Art Is A Real Job, Alright
or, (Release) Days of Being Wild
Happy May Day. If you just want to hear the new EP, click here. If you’re sticking around for the blog post, I’ll link it again down below.
I wouldn’t call myself a “Quote of the Day” person, but I have been doing a bit of reading recently and a particular passage keeps recurring in my mind:
“Unfortunately, in many cases, the utopian glance forward mystifies the social reality of the present (art included); a camera obscura effect looks upside-down at the mutually dependent elements, with the result that symptomatic aspects (ideological, artistic, etc) may be asserted as the basis on which all else rests, or moves. In short: mystification (whether of the conformist or utopian variety) may dull the awareness which could arouse or perhaps even point the way for historical change.” - Stefan Morawski, Introduction to Marx/Engels on Literature and Art
Heady stuff. I’m no Marxist, but I parse the above to mean essentially that the idea that art itself can change the world is ahistorical, and the more fervently one believes it to be true, the more of an impediment it is to true human progress.
Surely such a statement would be considered sacrilege in a place like Seattle. You’re saying Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain didn’t change the world? We’ve spent far too much public money on this fantasy to question it now!
Besides which, my experiences in the nationwide (and self-styled) “DIY community” have made it pretty clear this kind of utopian imagination is at least supposed to be the one thing that can unite such a disparate and varied group of people as musicians - it goes beyond language, class, ethnicity, gender, or any other horizontal division of society into pseudo-castes that one could imagine. DIY Twitter is actually a very useful example for explicating this, as it certainly embodies these utopian ideals on the surface, and to a greater extent than most other arts communities (at least the ones that transact primarily by means of social media) - it also clearly embodies the only end such a worldview achieves (under capitalism): a permanent samsara, at once both the crab and the bucket, perpetually eating itself alive and shitting itself back into its own mouth, forever.
I dunno, man. Nothing kills progress like cynicism, and I get that. But I think those krafty Germans might have been onto something.
I’m not trying to minimize the impact of musicians like Hendrix and Cobain. Hell, it might be the most ahistorical thing of all, to seat them next to each other like this to make a rhetorical point. It’s just that, according to Marx, it’s more accurate to say that their music was a reflection of the societal changes that made it possible; the breadth and longevity of their respective influences has more to do with cultural forces extrinsic to works of art themselves, which he further contends are still best understood as products of the social, economic and cultural systems that produced them.
Am I splitting hairs? Jimi needed the British Invasion, Kurt needed Reagan, REM needed cheap Athens rent, the list goes on, and around and around. Getting the people hip to the changing material realities of their world is important revolutionary work; any song that becomes a part of that process is not a revolution in itself. Great Man Theory is still a trap! Was it Kurt and Jimi who changed the world, or the people who bought their records? Must we choose one? Something to think about!
Anyway, if you’re still reading this, I’m only writing on the blog today to announce the release of my new EP as iffin, HOMAGE TO CATATONIA (PICARO TWO):
Tracklist:
DOCUMENT OF DESCENT
COST OF FLOSS
POINTLESS WALK
KINDERKINGS
WINDOWS LEFT OPEN
Speaking of Marx, I did intentionally time the release to coincide with International Workers’ Day (altho to my knowledge, the holiday itself originates with a group of Anarchist, not Communist martyrs) in an attempt to align myself with the fraught times we find ourselves in; to paraphrase George Orwell in the same book I cribbed the EP title from, “when the worker comes into conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, there is no question of whose side I am on.” (Note: if you still find yourself with questions about whose side I am on, I’ll refer to you to the cover of our previous EP.)
These songs all came about more or less by accident. Most of them started with a repeating figure that I lighted upon by chance, not necessarily intending to write, and were completed within a weekend. In spite of this, I personally think both the songwriting and production on these roughly 18 minutes of music show a definite progression from our previous output, and set the standard for what kinds of sounds you can expect from our first LP, whenever I manage to get that out.
There’s always been somebody asking me the meaning of everything I do - when I managed a pharmacy in Vermont, our dairy vendor was fond of pointing to my painted nails and saying, “So what does all this… signify?” - and perhaps someone as prone to idiosyncratic naming schemes as myself shouldn’t find that surprising. One thing that’s changed lately, though, is that when I get asked these questions now, they’re almost always done so in sincerity. You would not believe how long it took me to figure this out. But in that spirit, and because as embarrassing as it is I’ve always liked this sort of thing, I’ve compiled a few notes on each song on the EP that my readers might find interesting.
