New single: Terminus
hello music friends
Thanks so much for the open hearts and ears you showed for In The Dark, the lead single for my EP of the same name (out September 4th)
Today I’m sharing the next single: Terminus. Available on streaming now. A few links for your convenience:
About the song
Terminus is a song about isolation, from each other and from different aspects of ourselves. Isolation driven by infrastructure (highways, airports, remote-work, and the fact of our brains and bodies: translating complex emotions into words).
The lyrics observe this from a few different angles.
warning: this section contains AUTHORIAL INTENT which may bias your own sacred and unique PERSONAL INTERPRETATION
“Wolves in a pack in parallel lines” - I’m really moved by the symbol of cars on an interstate highway bringing people together but severely walled off from one another. On the highway, we are all together, moving in the same direction, but the emotional experience is very different from that. Likewise in verse 2 with air travel. Another supposedly unifying place that’s polluted with commercial interests that atomize us.
The final verse observes how working online also creates an emotional barrier that’s hard to overcome, at the cost of our own personal interest.
The A section and B section are intended to represent two sides of the self. On one side: restraint, composure, specificity. The other: chaos, noise, untempered emotion.
With thanks to David Foster Wallace, who has spilled some ink about dissociation from others and the self: “How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words." 🔗
Ephemera 🎶
If you’ve made it this far down the email, I’ll share two behind-the-scenes clips for you.
First, here’s the very first demo of Terminus. In the acoustic guitar arrangement, you can hear the seed of this song is the dissonance between the low D string and the melody. I really liked the pedal tone creating a sense of unease on a simple singable melody. I don’t think this is as apparent in the full electric arrangement, so enjoy some dissonant intervals here below:
Next, in an earlier concept for this EP, I had a reprise of Terminus as the final track, except with the main riff reversed, sped up, and chopped up, functioning as a shimmery back-beat to underscore an acoustic guitar. I still really love the sound of that accompanying an acoustic guitar strumming and expect it to remain in my palette and make an appearance on something, someday. Why cut? I think I liked the idea of this a lot more than I was able to execute on it lyrically.
🎧 Terminus Remix/Reprise (with thanks to the Mountain Goats)
For the gear-heads: I accomplished this with the Red Panda Tensor (the knobs you first hear being turned about) and then the photo tremolo on the Strymon Flint. I think you could accomplish this with cheaper tools (reverse + pitch up + square wave tremolo) since those pedals are a little pricey.
Wow. Thanks for listening! (and reading!!)
I’m excited to share next week’s song with you: a collaboration.
The full EP releases on September 4th. You can acquire stickers, CDs, or wav files on Bandcamp.
Stay cool,
John