Some Personal Notes On IALDFH
If you purchase the CD, you will also have the opportunity to download the Digital Album and get some instant gratification while yer waiting for the postman.
Either way, if you're getting a download, it will be served up as a 'zip' file with all those juicy MP3s stuffed inside.
Do not attempt to download via smartphone. Please use a computer!
Re: It’s All Downhill From Here…
It’s All Downhill From Here (or IALDFH for devotees of sensibly priced Swedish furniture) is the latest in a line of albums I’ve done that have people wondering if I should be considering industrial-strength anti-depressants.
What can I tell ya, that’s the art that has come out. It’s basically a recognition that, though the world will continue, we won’t be taking a large part of the existing beauty with us into that Brave New World.
On my last album, Progress, I tried to indicate that the so-called ‘neo-liberal’ path we all were raised to believe as inevitable as the rising of the sun was, in fact, unsustainable. The image that came to mind then was being on this exciting rocket ship that was taking the world to a shiny new place. And then realising too late that not bothering to include a set of brakes may have been a mistake. We just kept going right on by.
I don’t think it’s all gloom and doom. Maybe we’ll turn a corner and create a whole new array of wonderful stuff. But if we do, I hope we’ll reflect on what that cost us.
As to the album itself: If you were a philosopher you’d probably call this an age of decadence. So each song on the record is one aspect of that decadence. To make the title piece, I again used my father’s story, a man who for me epitomized the twentieth century ideal of suburban success. His Greatest Generation saved the world and their reward was to come home and make the largest fortune the world has ever known. And now subsequent generations have to pay the true costs we were only too happy to ignore.
Now over the years, many of you became increasingly alarmed that I had seemingly left the guitar behind; mainly for high brow junk like opera. This always puzzled me because each record always had at least some playing that took quite a bit of preparation to pull off. For those people, this album reverts back somewhat to my 80’s roots. A part of that was simply my needing an outlet for the above frustrations. And let me tell ya, nothing helps work out a bit of rage like a Marshall turned up to eleven.
Regarding the cover: Whenever I see this image I wonder what those two lonely guys are doing up there; and what they’re thinking as they stared down into the fog below. Did they feel a sense of futility and despair? Or maybe they were good and practical engineers who were simply trying to figure out what went wrong and then rebuild the right way.
As has become usual, I mixed this here thing at Funhouse West in the gray Northwest autumn, with Mastering by Ed Brooks at Resonant Mastering.
This album marks my twentieth year making my own records. And still no loops or splicing or any of that nonsense. Those who care what gear was used to make the aforementioned sounds can find information at the Gear Page.
And also, as always, I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Thanks for stopping by.
