#polyanimal

[hyperlightspeed]

Do you like dogs or cats better?

lmao why do i have to choose i like snakes and spiders just as much im like polyanimal

[cypriotsmusic-blog]

The final song on Polyanimal (available on bandcamp) is "Teeth." I rerecorded this whole song from scratch for the album. The original is available on my soundcloud and is a one-take recording with vocals and guitar recorded at the same time. 

I used to write songs like "Teeth" all the time. I am a huge fan of The Weakerthans and am heavily inspired by them. Many of my first acoustic songs were in the style of songs like "Sounds Familiar"-- one chord at a time, no strumming. It has a feeling similar to an acapella, since the lines can be spaced however feels right without being strictly tied to a rhythm.

 As far as how this song came to be, in particular, the process was sort of different than usual. I was looking critically at my other songs and thought that many of them were lacking in concrete imagery, so it was an explicit goal of mine to work concrete imagery into a new song. 

"But I'm not sure I can ever be sure about the things that I know I don't know anymore" is just my regular slipperyness.

This song was written at a time that I was critical of the value of feeling that I had overcome something in my life. "I thought I was brave just for living so long..." Compare to "Faded Pictures of You and Me:" "I felt like a survivor for all of this freezing I'd done." 

The song references a few events in my life, mostly a road trip that I took a year ago to Vermont with a friend to attend various juggling events. It was another one of those events that recontextualized what I wanted in my life and why I wanted it. 

[cypriotsmusic-blog]

Up next on my review of songs on Polyanimal (available on bandcamp) is track 12: "Faded Pictures of You and Me." The vocals were rerecorded for the album to fix errors and to make it more like the current way that I perform the song. 

The notes on the bandcamp page say that I wrote this song after coming back from Kazakhstan-- but trying to put the chronology right in my head, it must have been at least 6 months afterwards. Still, my trip to Kazakhstan was fresh in my mind when I wrote the song.

Kazakhstan was a really eye opening trip to me. It was the first time that I lived in the mountains for any amount of time as well as the first time that I lived out of a one-person tent for weeks at a time. It was a time of accelerated bonding with other people as well as a time of deep introspection and self-evaluation. Up until recently, it changed my life more than any other single event that I can think og. 

In the little mock-up bio that I did for Cypriots, which you might be able to find on my last.fm or Reverbnation pages, I wrote that Cypriots is about trying to feel right. This song is sort of where that idea comes from, and certainly where the language comes from. 

The guitars were improvised as I went through the song. In fact, the backing guitars were laid down first with absolutely no idea what I would do with them. I improvised lyrics over them several times until some of them stuck and then I played around with them until everything worked. I added harmonics in the verses that I thought sounded pretty and then a huge electric guitar sprawl over the big bridge part with no lyrics. The two guitar solos were an afterthought; I put those overdubs there because the song was longer than I actually needed, but the solos sounded like they belonged there, so I didn't go back and rerecord it. 

[cypriotsmusic-blog]

Next up on Polyanimal (available on bandcamp) is track #11, "Shitty." It has a different vocal take than the downloadable version on my soundcloud and better reflects how I perform it live and this time I actually pronounce "insecurity" like a regular person. 

This song was written right after I put an acoustic pop-punk EP under the name Archivist. I was still inspired in that sort of vein and wanted to write another pop-punk song. Some of the ideas for a new song were kicking around in my head while I was walking back to my dorm from class one day and I basically wrote this song during that 20 minute walk. I recorded it as soon as I got back and it ended up not being a pop-punk song at all. 

This song was written at a time in my life when I was feeling like I was coming out of something bad and was feeling pretty okay with where I was. It is about being able to admit to myself and others that I need to change in order to be satisfied. It is about knowing when I need help and trying not to hate myself for asking for it. 

[cypriotsmusic-blog]

Track 10 on Polyanimal (available on bandcamp) is "From Where You Are."

This song was written before I got my new recording equipment and was one of the first songs that I recorded in order to test it out. At the time that I wrote it, the song felt like a huge step up from my previous work. I felt like I  had reached a higher plane of songwriting and I guess I was right because I feel like each song that I have written since is better than any song I wrote before this.

