Christopher Blog

19) Where We Rest (6:21)

Been available several times since 1999

And here we are, the final song of `Orchid.’ The big payoff, so to speak. Everything leads up to this one final song.

It’s a personal favourite of mine. I’ve played it live several times throughout the years. Released it a few times over the years. The lyrics are self-explanatory. It’s devoid of the pomposity and ambition that belies the other songs.

Fun fact: This song was written first alongside `Entranced 1.0.’

Funner fact: This unintentional formula has been an ongoing thing (writing the first song and the last song at the same time) up to `Smoke and Origination.’

Memories:

I remember being in just my underwear while the drum loop played over and over again one gray morning. I sang out the words in the Orchid melody and it hasn’t changed since. I wonder if I ever put pants on that day.

I think I was really into the Ibiza `slow beats.’ I heard one around that time and thought I could do something with it.

Original `Where We Rest’ Version:

This is the original 4 track version. It has an extended outro which I wasn’t thrilled with. Aside from that, they’re fairly similar. I think the `final version’ that I have released throughout the years has better production and vocal performance.

In Closing

Well, my beauties, I hope you enjoyed the trip down my memory lane. It was a very critical look at a piece of music that at times has been mythologized and distorted over time. Perhaps I was very harsh on `Orchid.’ Perhaps I wasn’t harsh enough for some you out there with even more cynical leanings than I.

Either way, I am relieved that this thing is over, though it was an interesting experiment. It yanked out some rather ridiculous memories and it took too much time away from actually writing new material.

Tomorrow the whole album will be up to stream as one continual piece. So you can hear it seamlessly as it was meant to be heard.

Then the physical 2 CD set will be made available shortly thereafter. I have to wait on CDBaby to do the administrative set up. There will only be a few hard copies made. It will be available as an mp3 download as well.

18) Processioned (3:44)

Not available since 1999

There are key moments of sound that stay with you for your entire life. One of those moments for me is the last few seconds of `Exorcism’ from `Killing Joke.’

In those last moments of `Exorcism you will hear Jaz Coleman say: `Wash it away, wash it all away, wash away the tears.’

It was the way he says it that has stuck with me all this time. It sounds real. It sounds like a real baptism-cum-exorcism.

It’s that line and feeling that inspired `Processioned’ the most. `Wash it away.’ A ritual cleansing. A rebirth, a purge, the white light. All these things.

And while the track collapses underneath it’s own ambition, I still haven’t forgotten how important the INTENT was.

Not much else to say really. Cheesy MIDI, bad singing, par for the course in `Orchid.’

17) Silent (2:45)

Not available since 1999

`Silent’ is the beginning of the last song cycle called `First and Last.’ This cycle bears little to no resemblance to the former 3. It yields but 3 songs which do not adhere to the `Orchidian Dogmas.’

I think it was a conscious decision to make `Orchid’ asymmetrical. There might have been a numerological subtext, but that’s been long forgotten. 

If there is an underlying theme of this cycle, it’s apology and absolution.

When I listen to `Silent’ after all the other tracks that came before, it almost seems to decimate all the previous musical statements. For all the vocal shortcomings that I had in 1999, I have a fondness for this track. Music for White Noise and Voice.

I’ve always had an affinity for chanteuse-sung jazz and the lot. There’s a little bit of that in this song. 

This track consists of backward masked voices as well as melodies sung underwater. I filled up a bathtub, put my microphone wrapped in a garbage bag, and stuck my head under the water and started singing. Oddly enough, I cannot tell the difference between these melodies and the ones that were backward masked. They both have that sense of `dead space.’ It was a cool experiment, definitely worth trying again.

16) Everywhere (3:36)

Not available since 1999

Song cycle 1 had `Here,’ Song cycle 2 had `There’ and predictably, Song Cycle 3 has `Everywhere.’ It stays fairly true to the feel of these songs.

I can tell that I was happy, or at least, smiling when I sang this. I don’t know why, and I don’t know why I can remember this.

This concludes the `Desperation’ song cycle.

Monday begins the last song cycle: First and Last.

14) Inside This Place (5:20)

Not available since 1999

Another reprieve from the negativity. It seems to ebb and flow with `Orchid.’ Unlike the previous song, I don’t get the feeling of bile rising up within me with `Inside This Place’ even though it is much more `desperate’ emotionally than `My Love.’ I remember that I wrote this song based on the drum beat from the ending of `My Love,’ except I sped it up. So, it stays true to the rules of the other 2 song cycles; borrowing from the previous song.

