(lyrics coming soon)
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| 24 PRISON SONGS 24 PRISON SONGS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| One morning back in 1999, I turned to MONA and suggested we do a concept album for our next recording project in the hopes that a cohesive project might help us to create in the limited amount of time we would have possession of the multi-track. She said, "How about an album about prison life?" It was a subject we knew nothing about from experience. We had, however, spent a lot of time watching "Law and Order" and various documentaries. I thought about it for a couple of days and then the ideas began to flow. We began recording shortly thereafter. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SONGS FROM THE BIG HOUSE was recorded in about a month in our small studio apartment. My drumset was in storage and I wanted to try working with what we had. I procured my floor tom and roto-toms and the two hand drums I had. You may notice the absence of cymbals, snare, and other recognizable sounds. We used everything from milkcrates to pieces of paper (with a Roland RP-5 guitar processor to approximate tonality where there was none). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| After living with the rushed cassette mix-downs for many months, I have resisted the temptation to "finish" these songs by adding the full drumset or even re-recording the songs that might have deserved such treatment to make them more "palatable". Most of the music is layered first takes with vocals added almost extemporaneously. Admittedly, it is a little rough around the edges; but I find that it gives it a certain vitality and ...strangeness. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| THERE ARE NO LOOPS ON THIS RECORDING except for the very basic keyboard pulse on "The Kidnapping" and at the beginning of "...Live". In many ways this is the realization of something I have been pursuing for years: to make music with percussion, voice and very little else. Of course, MONA's clarinet does add quite a bit of that extra "something" and her songwriting and vocal presence here is outstandingly prolific. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| So here it is in all of its ugly glory. It is a prison album after all. - --XTEVION---- | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| VIEW TRACKS AND CREDITS (lyrics coming soon) |
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| CD AVAILABLE NOW! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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