I wanted to write a song that incorporated hybrid picking to a certain extent. At first, it was sort of difficult to play the picking part of the guitar line and sing along, but this became easy after a few weeks of playing it live. The tempo sort of changes a little between the verses and the chorus because the chorus asks for a faster tempo. 

I was sort of inspired by Iron and Wine when coming up with the melody. I wanted to use a hushed town and keep the pitch sort of low during the verses. The chorus sort of grew naturally from what I thought should go next and not from any sort of outside inspiration. 

The song is about losing touch with friends from high school. We used to have this plan to spend a winter break or something at my dad's house and just hang out and maybe write an album. This never came to fruition and now I hardly talk to most of the people this song is about. It's also about feeling unable to come out to my friends in my hometown, which is something that I still haven't finished doing. 

[cypriotsmusic-blog]

Track 9 on Polyanimal (available on bandcamp) is "Flatland," another song that I wrote this summer after coming back from Montana. 

I was really inspired by "You" by Keaton Henson. Please do not listen to that song directly before or after listening to this one, because you'll figure out that I stole the chords straight from that song. This is largely because I wanted to write a song that didn't require a capo, as lots of my song are with capo and this has made playing originals difficult in situations where I am put on the spot with someone else's guitar and no capo. And because I love Keaton Henson to death. 

The song is about being separated from close friends. Between juggling, university, field camp, etc., I have friends from all over and many of them I might never see again. This song is about being worried that I will move on and forget about the good things from my past. It is inevitable that it will happen. 

Not a lot to say about this song. I intentionally left it a little bit raw and didn't add harmonies. 

[cypriotsmusic-blog]

Next up on my write-up of songs off of Polyanimal (available on bandcamp) is track 8: "Make Do."

This song was written during some downtime last winter, when I was recovering from waking up at 8am for Russian class. Hence, the reference to sleep deficit. I was feeling really worn thin and uninspired because of how exhausted I was. 

The line, "It's alright if you never choose/ because no one is waiting for you" was inspired by a lyric in "The Sound of Coming Down" by The Long Winters: "You know nobody's chasing us." There is a certain mix of freedom and sadness in that line that really appealed to me. It's also something that I try to remember when I become too self conscious about what I am doing. 

The song was sort of structured around "Stubborn Love" by the Lumineers because I don't really like that song (or them) but I thought the song was fun and wanted to write a song with that kind of pacing. Not that this song has a very fast pace, but it is definitely different than my slower, sadder songs. It was even written in the same key as "Stubborn Love" until I decided to raise it by a 4th. 

The guitar line was originally strummed, but I picked it when I recorded it and it made it feel much more alive, so that is how I do it now. 

[cypriotsmusic-blog]

Next up on my writeup of songs on Polyanimal (available on bandcamp) is track #7: "From What Has Grown."

This was the last track that I prepared for the album and probably the one that I am still the most excited about, probably because it is one of the more recent songs I've written. I wanted to make the verses different from each other and have some parts with bigger dynamics than what I'm used to.

The song started with me writing the second verse and sort of figuring out the theme from there. I was really missing being surrounded by friends and living in the mountains (still am, thanks for asking). I sort of was thinking about Josh Darnielle's style when I wrote it since I had just read an interview with him about rereleasing All Hail West Texas. I'm not sure if that actually comes through in my delivery.Once I figured out the theme, the rest of the pieces fell into place. 

The song referenced in the first verse is "Furr" by Blitzen Trapper. 

The bridge wasn't initially supposed to be as big as it was, but it just kept growing as I added to the recording and it really felt right. I really like that the second half of the song is considerably different than the first half. In lieu of banjos there is a tiny guitar part added in. I really need a banjo. Any time you hear any guitar lines that aren't the main chords it is supposed to be a banjo there. Or a harmonica. Or something else that would flesh out the song. 

During the instrumental breakdown, I went through and recorded palm muted strumming in the background. It made it feel a lot more coherent and in rhythm than it did before. This probably means that I need to put drums there, but I don't have drums and don't know how to play them, either.

So, this song sort of begs for a full band that I don't have. So does "Nothin'", the newest song that I've recorded. Maybe I should just start a band.