(Note: I’ve been too busy doing music IRL to send it around very much, but there is a press release for this EP. I’ll update this post with a link later; interested parties can also email me.)
TRACK 1: DOCUMENT OF DESCENT
First things first: the connection between the title of this song and its substance is as tenuous as can be. This song began its life as a single 4-minute take on mandolin, days after I had bought it (RIP Trading Musician) and literal minutes after I figured out how to position my hands on the neck for stamina. As is the case with many of the songs I write, I carved out the structure as I produced that one take, choosing where to place verses and choruses and decide their lengths on the fly. The title was decided upon while the song was still in this embryonic form; as is also usual for me, I wasn’t even thinking about the lyrics until most of the instruments had been added. They concern an innocent case of being misgendered at a grocery store. Most of my lyrics are concerned on some level with the problem of dual-consciousness - in this case, trying respect my own feelings of being hurt by a stranger, while remembering that there is no intention to hurt me, much less any actual hurt committed, malice vs. incompetence, etc. Generally speaking, you won’t find me to be a fan of dualism in any form.
TRACK 2: COST OF FLOSS
I think every experienced songwriter has a kind of song that they always return to. It might be a key, a chord, or a rhythmic figure, but it always seems to come out when inspiration is more abundant than discipline at any given moment. You ever listen to Prince’s “1999,” “Take Me With U,” and “Manic Monday” all in a row? For me, it’s the tuning of this song - dropping the B string down to an A, so that strumming chords provides a steady, bagpipe-like drone underneath. This song is also a good demonstration of my tendency to set arbitrary limits on my own songwriting when I’m not necessarily expecting to finish something - in direct contradiction to my usual instincts, I forced myself to only allow the bass one note in this whole song (I did eventually permit myself a second octave). The lyrics are very personal despite being a little oblique. I don’t want to say too much about them, but it might help to understand that “Good State’s Day” is an imaginary holiday in the near future, akin to Independence Day in current times, that literalizes the celebration of an ideological victory as a stand-in for identity. Hopefully my views on that will be clear.
TRACK 3: POINTLESS WALK
Both the song and the recording date back to an exquisitely painful and rewarding period of metamorphosis, beginning with the start of the pandemic. We’re talking pre-transition here; I don’t even own most of the instruments I made this one with anymore. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that, unlike the rest of these songs which I made on my computer at home, this was recorded entirely to 4-track cassette before being mixed digitally. I like the words, but there’s no point trying to explain them.
TRACK 4: KINDERKINGS
This is the political song, and probably my favorite on this release. Again, it wasn’t supposed to be a song until suddenly it was, but I did wind up taking a lot more care with this one. In fact, this one song might have taken me as much time to get right as the rest of the EP put together - no “happy accidents” here. The title is a pun. I wanted the rhythms to fall somewhere between Irish stepdance and hip-hop; you can tell me how well I succeeded at that.
TRACK 5: WINDOWS LEFT OPEN
I added this song at the last moment; I regret a little not finding the time to lay down a live drum track, but I kind of like the video game-like quality of all the virtual instruments blending with my voice and guitar. This is a funny one, because I actually wrote it originally about 15 years ago for the band I formed in high school, which was called Day Sleeper. I made this version mostly to experiment with arranging my robot orchestra, and I had intended to rerecord all of the parts live at some point, but I’m too attached to this version now. Being 18 years old when I wrote them, there isn’t much to say about the lyrics that they don’t already say themselves. But comparing it side-by-side with the Day Sleeper original - recorded during my second ever time in a studio, with absolutely none of the production, engineering and arrangement experience I have now, and even less interest in them - is an interesting lens thru which to view my life’s progress. Plus, four songs felt too short; I think it rounds things out nicely, and gives something of a taste of things to come.
So. There’s the announcement. Iffin the band will be taking a brief hiatus so that Henry and I can finally finish the first album, but we have some shows planned around the PNW region starting in late June, so I’ll be certain to keep you posted. Thank you for listening and spreading the word.
And if you’re reading this on the day it’s published, grab your axe and get to Darrell's Tavern on Highway 99 by 7:30 to make sure you get a spot at the Mistress Mira Tsarina’s weekly Open Mic Night. Until next time, my friends!
Vigilant always,
Miss Mira