My New analogue Beating Heart
June 27th, 2024
My New Analogue Beating Heart is my second beautiful masterpiece album, with the first being I Saw... by STBP.
I started writing/producing this album at the end of 2022 - the first song for the album was Open Secret, which came together really quickly. I had bought this awful, cheap tamoburine from the music shop and was determined to make a song with it. I sat it on my desk and hit it with my drumstick, with a microphone pointed at it. I was pretty happy with this strange song I had recorded, and felt that the sonic pallette I had chosen had enough legs to warrant making an EP around.
Truth be told, I had made a few songs like this previously. The song "Party Song", which appeared on "Songs I Wrote in 2022"" forshadowed both this song and album, as did Indie Pop Girls from that same record
Open Secret and Glowing Pains were recorded within a few days of eachother. The title track came not long after. This was an extremely prolific period for me, depsite being my final year of univeristy. I had just released the 23 track STBPEP, I was doing music for my friend's short film, I was writing and producing I Saw... as well as working 2-3 nights a week. The trade off for this was that I had little to no social life whatsoever.
The album really came together when I accidently drove into someone's car one night - it was pitch black and raining, but I wanted to go and get snacks, so I got in my car, and begun driving. I couldn't see shit, despite turning my headlights on, it was inky black. So, I crept forward in the car, not being able to see anything, until I hit someone's parked car, which scared the shit out of me. What I didn't realise at the time is that both of the headlights in my car had burnt out, which Is why I couldn't see. I drove round for a bit until I realised by front right tyre had a puncture.
The following morning I was sat in the front of a tow truck that had come to get my car and change the tyre. I was thinking about my songs and my album and the title track just popped into my head. For the few songs I had at that moment, it seemed to encapsulate the themes perfectly. I probably went home and wrote the title track after getting rinsed by the mechanics, as they're want to do.
So I kept writing songs in my bedroom, looping guitar riffs and plotting MIDI drums. It felt like a relief from the grandiose arrangemnts on I Saw... which was spiralling into this collosal, almost unwieldy album - this was far more managable in comparison.
As is often the cse with my albums, I took a few breaks during the production. The last two songs were written more than a year after the album's production started. I Imagined Us Old is another song that just kind of popped into my head. I was working late one night and the imagery I sing about crystalised fully formed. I had the words for They Hate Our Beautiful Escape for some time - I think during the Songs I Wrote era - but couldn't figure out what to do with them. I knew I wanted a longer song for the end of the album, so I made one.
I wrote about this in the Bandcamp description, but it bares repeating - I was obssesed with the idea of "discrete sounds" while recording this album - drum hits with no sustain, finger plucked guitar with the decay and sustain naturally minimised, etc. Very few guitar parts on the album, if any, actually, are played with a pick. The guitar tones I got from finger picking were far more resonant and warm than playing with a pick, too. This left alot of room for "continuous" sounds, primarily vocals, over the top
I do think the album is a little worse than I Saw... for a few reasons. I think the quiet electronica labum is never going to be as impactful as the sprawling, deliberately maassive orchestral indie rock opus, but it's still a record I love. For motnhs after the release, I hated this opening track on this album, but I've since come back round on it