It’s springtime! time to release an album of all the songs I have been recording during this unemployment/quarantine year.
Album notes “thinking bout death” or 12 songs about mortality
All songs copyright Isaac Paris 2021
Susans Beat (song title to be determined) Drums by Susan Lucia
I prefer the quiet places with Clarinet by Michele Marin on Fiver
Wandering Lonely
Singing Demons
Mach truck or Critical Voltage
Stanford Prison Experiment with Vocals and Lyrics by Stabby Gabby
Death Poem with Backup vocals from Chryss Allaback, Bettreena Jaeger, Jessika Kinser
Triumph is Ours or “Adagio in F” with Violin, Viola by Peter Voronov on Fiver.
Pareidolia
With Our Friends
Dark Yoga (I’ve been asleep for a century) with Drums and synth by Ryan Schmidt
Smoking in the Rain
Pig is my Dog
Inspirations: primitive radio gods, tom waits, they might be giants, Elliott smith, Daniel Johnston, east park reggae collective, beastie boys, Jorah Lefluer, Man Or Astro man
Notes for 12 songs about mortality
For my last album I really wanted every song to be distinct, tackle a different genre with each track, for this one I just let the songs write themselves, that meant they fell into one of three categories: sweet indie pop songs, moody low fi hip hop and instrumental rockers.
For the first time since I was 18 or so I let myself really study guitar and get back into simple pentatonic scales and the joys of recording guitars with distorted sounds. Guitar based rock and roll is just fun.
I’ve been thinking about death a lot as I age and obviously I am touched by the zeitgeist of change influenced by the global suffering. I also have lyrics in a few places that I think directly reference friends and pets I’ve lost in the last few years. A theme I wasn’t fully aware of until it slapped me in the face was horror movies. Fantasy and western cannon mythology/ human imagination. Inadvertently several songs were referencing the horror tropes so I just went with it and embraced the cheesiness putting some anime samples on one track and 1950s sci fi radio drama on another.
I also experiment with samples and foley to give a cinematic feel. Numerous guest musicians appear providing vocals, strings, drums and clarinet.
Having experience as a comedian makes me appreciate metaphors taken to exaggerated extremes and a few song lyrics explore similar things that my joke premises do but with out the pressure to have “punchlines.”
