Black Flower Music

I’m going to admit, this is probably record I am most ashamed of ever releasing. I’ve been sitting here for a month, trying to think of something positive to say.

I just can’t. Everyone has a stinker.

Unless you’re one of those folks that simply can’t stand noise and thinks these are all stinkers, I think we can all agree.

I broke my rule of “no words.” It was supposed to be “Say No More Tongues.” This implied that I wouldn’t talk or fake sing like I did on R3vO. I did it anyways. It turned out weird, and I feel like I’m better for it.

I still used the same instrument set from “Ma Maladie” and “Salvation.”

This is so bad, I even have a song where I talk over it in Japanese. Try not to ever listen to Marriage of Despair if you can help it.

So, why is it so bad?

At the time, I was close to graduating high school. My senior year was fairly chaotic, and it shows in this record. Maybe I had stopped caring. Maybe I was out of ideas. This sounds a lot more depressing than year actually was, honestly.

I actually really enjoy the music on this one. I wish I hadn’t ruined it with words.

It’s strange that I started getting away from that fake dance music I tried to make in the first two albums. This would be the last album that even used the same instrument set. After this, I only made two songs using the same loops and settings. Then my computer crashed, and I lost everything on my Windows partition.

This was also the last album before I found what dada, noise, and avant-garde music was. As noisy and weird as some of the previous stuff was, I still find it interesting that I was making ‘noise’ music before I even knew what it was.

As much as I’m ashamed of this recording, it’s important to take note of the differences between it and all the other ones. Not until “Endless” did I dare speak again, unless you count the recently unreleased Christmas album.

I realize I’ve typed a lot but said so little about a brief four track record. There’s not much to say. It’s a turning point. It’s the end of an era. It’s a confusing conclusion.

I must have recently seen Star Trek: Search For Spock right before making this because it’s full of dying whale sounds.

This was my very first Say No More Tongues side-project release. Before I shortened it to SNMT, I really thought that name was cool. I was also in high school. I thought a lot of things were ‘cool’.

I had been making ‘music’ under the name R3vO for a few years prior where I pretended to sing and have fast beats behind it. It was a mess. During that point in time was when someone used the word noise to describe what I was doing.

I felt it was an epithet, not really knowing what it meant at the time. I decided to continue my R3vO releases, sloppily trying to make it as weird as possible. Then I began listening to quite a bit of early 80s goth rock, Cleopatra records, and VNV Nation.

I decided I wanted to make something where there was no pressure to be silly and weird. All it really requires is a name shift. So, around 2003 I began making “Ma Maladie” which is my username on last.fm and on the p2p file-sharing/chat program Soulseek. Say No More Tongues is my AOL instant messenger screen name.

I wasn’t exactly the most creative when it came to naming bands and albums. Song titles were always my strong suite in that regard.

My goal was to make something that was still very ‘me’, but something one could actually listen to as a dance/electronic record occasionally. I also wanted to make it dark. Dark in the same way that 80s goth rock was, not emotionally depressing.

Even though I had never studied music theory, and knew very little about music making I somehow came out with something relatively listenable.

It was noisy, it was chaotic, but it still had a soft enough edge to it to not get that “omg what is that??” response I get these days.

Then again, I had been using the same Fruity Loops build since late early 2002 and had a fair amount of practice while recording “Ma Maladie” in late 2003/early 2004. These days, people scoff at Fruity Loops, but it serves my purpose.

In fact, my ultimate goal was to break Fruity Loops, and break my computer. Not with this album, or this project. Not yet.

This album’s songs are entirely too similar in an attempt to maintain congruence of the album.

There’s a fair amount of clapping, muddled drumming, and the same progressions throughout. I felt it creepy enough to achieve my needs.

Looking back, I’m actually proud of this album. Even with its glaring problems, it maintains a sound I’ve never been able to recreate. I feel proud perhaps because I honestly and truly put myself into making this one.

I keep looking back at some of the music I made nearly 10 years ago, and I cannot recreate it. I don’t remember how to emulate that same sort of sound. The person who made “Ma Maladie” isn’t who I am today.

Next time on “SNMT Behind The Scenes” we’ll be covering “Salvation.” No, I didn’t make a Christian noise record (not yet anyway). It’s an amateur attempt at an ‘end of the world’ theme.