Fossils In Transit

Is It Home We're Going To?

Debut Album Release, 04 April 2025

While this isn't the first album I've released it's the first album of songs with lyrics that I've released.

Why now? Because it's time.

I've been writing songs with lyrics for a while but during that time my focus has been on releasing instrumental music, instead. I felt that the two styles would clash if I tried releasing them intermingled. I've spent the last few years arguing with myself about the best way to incorporate them together.

I've gone round and round, back and forth, arguing different sides of the issue. But now it's settled. I've finally decided to create a space where I can dedicate releases primarily to songs with lyrics. And while my instrumental album releases will never feature songs with lyrics, I do think a few instrumental songs can be appropriately included on an album primarily composed of songs with lyrics.

They say you only ever write a few songs over and over again. For myself, I am drawn to ideas relating to "home" and "belonging." I think that makes a good place for me to begin this journey as I continue to explore the ideas which mean the most to me.

Also "water."

I write a lot of songs about water, it seems, where water becomes a metaphor that brings several different ideas together.

So it seems entirely fitting that this debut album of songs with lyrics consists of ten tracks centered around my obsession with the ideas of home, safety and belonging.

I hope you enjoy them.

Is It Home We're Going To?

START DATE: 03 February 2021

TRACK DETAILS:

The genesis of this track comes from purchasing the TAL-Sampler VST plugin at the start of February 2021. I saw a demonstration of this VST a few weeks before and imagined it to be like a mash-up between a Fairlight CMI and the Roland JV-880. (I own one of those devices. You can probably guess which one.) This is the first track I made with the plugin, in a fever of inspiration on the purchase date. It was built in the process of exploring how the plugin worked.

At one point I had four different instances of TAL-Sampler running and I felt that if I did anything else to the song I would ruin it, so it sat for a short while as I figured out what to do next. Rather than add a new instrument I turned on the microphone and the lyrics just spilled out. Obviously, they were percolating in the background while I was focusing on the music. The result was so eerie and beautiful that I tucked the song away, hoping to base an entire album around this track, and what could follow as I continued learning how to use TAL-Sampler.

Unfortunately, that project never got very far. But I still love this song very much and felt it deserved to be released even if the original album idea failed to pan out.

LYRICS:

Hey there
Are they
Coming
Over

Folding into waiting arms
They call us out
Is it home we're going to
Let's find out

Hey there
Are they
Coming
Over

Is it home we're going to
Let's find out

VIDEO:

Broken Chain

START DATE: 02 February 2023

TRACK DETAILS:

Musically, this song began as an exploration of Ableton Live, which I had only recently purchased. For the fifteen years prior I had been using REAPER and I felt ready for a change. Ableton looked like it had features and capabilities I wanted to explore. I was especially keen to re-engage with a clip-based composition style that I remember from my very first DAW, FL Studio.

Lyrically, the song springs from the first couplet, which burst out unexpectedly and unbidden in an early attempt to capture spontaneous vocalizations in the manner best demonstrated in Peter Jackson's documentary, "Get Back."

If you've seen it, you may well remember the portion of that first episode where Paul McCartney is just pounding out a song, playing it over and over until he accidentally stumbles across the seeds of "Get Back." It's an inspirational moment and I've taken that as license to do likewise and just let nonsense loose until it resolves to something interesting and compelling. It was through that process when the opening couplet to this song emerged fully formed, seemingly out of nowhere.

Once I had the couplet, my job was to come up with the rest of the lyrics to justify and support it.

And then along came George Santos, giving me the perfect object lesson to work from. And while this is not a political or protest song per se, it speaks to the character of the type of person Santos exemplified.

Somehow, in the back of my mind, I must have remembered reading that the first parking meters were run off of mechanical chains with weights attached. If the chain breaks, the time on the meter runs out sooner than it should, based on the cash value given to the device.

The final musical task for this song was to see if I could create a synthesizer lead line that sounds like a guitar for the bridge solo. I'm not sure I can call it a complete success, but I like the results, nevertheless.