And just like the 2 other cycles, the third song is always palatable, yet yields some major discomfort for the author.

Aside from some rather daft shoe-horning of multi-syllabic words, I like this track.

The Pen Is Mightier Than….

The scribbling you hear in the background is me writing out lyrics of the song as I sing them.

“I thought about love, I thought about home” etc. I am writing the words in unison.

I wish I still had those pieces of paper because the scribbling is astonishingly messy. I could barely keep up with the words and keep in time with the phrasing. But it was worth the effort. It adds colour and character to a concept that’s getting bleaker by the minute.

I appropriated a drum sample from the Tapping the Vein song `Numb’ for this track. As you can tell, my sound library in 1999 was limited to whatever I could afford and local artists. But it worked.

Memories:

Drinking cold Cabernet in a bar with a cherry oak counter. Writing out the second draft of the lyrics.

Orchid Outtake: Inside This Place (Original Version)

I think this version isn’t too different from the final version I did. I think I re-recorded `Inside This Place’ to make it more hateful. That’s about it.

13) My Love 12:26

Not available since 1999

This song is an epic. An epic embarrassment. My scalp literally started itching when I put this on for the first time in years. A vile beacon of self-pity captured in 12 glorious minutes. The temptation to not post this song was very high. I think only 3 people would have noticed its omission and their silence could have been bought with a chocolate bar.

While the intention was to create a grand plodding opus devoted to rejected feelings, it’s a near-forgotten sentence that documents what a waffling tart I can be. Oh, how the wonderful memories flood in like a bout of food poisoning.

You know something is about to go horribly awry when you hear the sample and the drums start out of sync. This is the most visible example of me trying to synchronize sampling with music without a sampler on a 4-track cassette machine.

The lyrics are trite teenage angst. I sound like a fat kid with a black leather coat. On a maturity level, I probably was still just that.

For a song of this size and scope, we will need to go section by section. (continue reading…)

12) Entranced 3.0

Not available since 1999

It’s an `angry young man’ classical composition. A bombastic statement saying `THIS IS THE STORY!’ and hits you over the head with it over and over and over again.

`Entranced 3.0′ doesn’t bear much resemblance to the other 2. It’s not really as pleasant or elegant. This one almost borders on a dirge prior to going into the `Entranced’ instrumentation. (Glockenspiel and piano.) I remember the feelings of confusion and fleeing played a large role in this piece.

The `moaning’ soundscape was a very heavy handed allusion. Very little is left to the imagination. I guess that’s some sort of achievement since there are no words. Just a chattering violin meandering through the song.

Sadly, this is probably my best and most intricate violin performance that I have publicly released. I can hear shoddy edits where I had to piece together the solo. And some lovely sharp notes.

I worked bloody hard on that Korg 01/W Midi Workstation so the `orchestral’ strings didn’t sound so fake. But you can only liven up a corpse so much.

Hearing this song causes a certain amount of discomfort. I think it’s because I tried so hard. At everything. And results were always minimal.

Before I forget, this is the second attempt at Entranced 3.0. The original doesn’t have the moaning soundscape.(You can hear the original at the end of this post.) But I intended from day 1 to have it.

To create this soundscape, it involved a visit to my creep-friendly porno shop… (continue reading…)

I need a day to collect my thoughts on the next track. I can see now that it’s this Song Cycle that opens the memory gates. Don’t worry, there is music today. An outtake. Scroll down.

So, we have Doubt, Denial, and now, Desperation.

I didn’t really realize until now that Doubt and Denial are actually 2 different stories. Both have a similar `upbeat’ start and resolve to loneliness. This seems like a movie with 2 subplots that eventually lead to one place: That place is Desperation.

When we start the journey through the next song cycle, be forewarned. This one is the most uncomfortable of them all. I don’t even need to hear the tracks to know what lies ahead. Heavy emotional and music ambitions were laid out. And they all were crushed by their own weight. Filled with such hatred, self loathing, self pity, grandiosity and awkward jaunted ideas.

But at the same time, there is a small adventure or 2 that alleviate the brooding nature of these songs. If anything, they do illuminate the fact that I do go to great lengths to get even the most marginal of ideas realized.

