EN PASSANT – the album with a chess
theme – artwork, instrumental names, and all.
My “techno” album, though it’s guitar based anyway. The instrumentals all have chess names –
“Light on the Right” referring to board orientation, “Giuoco
Piano,” “Hypermodern,” and “Queen’s Gambit (Declined)” all being openings, and
“Zugzwang” being a term used in the middle of the
game.
1. RED
HAZE (
Yes, that’s right – techno without
keyboard sounds in it. I wanted to prove
that, as much as techno is about sounds and beats, it’s also about a style of songwriting, and for that, this song
exists. I also get to play my signature
“My-acoustic-guitar-is-about-to-overheat” style of rhythm that I do in paying a
whole ton, but not in my songs before this one.
The sense of buildup is really great to me. The lead guitar sounds in the breakdown
around the
LYRICS:
You spend your life in the red
haze, counting all the days
You spend your life with a green
sun when your days are done
You spend your life with a blue
mood, with thoughts and attitudes
Leading into a black heart, not
knowing where to start
And
I think your life is representative
Of
a life people would lead if they took sedatives
So
what your life needs is an additive
To
make it work out right
You spend your life in the red
haze, counting all the days
You spend your life in with a green
sun when your days are done
VERSE
CHORUS
first 3 lines
VERSE
2.5x
2. LIGHT
ON THE RIGHT (
Going with the traditional “move
yourself” type of trance techno, but it’s focused around the electric guitar
and piano parts. My first song to be
recorded with a real bass too, and it helps
greatly. Has a lot of “crunch” to it, a
tinge of industrialness to it. Could somebody make a cool fighting game with
this song?
3. IF
TIME WAS A LEGEND (
The funk song
that dies. The vocal sample has the
lyrics as such because I wanted something that sounded sample-ish, and that’s what sounded good, so I sung it. It has no meaning. The true and literal breakdown in the middle
is very cool, as is the organ throughout the song. Maybe a little bit repetitive, but I like it. As a production footnote, this is the only
song where I’ve decided to keep the guide rhythm as the final one. It just seemed to fit.
LYRICS:
If time was a legend, then I would
be flying…
4. GIUOCO
PIANO (
A short filler
song that nonetheless does some cool work with electric piano. I didn’t realize it when I made it, but the
song has a similar structure and feel to “Chemical” by New Order. That song is way awesome, and I recommend it.
5.
ZUGZWANG (
Again, a filler track, with zugzwang being a German word meaning “in-between
move,” and so this song is an in-between one.
I just thought it would be cool to have 4 different bass parts in a song
– maybe all you loud car people will enjoy that.
6. ON
(
Perhaps my densest and darkest
recording to date, this one features me whisper-singing in the opening, a good
dose of industrial noise, three-part harmony defining the majors and minors of
the choruses, and…wah-wah guitar? A psychedelic industrial
song, for sure. The lyrics are
about people who play church. “Ghostly
apparition” uses the word “ghostly” for double meaning – adjectivally for
ghosts, and the older meaning of “spiritual.”
LYRICS:
There is a switch, and only you
know its position
You use it to make the ghostly
apparition
That fools the world into believing
that your face
Is the glass window to your soul
that all who see it should embrace
CHORUS:
The
timer dings, and so you flip the switch on
But
nobody suspects that your mind is really gone
The
ghostly apparition you give for all to see
May
flicker out and (finally) show your true transparency
You use what’s current as your main
source of power
But it can only last from here
until the next hour
So on your
own, when all your strength is alkaline
Will the ghost flicker out on you,
and reveal that everything’s not fine?
CHORUS
How can you be soaring, when you’re
flying one big lark?
Because you’re labeled on, and yet
we all are in the dark
CHORUS
plus repeat last 2 lines
7. HYPERMODERN
(
To fulfill my album rule of “2 odd
time signatures in an album,” here is my 19/8 contribution, 3 5/8s and a
4/8. The pipe organ to me is way
cool. During the section of 4 eighth
notes, there are two bass lines. After
you hear this song (at least in my case), it’s hard to dive back into 4/4
thinking. It almost makes it seem that
this is how music is supposed to
sound, even though it’s not. Definitely interesting.