LYRICS:

The tale you never tell
Leads to your destruction
You think that hiding lies
Could be called the truth
But when it all comes out
You can't go home
The one you call your friend
Leaves you alone

Who you gonna be when the sun comes up again
Running out of time like a meter with a broken chain

The walls are closing in
Is there time to run
You thought you wanted fame
Instead you've come undone
Was it all you planned
All you dreamed about
Now your house of flash
Is turning into smoke

Who you gonna be when the sun comes up again
Running out of time like a meter with a broken chain

VIDEO:

Predator

START DATE: 04 February 2023

TRACK DETAILS:

One of my initial tasks with Ableton Live was to listen to as many "clips" as I could manage and mark the ones I liked as Favorites in red. Once I made a first pass through that list, I went through the list marked as Favorites and selected ones I wanted to work with right away on the project right in front of me. Those items I added a second selection in green. In that way, I ended up with a selection of "red plus green" items to explore right away as I learned how to use this new DAW.

This song began from such a selection of Red + Green samples. The primary percussion is an instrument made from cello hits. The original clip was at 114 bpm, but I slowed it down to 84 bpm and that gave an otherworldly vibe.

But I just couldn't get it to work.

I made two full versions of a song bed but neither was working out for me. So I started a new copy of the project, gutted the MIDI and audio, other than the cello percussion stuff - which was the only part working - and used the instruments I'd selected and started over saying to myself, "make it simple, OK?"

I finished the music and was pleased with it, and got up from the desk planning to take a break and get something to eat, but then the first line of the lyrics popped into my head and I sat back down, again, and hammered them out. I could only take two verses in that headspace and so that's when I quit writing lyrics, and here it is; a creepy murder ballad.

I used the vocoder on the vocals because I can't really hold those low notes very well and it also amplified the creepiness factor.

LYRICS:

When you walk around the building you see the window
Up on the second floor with the light turned on
Following the footsteps up the stairs
The back of your neck hollers to beware
There will sometimes be the thing that follows you

Courage in a box it sells a lot they say
It don't bother you the things you want to do
There will be a way to get away when you're done
It don't have to be at the point of a gun

VIDEO:

Frozen Underwater

START DATE: 30 July 2023

TRACK DETAILS:

One of the ways I like to work is to use a laptop computer as a portable song sketchpad. I keep a limited set of virtual instruments on the laptop in addition to Ableton Live so that I'm less likely to be distracted by an abundance of options. Also, because I'm working on an old, used, laptop it isn't as powerful as my desktop computer so I have to be mindful of my processing resources.

I started this song on the laptop as a nice pad in Arturia Pigments which, at the time, was the only Arturia VST I had installed on the laptop. Then, against that nice but simple pad I spent some time playing around and came up with the drum groove. I wanted something slightly irregular and dreamy to go with the pad.

The song sat in that state for several days and I had no ideas for how to take it forward. But after a few idle days passed, I returned to the project and managed to get the rest of the music put together and transferred the project to the main computer where I took advantage of the increased processing power to add audio effects and craft the structure of the song to its final state.

At that point, I thought I was done with the song and thought it was going to be an instrumental track. I got up from my desk to go make lunch and the lyrics popped into my head while I was at the stove about to put some brown rice on to boil. In the time it took the rice to boil I was able to record the basic vocal track and then after lunch I returned to the project and added the backing vocals.

Maybe it seems to happen a lot that lyrics just pop to mind.

What is actually happening, I suspect, is that a bit of my brain is already churning away with lyric possibilities as I craft the music. And since I usually listen and re-listen to a song multiple times while I'm working on it, there's a good stretch of time for that lyric brain module to do it's magic, unobserved. And then, if I'm lucky, it presents the results tied up with a bow. Sometimes its just a couplet. Sometime it's just a line. Other times it's a verse or chorus or, in the case of this song, the entire lyrics.

