happy birthday, cursed

happy birthday to cursed - my "new" mini-album. today is the official release date - 7.27.2011.

"new" because these songs were written and recorded in 2004/2005. they were originally released in '05 on a limited edition 16 song CDR titled it's you.

i have a really strong connection to a lot of the it's you songs. they came out of a really strange / intense time of my life. i was thinking about that time and listening to the songs recently and i felt like i needed to do something with them so they didn't disappear. i also felt like it was a bit much to digest.

after obsessing about it for a while, i realized that there were 2 separate mini-albums inside it's you. a gemini, not a taurus.

---cursed and blessed--- 


cursed is by it's nature darker and more twisted. this is not a 'pretty' record, but it has it's moments.

(blessed will come later this year)

so anyway... i decided to post the songs in this new guise so that people could find them if they wanted to (at least until the internet dies). you can download, stream and find lyrics here: http://theseknottylines.bandcamp.com/album/cursed

some personal / recording notes:

1. last time you were alive - recorded in the dungeon. the vibraphone is actually a Casio Rapman.
2. my pillow - recorded this in the attic at Camp Ironwood with Matt's old Gibson B-25. i plan on stealing that guitar someday. dig the siren.
3. a slow death - really slow - inspired by the feedback / acoustic guitar combo used on REM's Automatic for the People. and that's all i have to say about that.
4. our little town - not sure how it happened, but i found myself in a room full of instruments with Nathaniel Trimboli and John Carroll. the distorted guitar was added later. my crappy acoustic + Big Muff = \m/
5. dead deer - boys spun out. here's that Gibson again.
6. cursed -> no, blessed - piano time at Studio 315. this might have been the same night i played cobus green in it's entirety for 13 people in the bathroom. but probably not.
7. i don't believe in crocodiles - my mom used to tell a weird church story with this same title. this was recorded in the dungeon and you can hear the creepy door closing at the end. that room had such great reverb.