. initial reactions suggested i take some time to perfect my performance skills, particularly my drumming skills. however, this indicated a lack of understanding of my intent in the overall sound. the playing is quite purposefully abstract with the aim of exploring mental illness. 

the demos were initially dub-mastered onto a 110 minute tape that would have flipped after the eighth track. that tape was at some point recorded into a soundblaster and compressed very heavily; this is the only source of the material that i still have. so, i had to decompress the files from those 128 (or worse) kbps mp3s and run them through some digital mastering equipment in an attempt to "undo" the compression. what that is is a half-effective trick to recover data that is in actuality forever lost. nonetheless, i should point out that while these files were recorded entirely in 1996, they were substantially digitally modified in late 2013. finalized on june 26, 2016. first liner note release added on sept 30, 2019 and updated on dec 22 & 23, 2019. as always, please use headphones. 

i consider this an archival release with little direct listening value. i've pointed out repeatedly that i was 15. however, various segments have been isolated and pulled out for a higher listenability value over here: 
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-a 

this release also includes a printable j-card insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries in doc & pdf from all phases of production (1993-1996, 2013-2019). as of sept 30, 2019, the release includes a 47 page booklet that includes journal entries from the remastering process over sept-oct, 2013. as of dec 22, 2019, it also includes an html version of the same journal with an interactive html5 frontend. as of dec 23, 2019 the booklet is now 50 pages and encompasses sept-nov, 2013. some typos in the liner notes were corrected on jan 26, 2020. 

released December 25, 1996 

j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards, tapes, found sounds, percussion, production.