Most of the time lyrics come with a lot of difficulty, or with a lot of trial and error. So on the occasions when they arrive fully-formed or nearly fully-formed it's always worth a little bit of celebration and honoring that gift.

LYRICS:

Ride up to the edge you look across the gulf and then you turn back
Take another try along a different path and yet you turn back

Scratching out your name on the underside of an ice floe
Turn around to see that you haven't even left home

Frozen underwater in the depths of the summer

VIDEO:

Familiar Maybe

START DATE: 13 January 2025

TRACK DETAILS:

This is the only track custom made for the album.

I wanted to use both "Frozen Underwater" and "Swimming" because of their shared themes, but I also felt I needed some space between these two tracks as a transition.

I wasn't sure if it was going to work, and it took a few tries to get where I wanted to go.

This song represents the thaw between being frozen underwater and then being released and able to swim more freely.

LYRICS:

Something familiar distant horizon
Walk forever but never arrive
Shelves filled with familiar books
Open each and every one
Can't read what's written there
Wander through this old house
With a million familiar rooms
Maybe one has the fireplace

VIDEO:

Swimming

START DATE: 06 February 2023

TRACK DETAILS:

On the first day, I began with the basic bones of the song, which starts with one of the clips I had marked as a Favorite in my first days with Ableton Live. With a basic guitar and drum track in place, I listened back and improvised lyrics. In that process I came up with the vocal refrain, "don't need it, don't want it, don't need" and that gave me the feeling this could be an important song.

Once again, I'm using the lyric discovery strategy highlighted in the genesis of the title song from the Peter Jackson documentary about The Beatles, "Get Back."

On the second day, I came back and added the background "swimming" vocal line and that’s as far as I got. I can't really explain what triggered that refrain except to say that "it felt right."

The simplicity of the track gave me the feeling that I was building a song in the style of R.E.M. and that was a heavy obligation to fulfill. As a result, it took an additional week to revise the lyrics and find what I wanted the song to be about and to flesh out the arrangement.

At the time I felt like I had spent eight days chasing ghosts and coming up empty handed. But eventually it was time to wrap it up and move on. I had a lot of things I wanted to accomplish with this song. I feel like I got some of the things I wanted but that the rest will have to wait and will belong to different songs, instead.

LYRICS:

Swimming in the water
Swimming in the
Swimming in the
Swimming in the water

Wake in the morning
With salt from a dream
Light thru the window
Is heavier it seems

Don't need it
Don't want it
Don't need

You say it feels like falling
You say the words
Even if you don't mean it
Even it it means nothing

Don't need it
Don't want it
Don't need

Don't need it
Don't want it
Don't need

On the drive home you said
I don't think of them as friends
just people I'm less afraid of

Don't need it
Don't want it
Don't need

Don't need it
Don't want it
Don't need

Don't need it
Don't want it
Don't need

VIDEO:

I'm a Metal Man

START DATE: 12 February 2019

TRACK DETAILS:

I first noticed the 'harmonizer on drums' sound on the Nina Hagen track, "UFO" from the album "Nunsexmonkrock" and have loved it ever since.

As for the lyrics, initially, I just recited the numbers along to the melody of the synth because I wanted to see how the effect would sound on vocals. After listening a few times the phrase, "I'm a metal man" popped into my head and so I ran with that to see where it would lead.

This song felt unfinished for a couple of years. But in early 2025 I came back to it with some new inspiration after watching a video on how to set up "Frippertronics" style delay in Ableton Live. One of those experiments felt like a natural fit for this song. In addition to this newly-added section, I also added the synth pad to the second verse to fill out the sound some more.

The transition between the old section and the new section comes with a tempo glitch. A few days after I finished adding the Frippertronics coda, I was listening back to the song and it felt like that glitch was saying, "the main character's assessment of the situation is in error." The glitch acts as a repudiation of the conclusion of the song and the new section suggests a different direction to go. I think that's what was missing from the original version of the song and why it took a few years before it felt finished.

