Tripecac - Archives

I wanted to test my phone-taping microphones, I called up my then-girlfriend Kim. She was Anand's girlfriend before and after me. I managed to "steal" her, but only for a couple weeks. She probably didn't appreciate being treated like a guinea pig!

I wrote a journal entry while I was with Kim; it's dated 1990-05-27. For now, I'll use that as the best-guess date for this recording. In reality, the actual conversation was probably a few days earlier or later.

I wrote and recorded this when I was dating Kim. I tried to make it hard-rock.

I'm guessing that I recorded this the same day as "Convo with Kim". The closest date I have is 1990-05-27, from a journal entry. I'll use that for now, although I might be off by a few days.

This laments my crumbling relationship with Kim. I'm guessing I recorded it in early June.

"Floppy" is a term Anand used to represent a lack of [male] stamina. This song could be considered to be from Anand's perspective as well. I honestly don't remember whether I wrote it for Anand or me; maybe both.

The tape broke near the end. I've restored some of the ending fragments. They're muffled, chopped up, and slightly out of time with the first section. Unless I find an earlier copy of this song, this will have to be the "definitive" version.

This opens sounding a lot like "Flippy Floppy". It's actually a remake of a much older song that I wrote for my cousin (also named Kim) in the late 1980s.

The original lyrics mentioned that I had sent my cousin "200 pages" of letters. This 1990 version has the number updated to "500 pages", which is not an exaggeration!

Jon Friesen and I also recorded a version as IPECAC (on Fake Reverb 2).

Zzzzzz....

This between-song silliness doesn't have anything to do with either of the songs surrounding it (both easy-listening instrumentals). I'm guessing it was leftover from whatever was on the tape previously.

I was listening to a lot of Andreas Vollenweider (Austrian new-age harpist) at the time. Hence the cheesy new-age title.

Here's another silly title new-age. This song has the worst audio quality of all the tracks on this album, thanks to tape mangling. On the bright side, this song's production makes the remaining songs sound good. :)

I had recently gotten into reggae. I was reading about Peter Tosh and other troubled Rastafarians. This is half-parody, half-homage.

The tape broke in a few places before I was able to digitize the song. Sorry!

This "hard rock" remake is the fourth version of the IPECAC song originally recorded for Catharsis (1988).

This version is my favorite. It's too bad the tape got eaten near the beginning of the song. I've managed to salvage part of the long introductory solo, but it's muffled and still has breaks in it. Sorry!

This is of course inspired by Dave Brubeck's 5/4 jazz classic "Take Five".

The word "sive" comes from a story I wrote in high school. "Sive" is supposed to be any number between any other two numbers that are between 4 and 6 (inclusive). Confusing and silly? Yes. Fortunately the song is much simpler.

I either wrote or was inspired to write this instrumental medley during a trip to Paris in 1990. The opening and closing chord progression is cheese-city but so is Paris. :)

The typewriter-like drum sounds (starting at 1:26) might have been a purposeful reference to the vast amount of time I spent writing stories and plays during that trip, but it could also be accidental. I don't remember.

This is the intro to "Thing Called Thex".

This is [an edited version of] the most offensive song I've ever recorded. I like the music, but hate the words. It was supposed to be funny, but the subject matter is crude, mean, and juvenile. I wrote it in Paris. Okay, that's all I want to say about this song.

I was berating myself between tracks. As with "Sex and Violence", I think this was from a tape I was recording over.

I wrote this song's lyrics on a train from Paris to Brussels during my family's trip to Europe in 1990. The words were inspired by a pretty girl on the train. "Mo" refers to Allen Foster's then-girlfriend Michelle.

I wrote the music and recorded the song after I got back to Virginia.

This is a semi-remake of one of "Ammonia Song", which was on IPECAC's Live at Carnegie Hall album.

The song title implies that this was recorded near Christmas time (1990). I'll set it (and the next few songs) in December as a best-guess.

This was actually the first song I created on my Yamaha SY55. When I sequenced it, I didn't know anything about quantizing or polyphony. I felt it was too sloppy to put onto tape. I postponed recording it until months later, when my sequencer's memory was getting full and I wanted to make room for other songs.

This "house-cleaning" approach reached its peak on South or Southeast (1999), which only had one completed song and tons of house-cleaned ones. Lack of sequencer memory was the main reason I switched to a Korg Triton in May 2000 (exactly a decade after I started this song).

The tape notes say this was started in May 1990. However, my stab at the recording date is a complete guess (based on the name of the previous song, "Metalmas").

An earlier version exists on South or Southeast. I'm not sure what the differences are.

This was a "mindless" groove and solo which I used as filler for the end of the first side of the tape. On the second side, I recorded a second version of it, this time adding vocals and calling it "Football Soft".

Brief spoken into to "Football Soft".

This is a "throwaway" groove over which I chanted the lyrics from "Soft" (twice). I probably recorded it on the same day I recorded "Chimera", to free up some memory on the SY55. I called it "Football" because of its mindless aggression.

The original tape's notes had "May 1990" written down for this song. That can't be the recording date, since the lyrics didn't exist until after the Paris trip (in August). There's a chance that I wrote the music in May, but I really doubt it. So, I'll assume the "May 1990" was a mistake.

I have another note that says the recording date should match that of "Chimera".

No comment, other than "weird title".

The intro and outro are guitar-only. They're pretty rough. The middle has other instruments. I like it the best.

I wrote this in late 1990 or early 1991 for my then-girlfriend Cathy. The stacatto synth arpeggio is from "Christmas in Cancun", a song I wrote for the Master Anchovies.

This might have a silly title and hissy sound quality, but I actually like the guitar and [fake] piano sound.

This was on the second tape, which had lots of static. It and the rest of the songs on the album have annoying "popping" sounds.

I wrote a song called "Louis II" for my then-girlfriend Cathy. That was the name of her hermit crab. Unfortunately, all that's left of the song is this (somewhat boring) intro.

This is my favorite song on the Archives album. It's very bouncy and sassy (if you listen to the lyrics).

The words came straight from a break-up letter. I thought it'd be funny to put these super-negative words to bright, poppy music, so I did.

Was I right about the dark/light juxtaposition being "funny"? I don't know. It's certainly a theme that stuck with me. I'd take a really dark topic, and make fun of it by adding peppy music. Many of the songs on The Hermit and Aminals are like that. This song was my first "success" with the formula. It encouraged me to keep doing it.

I censored the really bad parts, even though I didn't write them. I'm trying to keep this site [relatively] free of profanity. Enjoy the tune!

Obviously, abstract mood music isn't my thing... The one interesting thing about this song is that it features a "jungle" voice which I created on my SY55. The lameness of this "song" helped convince me to abandon sound synthesis and focus on composing music using the presets.

This is a fictional song about insecurity and posessiveness. There's a lot of profanity (gosh darn it) but the music is catchy.

Luckily, I have a censored version, which I uploaded for you. The edits are clunky and it's still pretty easy to guess the bad words (since I simply reversed that part of the audio filed), but hey, at least you get a chance to hear the music.