8. PIED
PIPER (
Featuring my best vocals ever (it’s
hard for me to reach those high notes!), a raging guitar, a very cool bass
hook, and drums of glory, this song’s message is that songs that sound like
this aren’t de facto evil – look at
the lyrics to determine that sort of thing, please. One of the classics of my
small pantheon.
LYRICS:
This is the part of the song where
I’m supposed to protest someone in authority
Because I’m young and my market’s
pre-adult
And through my evil influence,
someone is supposed to be persuaded
To wear black and join some odd
guy’s cult
You know this is true, because the
song is loud and fast
Electric noise should make me the
masses’ iconoclast
But
who said it had to be that way?
Maybe
it’s the words that express what I wanna say
So
don’t assume that (just) because my music’s hyper
That
I’ve intentioned to be your kids’ pied piper
This is that part of the song where
I’m supposed to be provocative
And give my culture a nasty shock
13-to-16-year-olds are supposed to
rally behind me
And form one depressing black sheep
flock
You know
this is true, because my voice is distorted
And every
song like this is bad – that’s what the news reported
CHORUS 2x
9. ISHBO
(SHETH MIX) (
Steven has preached quite a bit in
our room, so I decided for a techno album, something wacky and Orb-like would
be great, so he preached one on Ishbosheth, modified
from something he had done last week. Great, great fun. And
the rest of the song is kinda cool too – somewhat cheesy
synthesizer work that gives way to an electric guitar, Chemical-Brothers style
jam.
10. QUEEN’S
GAMBIT (DECLINED) (
Quite simply, there aren’t enough
peaceful, soothing type songs out there.
This one bears influence of “Clubbed to Death” by Rob D off The Matrix soundtrack, with its small
piano line and so on. As I realized a
long, long time after making this song, it sounds quite similar to Moby’s “Inside”
off the Play album; I had no idea I
was still influenced by Moby! There’s a
low bass part that underlies the synth-bass track,
which I think is cool to have. Reminds me a small bit of the middle of “Maturity.”
11. EXCLUSION (
To me, this song captures the
loneliness of a human heart – the achiness, the
tenderness, and the beauty. It very much
captures a lot of my past sentiments. A
beautiful song, if you ask me. I can’t
get much lonelier than this.
LYRICS:
Being left out of my own life, and
certainly out of yours
Is the pain that I bear every day –
can I bear it pure?
The entire world met recently, but
I didn’t get the fax
Could this perhaps explain my
so-called oddball acts?
And
yet you seem to be the one who’s missing all the parts
That
I thought made someone complete in mind and soul and heart
It’s
possible that each of us grossly deficient is
But
until you stop my gaping hole, I’ll slowly, surely fizz and be flat
On
my face again
Exclusion
from life and from all men
Separation
from all I would feel
Because
I thought that what I had was real
You brand me from the outside, when
the inside’s all I know
How to improve; my intellect is all
in me that glows
And so my convoluted rhymes in
poetry shall end
But will you see that I could be a
kind and caring friend?
CHORUS
12. DISMISSAL
(0:15) Vocals by Carl Chandler.
Seeing as how this is a techno
album, it needs, to quote Edwin Kessler, “weird vocal samples.” I was originally planning on having Dean Hedgspeth open up the album and Carl Chandler closing, to
get in both chapel MC’s from Faulkner doing their chapel thing for me. Mr. Chandler was very gracious in doing this
for me, and I appreciate it very much.
LYRICS:
Thank you
YEARS LATER…about 15 months have elapsed since I finished the En Passant album, an album that was perhaps a logical conclusion of my increasing electronic music obsession. While it song-for-song may not stand up to albums like Inverse, I think this album is my greatest achievement to date. First off, it’s got 70 minutes of music, as opposed to 50. Second, I wrote a ton of epics on this one – 2 10-minute songs and several more in the 6-minute range. Third, I think I pulled off a really decent fusion of guitars and techno. I wish I had access to some really good recording equipment, so I could do this album over again. I think this album seems so good because of its cohesion – I’m not bouncing around styles as often as usual; I’ve got a purpose for the whole album, and that helps a lot. I’m hoping to make another techno album one day – maybe it will be as good as this one. As for songs that have aged well, I’m not exactly sure that’s happened a lot, where songs have surprised me since I made the album, though “Ishbo (Sheth Mix)” is usually very popular with my friends.