LYRICS:

One, two, three, four, five

I'm a metal man bending steel my back is strong
I'm a metal man counting time so very long
I'm a metal man I don't know where I belong

One, two, three, four, five

I'm a metal man fiber resin on my skin
I'm a metal man tangled wires don't let in
I'm a metal man keeping track of where you've been

VIDEO:

Translation Dial

START DATE: 12 August 2023

TRACK DETAILS:

There were three specific jumping off points for this song.

The first came in the form of an email from the company, "Samples From Mars" announcing that, in celebration of their ten year anniversary, they were releasing a special collection of bits and bobs left over from previous sample packs as a thank-you to long time customers. The sample pack was called "Lost Tapes From Mars."

(As an aside, if you make music yourself and are looking for a good resource for drum machine samples I cannot recommend Samples From Mars enough. They will have what you want and what you need.)

The second was re-watching the film, "Lost in Translation" and having it hover over me and settle into an off-kilter mood that persisted for several days.

It was in response to these first two points that I began working on the music, feeling unsettled but also inspired in a tangential or oblique manner.

The third jumping off point came about a week later. A prominent and exceptionally-vain man was arrested and when asked to state his age said the numbers in sequence rather than the actual number. "Seven seven" instead of "Seventy-seven." He did this, it seems to me, simply because he was just too vain to admit his age. That's what prompted the conceit of the first line of lyrics.

And then, with that first line, I needed something else to explain and prop it up. Since I was still in an off-kilter mood from the film my net flew a bit wider than it might have otherwise. From there it was just a matter of following where the words wanted to go.

Musically, I wanted to experiment with doing background vocals in an equally off-kilter manner which resulted in just choosing different phrases at random for backup and that seemed to fit well with the overall feeling of the song.

LYRICS:

There are only 237 words that I know
Fifteen say yes and 68 say no
And all the rest mean the color green

Step into the cubicle
And spin the translation dial
Something surprising could happen
You may never know

These things are not the same as before
But it will all be okay
It will all be okay

Spin the translation dial
Spin the dial and make a wish
Spin the translation dial
And maybe someday we will meet
In the middle of this

In the middle of this

And maybe someday we will meet
In the middle of this

This

Spin the translation dial
Spin the translation dial

We will meet

Spin the translation dial
Spin the translation dial

VIDEO:

Another Sun

START DATE: 29 January 2022

TRACK DETAILS:

Sometimes, it's just fun to sing lyrics.

In many ways, this could be seen as a throw-away song. But it was started as part of the album project which also included the title track. But over time that project failed to materialize in the way I wanted and this song was also left as an orphan.

It would be fair to say that I'm including it to show that I can write upbeat songs.

But it's also fair to say that I'm including it simply because I love singing this song.

LYRICS:

Hey, there's another sun
Hey, look what we have done

Hey, hey, hey, hey baby don't forget
hey, hey, hey, hey baby don't regret

Hey, there's another sun
Hey, look what we have done

Don't forget
Don't regret

Hey, there's another sun
Hey, look what we have done

Hey, hey, hey, hey baby don't forget
hey, hey, hey, hey baby don't regret

VIDEO:

Is It Home We're Going To? (Cozy Reprise)

START DATE: 23 November 2024

TRACK DETAILS:

It's been a couple of years since I finished the song that became the title track for this album.

I used the TAL-Sampler VST plugin on that track but after an initial rush of several weeks I didn't really dig as deeply into it as I initially hoped to.

Recently, I opened a new project in Ableton and loaded TAL-Sampler onto several tracks and started exploring it, again. But after a while I felt like I had simply re-created a slightly-different version of that very first track I built with it.

When I began assembling the playlist for this album, this track felt like a natural reply to the title track and sounded like a nice, slightly-melancholic yet uplifting point to end on. It survived several iterations of the playlist exploration process, thereby earning its place as the close to the album.

LYRICS:

Instrumental.
No Lyrics.

VIDEO: