"To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life."

-Hamlet (Act III, Scene I)

A version of myself commits suicide with this album.
I do not know when Monarcadia will return, if at all.

Recorded on my iPhone using FourTrack Multitrack Recorder for iOS and GarageBand for iOS.

Anything labelled "Voice Memo" was 100% improvised at the time of recording. For more information about my ongoing Voice Memo project, please see the album "Voice Memo: Oversexed" here: monarcadia.bandcamp.com/album/voice-memo-oversexed


MISC. NOTES:

Horizon

Drum loop played by hand into FourTrack with keyboard drums. This mostly consists of an extended guitar loop built on my loop pedal. The synth patch (buried in the mix) came from the same keyboard.


LITTLE // BOY

Easily my favorite song on the album and one of my favorite songs that I've written thus far. Made possible with the Microsampler and effects pedals--I really can't remember what devices I used here, and that middle section would be impossible to recreate anyway. The break in the title is supposed to be congruous with the break in the song, which is like a boy's body split in half.


Voice Memo: The Way of the Waves

Improvisation made with Boss VE-20. Inspired by Grimes, Cocteau Twins, doo-wop, and the ocean.


Dream Woman

The melody of this song's hook came to me while I was hanging out with my sister Addy in Albuquerque. We were talking about that American cliché of going to Europe and having a storybook romance there, and I started singing "dream woman" to myself. Later I thought I'd develop it into a song that explores and critiques the "dream woman" trope in pop songs. Romantic love is obviously one of my thematic obsessions. The synth tones were made on my iPhone (Animoog for iOS). The drums were a beat I built piece-by-piece in my sampler's sequencer.


Voice Memo: BLAZZ 12

One of several "blah + jazz" improvisations I made on my grandma's piano in 2014. Blah because that was completely my attitude during the making of these blazz recordings, and especially while titling them.


Sophy Dervy

A phrase that sounds like a name that means absolutely nothing; it's purely phonetic. I think this was probably sampler, iKaossilator, pitch shifted guitar, and vocals. Reminds me of John Frusciante, maybe a little too much.


Voice Memo: Green/Blue

Another improvisation, meditating on the idea that two people can perceive the same color differently, raising the question of what objectivity/truth really is, and whether we can really achieve mutual understanding on that basis. I also had just broken up with someone and needed to vent. Keyboard, guitar, and sampler.


The Dark =REVISITED=

As the title suggests, this is me revisiting the samples I used in "The Dark Singular (feat. Young Hound)" on Allegorically, Bedroom, and then doing some solo guitar over it at the end. I like to challenge listeners to see if they'll endure difficult music to reach the "reward" at the end. This is something I've thought of since "I'll Show You Where It Lurks" on Lunar Affair. Pop music conditions us to expect instant gratification, much like the convenience of modern technology; I defy this. I think many of my songs require some patience from the average listener but reward those who listen thoroughly.


Why Should I (Without You)?

Recorded in my grandma's living room in the middle of the night sometime in September/October 2014, putting my iPhone up to my Roland Cube Street--hence the audio quality. I've thought of rerecording this song because it's turned out to be a favorite of mine, and has gone over well live. It's very sad but I think it's beautiful. I love the noise guitar in the first half--that was just fun to play. The "why" vocal sample here is one I've had in my sampler since recording "For Shade (My Lady)" on Don't, Don't. I like this new context for it. The whole song as made on my sampler and recorded with FourTrack.


He Say Peace of Mind

The "He" in this song is the same "He" as "He Say No Buddy Call" (Lunar Affair). This is just a one-off recording of guitar through live-applied effects and a loop pedal.


My #Heart

This was just me on an unplugged electric guitar recorded through my phone mic. I added reverb later. At the end of the song there's a part that repeats "I left my heart..." etc. This is a reprisal of a vocal I created as part of the These Four Walls EP I did with my brother Colin (Young Hound) a few years ago under our project name Spring Cell (spring-cell.bandcamp.com/album/these-four-walls).


Several Hundred Miles

This came from the same session that produced "Horizon". Another combination of loops on my sampler with stacked guitar on loop pedal, plus Liz Fraser-style vocals. Built within FourTrack. It's really muddy, but I think the song still carries its emotion effectively.


A Little Now for Later (live)

An improvised song that emerged from rehearsing for a live set that was to involve "d'Fission Sea" (Don't, Don't). You may notice that the synth tone here is identical to that in "d'Fission Sea" and "Don't, Don't, Pt. II". It was easy, with the setup I was using, to transition from "d'Fission Sea" into building a loop and then jamming on guitar over it.


愛しています nyan

Pronunciation "aishitemasu nyan", Japanese for "I love you meow". A peaceful piano improvisation on my grandma's piano in Albuquerque. I was just using the piano to meditate and ended up titling it much later. It's nowhere near this, but at some point between recording this and titling it I had listened to Dave Brubeck's Jazz Impressions of Japan. I think my little piano improv gave me a similar feeling that some of the songs on that album did--particularly "Fujiyama" and "Rising Sun"--so I gave it a Japanese title. Also some of Joe Hisaishi's work for the Totoro score. I think it was also the pentatonic scales in here that sounded very Japanese to me. The "nyan" was just to make it kawaii, because at that point why not?