Orchid Outtake: Subspaced

Subspaced :53

In my 3^rd attempt to re-record `Orchid,’ I had this grand idea of adding fluff tracks to pad out the album. The one track that I actually did was called `Subspaced.’ It rested in between `There’ and the next track `Entranced 3.0.’ It is functionally useless. It does nothing to move the `Orchid’ story along. But if you like the sound of vintage synthesizers doing trite Philip Glass meanderings, then this track is for you.

Otherwise, this track does not belong on `Orchid.’

11) There – 3:05

Not available since 1999.

LOLCat Scratch Fever

If it was my intention to sound like a nasally wounded animal, then by God man, did I succeed.

`There’ is the musical antonym of `Here.’ All the key elements that establish `Orchid’ in the `Denial’ Song Cycle are present; wrapping up the second song cycle in a miserable black bow.

`There’ is a bitter song. No doubt about that. I can hear the shaky vitriol in my untrained voice when I say `believe me when I say thank you.’ I don’t have anything bad to say about the song save for the usual MIDI Cheese and shit vocal takes. Musically it’s coherent and follows the rules I laid out.

Who Dares? Who Cares?

The above subject line is repeated a few times in `There.’ The problem due to my re-editing and re-recording of `Orchid’ that there WAS a context to this line. `Who Dares, Who Cares’ is actually a line uttered at the end of the song `Salt.’ You can hear it in the original version of `Salt.’ I was too lazy when I re-recorded `Saltto include the choral chant. Idiot.

Album Artwork #2 – A Valiant Attempt and Owing Money

`Orchid’ was the last time I hired a graphic artist to create artwork. In the ye olde days some artists would post their graphics portfolio on an AOL personal page. I found this gentleman name Evan Buzzerio who was a local boy like me. (New Jersey Local.)

I found his artwork really interesting and dark. It was really cool patchwork Photoshop-type stuff that Cabin Fever Media was starting to do for metal groups at that time.

I contacted Evan and asked if he would be interested in doing the artwork for `Orchid.’ More specifically, the artwork for all 4 song cycles. He was receptive to the idea and dug the music of `Orchid.’ Some time passed by and in my inbox were the below 3 ideas.

I think this is the `Doubt' Panel. Behold the Screaming Peach Pit. My Favourite of the 3 Panels

I think this is the `Denial' Panel.

This is the 3rd Panel

The problem I had with the artwork is that it was too chaotic and too colourful. It was all over the place and it didn’t seem to make sense to `Orchid.’ It’s not bad by any stretch, but it wasn’t appropriate. I ended up not using the work and here is where my memory goes to shit:

I don’t remember if I told him I wasn’t going to use it. There was an issue with paying him for the services he rendered. This all should have been done by contract and included the scenario of `well, what if I don’t like it?’ We didn’t address that. I was naïve in the sense that I didn’t think he would present artwork that I thought wasn’t right for `Orchid.’ (continue reading…)

 Not available since 1999. Again, I apologize for the abrupt ending to the song. The song segues into another composition.

Play on, violin man

The rule of the Doubt and Denial Song Cycles is that every song has to `call back’ to the previous cycle. Usually it’s musical and on occasion it’s lyrical. `Laments’ is a musical `call back’ to `Salt.’ It is a very `ethnic’ (for lack of a better, less ignorant term) piece of music that tells the story through instrumentation instead of lyrics. Where `Salt’ is a piece that pays tribute to the European Medieval period, `Laments’ appropriates (shamelessly) Egyptian and Arabic themes.

I don’t remember playing this piece, but I do like that I was able to have 2 violins playing in unison without them sounding like 2 blind bicyclists falling off a cliff. If I remember correctly, one of the violin parts was a straight improvisation. The second violin follows and works around the improvisation. They romanticize and dramatize the `Orchid’ motif; giving it a sorrowful, yet urgent feeling.

Yes, I definitely think it was an improvisation. Because I couldn’t be bothered to do a second take, or even practice beforehand.

I am still pleased, from a compositional standpoint, that I was able to incorporate the same melody in almost every song and keep it fresh. I’ll give myself that. Everything else, pfft. (continue reading…)

9) To Be Still – 2:03

Not available since 1999. I apologize for the abrupt ending to the song. The song segues into another composition.

I decided to switch around my posting times for the `Orchid Blog.’ Check back midnights (GMT) for the rest of this week for new song posts. Mornings have been a bit rough for reflection and may have `coloured’ some of my opinions of the songs rather negatively.

