At home, in his studio (lair), old Krug chops up one of young Browning’s works, rearranges the parts to suit his own freakish needs, then squawks out an ill-conceived incantation overtop. He sends the whole mess to creaky Koop, who, in turn, from within his own dank cave of gadgets and oddities, skronks onto the franken-song an eccentric idea of what a guitar melody might be. They deliver the concoction back to young Browning, its progenitor, and cringe in wait for his gen z insults that they won’t understand, but he is unexpectedly pleased.
Still, they make tweaks. They tweak until the annoyingly subjective and idiosyncratic desires of all three are barely satisfied. Hoo-rah! they cheer, Krug coughing through the “rah,” having not lifted his arms that high in years. The three unlikely collaborators then decide they will make an album this way, repurposing Browning’s perfectly fine and lovely instrumental tracks into “better” “songs” by unnaturally forcing them into pop-structure-shaped holes, then adding lyrical phrases of vague meaning and forgivingly distorted guitar.
They work remotely, and slowly, posting a single demo onto Krug’s dubious Patreon page monthly, until finally a whole record’s worth of songs exist. Our three near-unemployed musicians then convene eagerly, desperately, in the woods, at a studio ridiculously called “The Studio,” and re-record the entire batch of deformities into one surprisingly cohesive collection, each song like a button-eyed bear sewn from parts of other bears, with pink and purple arms never meant for the beige torso onto which they’re now fastened.
(Oh yeah, then they added “The Shadow,” which was made earlier.)
Packaging Notes
140 gram black vinyl in a 20 pt jacket and printed inner sleeve. Manufactured in Canada. Limited run.
Tracklist
Cry All Day
God Knows Why This Is Where I Love You
Nostalgia Is The Rose
Taxi After Taxi
Orcas
The Shadow
Exonerator
For Fear That Songs Come True
Love Song
Something About The Real World
Credits
Eli Browning—drums, bass, guitar, keys
Jordan Koop—lead guitar
Spencer Krug—vocals, keys, bass
Engineered by Eli Browning and Jordan Koop at The Studio
Mixed by Jordan Koop at The Noise Floor Recording Studio
Produced by Eli Browning, Jordan Koop, and Spencer Krug
Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering
Cover artwork and layout by Michael Doerksen
These songs were written, arranged, and produced in full collaboration with Eli Browning and Jordan Koop. A true group effort, this album is as much theirs as it is mine. -SK