To begin ramping up for the release of "The Gilded Age," I'm going to start this month off by offering our previous album, "Faust," in its entirety as a free download from this site.(While you're here, you might consider giving "The Gilded Age" a quick listen, too. You can stream the latest versions of all the tracks in the jukebox on the right sidebar of this page.)
Released back in 2001, "Faust" doesn't have much in common with "The Gilded Age" musically, but it represents my first effort to produce a full-length that could pass for a big budget release using only cheap digital gear.
A lot of the stylistic choices I made on that album were driven, in fact, by the limitations of the gear at my disposal and the constraints of the challenge I'd set for myself.
For example: against all my instincts as a working musician, I made generous use of pre-fab drum and percussion loops on "Faust." Why? Because properly recording acoustic drums would have called for not only a decent mic mixer (which was well beyond the budget for "Faust") but also several more good microphones than were available to me--and even then, as most audio engineers will vouch, drums are the most challenging instrument to work with in the studio.
Even under optimal studio conditions with expensive gear, trying to get a clean mix around acoustic drum tracks can be a royal pain if you're not an experienced audio engineer (and I wasn't).
So I put aside any lingering qualms about the authenticity of the process, and set about doing whatever I needed to do to achieve the best results.
There's some more general background info on "Faust," including more about the overall recording process, here on my personal blog. The rest of this post will include lyrics and liner notes for the individual tracks, in the order in which they appear on the album.
The title of each track below is a link to a high-resolution MP3 (256 kbps) of the track. Click here to download the entire album at once in a zipped file format (66.5 MB download).
In spite of all your doubts | the world keeps spinning round | so you might as well give in. | You were more than halfway there | when I passed you on the stairs. | But you seemed so different then. | Now you're lost inside the moon. | And the strings are out of tune. | But the song will have to do. | And I hope to see you soon. | Make your heart too black to break. | If they ask, just say you've changed | and that good things always end. | Learn to beg and learn to steal. | Learn to fake what you can't feel. | It's the only way you'll win. | Now you're lost inside the moon. | And the strings are out of tune. | But the song will have to do. | And I hope to see you soon. | Yeah, I hope to see you soon.
This one was supposed to introduce the major theme of the album, its organizing concept being the Faustian bargain. I always imagined it being sung by a Mephistopheles-type figure as he makes his seductively worldly sales pitch ("make your heart too black to break...", etc.). I thought by establishing this theme early it would be harder to miss. Somehow none of this came across to reviewers of the album, who almost all made a special point of mentioning how they didn't get the connection to the "Faust" myth.
Buh-buh-buh buh-buh-buh-buh-buh buh buh buh buh buh-buh. (Repeat.)
A loving homage to mindless commercial soundtrack music. This was supposed to be the theme song to a movie ("Faust: The Movie") about a young music school washout who strikes a Faustian bargain to begin a lucrative career in the commercial TV and film soundtrack industry.
Let these currents pull you under | let me take you down with me. | There's a secret fire burning | at the bottom of the sea. | Blind cave fish glowing in the dark | like fire that's never seen a spark | and as these arrows hit their mark | in the underwater caves | nothing's ever quite the same | but you can't say just how it's changed | familiar things can seem so strange | in the underwater caves | at the bottom of the sea. | Once you make it to the bottom | you won't struggle hard to breathe. | Laws of physics don't apply here | at the bottom of the sea. | Blind cave fish glowing in the dark | like fire that's never seen a spark | and as these arrows hit their mark | in the underwater caves | nothing's ever quite the same | but you can't say just how it's changed | familiar things can seem so strange | in the underwater caves | at the bottom of the sea.
This was supposed to be another lyric reinforcing the Faustian theme, only in this case Mephistopheles' sales pitch takes the form of a siren song that invites the listener/protagonist to participate in their own willing self-destruction. The 'secret fire' represents the temptation of exotic and mystical pleasures. Like any good siren song, this one is meant to lure sailors to their doom.
When Adam Smith's | Invisible Hand | has got you by | the throat again, | there's nothing to do, | and there's nowhere to go. | When you can't pay | with your good looks | cause there's no change | to balance the books, | there's nothing to do, | and there's nowhere to go.
We were frequently very, very broke during the period of time when these lyrics were written.
[Instrumental.]
A loving instrumental tribute to cheezy movie soundtrack music. This was also meant to be a track from the soundtrack to "Faust: The Movie"
There's a seam where the ground meets the sky | but I don't know why, so perhaps we'll die. | There's a seam where the ground meets the sky | could be oceans wide, could be mountains high | Bye, bye. | There's a seam where the ground meets the sky | all curled up inside is where you'll find your mind. | There's a seam where the ground meets the sky | could be oceans wide, could be mountains high. | Bye, bye.
I wrote this song while looking out over the wing of our plane as Lori and I flew back from Germany, where we had been forced to abruptly call off our honeymoon after getting the news that my grandmother had died unexpectedly. Somehow it came out as a happy, Os Mutantes influenced pop-song complete with buh-buh-buhs. It was a case of trying to turn lemons into lemonade, I guess.
[Instrumental.]
The main title theme song to "Faust: The Movie," another left-handed tribute to the soundtrack genre.
What I long to be, | what you give to me, | what we cannot see... | What I long to be: | Energy. | What you give to me: | Energy. | What we cannot see: | Energy.
This one is unusual for the fact that Lori wrote the lyrics and sequenced the entire arrangement herself. My only contributions to this track are the guitar parts. It was briefly a big hit on the internet music charts in France. Lori has told me it was written about a beautiful experience we shared one evening, sitting on a hill outside our old apartment, during which she looked up and could literally see radiant energy moving along the overhead power-lines.
1 comments:
You, uh, forgot some lyrics to Energy.
"Come and see ... there is no better place to be ... come and see ..." you know, all that?
Other than that, wow, what an effort, putting all this on the blog. *clap clap clap*
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