Back to the story:

Just Lie Down…

Where `The Taste’ attempted to achieve a perfect marriage of sexual dominance and emotional frailty, `To Be Still’ is a succinct depiction of rejection. You give your all and yet you are nothing more than a passing breeze in the other person’s mind. It’s life. It happens.

This song wasn’t borne out of experience per se, but out of paranoia and sneaking suspicions. I have watched beautiful eyes glaze over and look far off into the distance before. That’s all I really needed to make a song like this happen. (continue reading…)

8 ) The Taste – 3:44

Available on `Abandoned in Situ’

Did You Feed Your Slave Today?

Something happened after 2006 where when I listen to this song, I immediately got angry. The lyrics of this song make me cringe. The whole `sexual decadent self loathing’ is so bloody tiresome. The lyrics are juvenile and altogether stupid. There are moments of lyrical depth such as `like your hands, shall your body pray?’ But the rest is teenage pap. I wasn’t a teenager when I wrote it so I have no excuse save for a lack of imagination.

That was what I wrote when I first heard it again today. But after a few more listens, the song isn’t that bad. There are lyrics that are just plain tacky and contrived, but overall it seems to capture the desperate state of mind I was in. There is a subtext of a lonely guy unable to connect, blindly grabbing onto anything that had the illusion of substance.

The song is an average executed attempt to voice the paradox of desire and contempt.

I remember one time when the Cocaine Cougar had her young boy toy over (who she held a lot of ire for.) The boy was a boob. An oblivious boob. But competent enough to massage her boobs. He listened to the song. He loved the song. He loved the words specifically. “Throw you down my little rag doll bitch…” really. C’mon now.

Actually, the exact reaction was as follows:

[Start Scene]

Takes a hit of a spliff

Bobs head

`RAG DOG BITCH YEAH!’

[End scene]

Because I am not an aggressive singer. (ie, I won’t be growling in a Swedish technical death metal group) I, at that time, had to compensate for this lack of aggression by singing through a distortion pedal. A grand old trick that industrial bands use to this very day. It’s effective, and you don’t wake up your parents who are trying to sleep while you are trying to record your woe.

Musically, the song was indicative of the times. It’s ok. It has the `Christopher’ twist to it all with all the Bombay style strings and alto chants. I mixed the thing too loudly hence why it sounds all distorted.

I did one big personal feat in the song: I hit my highest vocal notes on record. I went up into my whistle register and hit a C#7. You can hear the note at the end of the song. Starting at 3:39. I haven’t gone that high since. Never found a use for it. The whistle register is what Mariah Carey uses to hit those very high notes. 

The beat goes off time a bit near the end of the song. This wasn’t due to synchronization. It was because there were so many tracks running at once that the MIDI clock lagged for a few moments. The computer’s resources were just exhausted.

Memories?

I remember the smell of Nonoxynol 9. That stuff is wretched.

Orchid Outtake: The Taste (Original Demo Version)

Now this version is just a festering wound of suck. I know I was trying to be the dominant sexual master. Trying to be all playful and coy. Well, the first thing you should do if you do decide to play such a role is not to mumble the fucking words.

I don’t remember writing the words or doing this. I’m glad I don’t.

7) Entranced 2.0 – 1:19

Available on `Abandoned in Situ’

Think Happy Thoughts

Now begins the second cycle of Orchid called `Doubt.’ Just like `Denial,’ there are 5 songs. The original 5 songs from `Denial’ are in a way, reinterpreted to tell a different facet of the story.

Entranced 2.0 is much like 1.0 in the sense that it relies on the piano and ride cymbal to convey an ornate atmosphere. I kind of composed 2.0 to be like a dance remix of 1.0.

This is a reprieve from all the negativity I have showered on previous tracks. While I was still learning the ins and outs of my voice, the overall feeling and performance of 2.0 is very good for that era. The `MIDI Cheese’ works in the favour of the piece.

I have nothing left to say about this piece.

Abandoned Orchid Artwork Part 1

`Orchid’s’ artwork went through as many revisions as the music. The original artwork was given to me by #2 as a sort of `parting gift.’ I took a strong liking to the scorpion scribbles. She titled it `The Downward Spiral.’ God, we all loved Nine Inch Nails a little too much back then.

I thought that inverting the artwork to be black it looked a bit more poisonous.

I only used this artwork for the demo cassettes of Song Cycles `Doubt’ and `Denial.’

I think the `graphics program’ I used to make the sleeves was Word 97. Hey, you work with what you have. It was a 4 track cassette demo, after all.

