Unpublished ep. 1

Here's some music, a zine, a flash fiction, and a lack of direction

EP: i am tired i don’t want to go home

Earlier this year I would sit down with my guitar and mouth and record 10-45 minute improvised sessions. Most of them are in open-tuning with a broken high-e string. Later, I sifted through the material (18 hours so far) to grab the bits I liked, and here are five of my favorites.

To go through them in a way that felt fresh, I made macros in Audacity which bulk-changed the pitch and speed of each recording. It felt easier to listen to the music when it didn’t quite sound like my own voice, like changing an essay to Comic Sans when you have to do edits. I kept the pitch-shifts and speed-changes as-is for these.

Sonic Meditations Zine

I hope to facilitate one of these soon. insta.

Production Notes

Angst by Jockstrap (the last 25 seconds. rush-chopped vocals as a sommelier pairing of vox+production), Love is a Drug by Empress Of (unabashed dancey squishy bounce, keep it 808), Vitamin C by CAN (a rowing bassline, killer break, shouting AND YOU. the full song is the middle of a song), Fuji or a Trek by FORAGER (impossible to not follow the lyrics, rhythm, and instrumentation from the Pharrell 4-count all the way to the first chorus. Musical labyrinth.)

Halo Eyes

Flash fiction story by me

The same bird keeps visiting my house. I’ve never fed it, never given it anything, but it keeps coming. It perches its brownish body on the tree outside my kitchen window and stares. It doesn’t sing, it doesn’t dance. It just sits there from dawn until dusk. Staring. Then it flies away into the night.

One day I decided to stare back. I pulled a chair to my kitchen sink and rested my chin on the counter. It began as a staring contest, a playground game. Then I noticed how it blinked, how it breathed. I saw hints of red in its brown wings, the way its body twitched, its thin claws choking the tree. I saw two yellow halos blessing its black eyes, either empty or all-knowing, but definitely infinite.

Then I felt my own feet gripping the tile below. I felt my own slow breath, unable to keep up with the bird’s pulsing breast. I saw my double in the window glass, its pupils pointed back at me, blinking ferally. The hints of red in my hair, the way my forehead twitched. The clock struck noon, one, two. My sit bones grew sore, my chin fused with the kitchen counter. Three, four, five. Clouds came and went. Leaves swayed. But we stayed. Six, seven. Staring.

Dusk came, and the bird flew away. I stayed. Orange clouds faded into stars, the window turned into a mirror. I stared at myself, hungry, a darkness hanging from my eyes, twitching, backlit from the kitchen chandelier. ((I was in my own natural habitat, a half-furnished kitchen, items old and new. 

One, two, three. The stars twirled. I was no longer separate from my chair. My back bent to a small, unsafe arch. Four, five, six. I waited for the bird to return. 

It did not come back. Seven, eight, nine. I am the beautiful bird. Small, colorful, twitching. I peel myself from the counter and walk to my bed. I imagine myself in a straw nest and fall asleep.

~

I’m not asking why I’m doing this yet. Being gentle with myself. 🌻