notes on reissue

i wrote this album mostly in august and september 2010, though some songs on it date back through 2009, 2008, and even 2007. i was inspired by a friend who once sent me a song composed entirely of the same french horn sample repitched differently to create a sort of constantly shifting melody. it was the first time i encountered the (at the time vague) idea of process music, which would later come to change the entire way i approached writing (and listening) to music.

i remember being at a used car dealership around the time i was writing this album – it was the day i finished recording Dénouement – and staring at a collection of colorful papers hung from a string between two poles, presumably to catch the eye of potential costumers. that image of those faded and boring colors against a dull blue sky stuck with me; it seemed to mirror the way i felt while working on these songs so well.

i initially wrote the album for myself and considered it a failure. i put it online anyway with a note attached and moved on, working on something totally different and more ‘pop’ to cleanse my palette. it wasn’t until almost a year later that i looked back and realized not only how much more interesting this album was than i thought, but also that i actually liked it a lot. i’m very happy to be reissuing it finally, and with a remastered version that fixes a lot of small issues with the original (volume, dead spaces) while retaining the dynamics and the original lo-fi quality. it’s still immature, weird, overwrought, and pretentious, but without it i wouldn’t be writing the music i am today and i probably wouldn’t be happy with the music i make.