Orchid Outtake: Entranced 2.0 (Original Version)

It’s not very different from the re-recorded version save for my wobbly wails in the back.

5) Here – 4:33

Not available since 1999

Child Philosophy

`Here’ is a song that was to document the `silent place’ in my mind that I could, in theory, retreat to. Where certain unvanquished beliefs and feelings could flourish. It is also a state of being usually felt some time around 2 or 3am when I was wide awake writing out new ideas.

`Stronger than truth’ and `stronger than love’ are child philosophy that I still hold on to. A classic example of this is when a father explains to a child the origin of the universe and God. The child will always ask `then who created God?’ Naturally this ends with either ice cream or whack on the child’s head. In some very rare instances, the child actually grows up and develops the theory of relativity or a wonderful death ray.

Oh Tesla, you scamp

  (continue reading…)

5) Salt – 2:23

Not available since 1999

Dance ye merry wench

Salt is an abbreviation of the word `Saltarello’ which is an Italian Medieval dance circa 14^th century. The dance is a fast pace where skipping is the dancer’s motif.

The inspiration for `Salt’ is from the Medieval players group `Hesperus’ who probably did the greatest rendition of a `Saltarello’ back in 1991. Use a search engine and type in `Hesperus Saltarello’ and you’ll find some goodness. I could not find their rendition on Youtube.

However, the track `Salt’, sounds like a primitive ringtone.

There are sound samples in there that were to `soften the stench of aged MIDI cheese’ but unfortunately I cannot recall where they came from. I worked so quickly on making these songs that things like sound files are just a fleeting blur.

Recollections: It was one of the songs re-recorded at the same time as `Longing Is…’ The timeframe where I intended to make `Orchid’ a vicious tome of intimacy. Aside from that, I have no other memories relating to `Salt.’

So let’s discuss something else brought up previously: The Cocaine Cougar (continue reading…)

4) Longing Is… – 3:39

This song was made available on `Abandoned In Situ’ as well as a free download.

Through lack of sleep, our hero finds strength:

It was late summer, maybe fall? I was not sleeping anymore. But it proved effective for recording and writing. I just started using a Pentium II computer to record songs. `Longing Is…’ is the first song I ever completed on a computer.

In my attic (previously mentioned) was an amazing skylight. I used to set up my vocal microphone just under it so I could look at the sky while recording. I remember it was around 6 in the morning. I was at the point where a strange calm was going through my body, yet, I was experiencing subtle tremors.

I remember that misty gray morning and singing `Who’s gonna save us now’ and `We were built on glass, I will never last, and I’m a piece of a past forgotten, and rotting away.’ Truer words couldn’t have been sung at that moment of my childish pathos. This song has a little bit more confidence in the singing than the other tracks.

Listening to this song and some others from `Orchid’ gave me temporary strength to function properly. Things like holding a job down and not opening a Live Journal account. (continue reading…)

3) Endure – 4:47

This song hasn’t been available since 1999.

Where criticism is given constructively:

This song makes my feet ache. If there was a way to go back a decade and hit myself in the feet  with a stick, I would do so. So 1999 me can feel what I feel now because of this song. And why do I feel this way?

Is it the drums? No. The drums, even though shitty MIDI, I can stomach

Is it the guitars? No.

Is it the phaser violin? Oooh I like that.

It’s my voice. My stupid, smarmy, pompous, untrained, conveniently low volume throat vomit. Hearing this song explains perfectly why I was a boob. An insufferable boob. And part of me actually appreciates this song because it explains WHY I was alone better than anything else. (continue reading…)

2) Entranced 1.0 – 4:09

This song hasn’t been available since 1999.

What is in that word?

There are 3 different pieces called `Entranced’ on this album. All of them are classical based and exploit pastoral calm feelings for their own nefarious purposes. This first one was intended to capture a very calm feeling juxtaposed with all the conflicted noise in my head. Hence all the weird sound samples that pop in and out of the song.

“Entranced” is the only word I remember #2 say when she recited one of her poems. We were at a park on this particular day; sitting on the grass and swapping stories and art ideas. It was a beautiful May mid afternoon week day. One of the few fearless moments that I would experience in our short time. She said this word was a recurring theme in her poetry and paintings. I filed that word away in my head as well; eventually finding my own perverted meaning in this word. The other word was `Endure.’ Which will play a role tomorrow.

(continue reading…)