Free Album: Nemobird – Wormhole Life Support
A solo concept album: Music specifically crafted to listen to while on late at night bicycle adventures.
Before I became a sculptor, before I founded SCUL, I played a lot of music and made quite a few albums with some band-mates up in the great state of Maine. Over the years I realized how much I missed it, so I picked it up again. The album debuted on my fiftieth birthday and SCUL reunion mission.
About the Album Art
I grew up around vinyl and have fond memories of staring at the big album covers while listening to an album for the first time. It connected me with the music more deeply. This is something potentially lost in the age of digital downloads. In response to this I created high resolution artwork in a vinyl album style, which comes with the music. The cover image is of me aboard my ship USB Cloudbuster, with the discobobulating laser array in full tilt. For the musical debut, I gave away printed faux ‘albums’ – an envelope with cover and back cover artwork, containing a double-sided paper insert resembling a record sleeve and a record inside it. It was a lot of work assembling them and I don’t know if folks actually enjoyed them but it was a fun project nonetheless.
Individual Tracks
1: Nemobird Lullaby 1:06 – mp3 flac
This is a track for my African grey parrot Nemo, who’s the musical project is named after. Whenever I play this song Nemo pays a lot of attention to me, probably because I tend to focus my attention on him. The faint background hiss is a recording of my typical brunch of a bunch of vegetables suateing in a big cast iron wok.
2. Navi Away 4:41 – mp3 flac
Whenever SCUL starts to leave at the start of a mission or on shore leave, and the Navigator is underway, pilots call out ‘NAVI AWAY’ and the fleet is in motion again. This track is meant to be played at the beginning of a SCUL mission, after the theme song that we always play. There are two sound effects on this track – one is my hoodie zipper, which sounds record scratching; the other is at the end of the track, a recording of the broken vent fan in my bathroom.
3. Dawn Patrol 5:28 – mp3 flac
SCUL has a traditional mission where we get up super early (some pull all-nighters) and we ride to the ocean to see the sunrise. This track is meant to be played on the way out.
4. Zero Gravity Napping 7:16 – mp3 flac
SCUL likes to nap in hammocks, and those who do are called ‘the sky people’. Take a nap in a hammock and snooze to this song.
5. Lost Within the Discobobulator 4:02 – mp3 flac
The ‘discobobulator’ is the name of Cloudbuster‘s sparkling mirror ball on the bow. It has mesmerizing qualities. If you are lucky enough to see it out on a night mission, imagine listening to this track while gazing at it.
6. Black Hole Orbits 3:13 – mp3 flac
SCUL loves to fly around in circles – in fact we often like to take an extra loop around rotaries (or roundabouts, depending on your locale). We call them black holes. Once we ate tacos in the center of a black hole. This track is the most likely one you will want to dance to.
7. Nebulae 0445 5:22 – mp3 flac
My personal favorite weather is fog: this track is meant for riding home on rolling country roads in the fog at 4:45 am, when everyone else is asleep.
8. Posithruster 2:55 – mp3 flac
Thrusters are bicycle wheels, posi is good. This song is for when the ride is going well.
9. Failed Formation – 2:59 mp3 flac
SCUL practices flight formations – sometimes they go well, sometimes they never quite come to cohesion. This song is a loose jumble of notes with a very defiant lead who does it’s own thing.
10. Dark Matter 2:06 – mp3 flac
The last track to be written for this album, ‘dark matter’ is the name of the stuff inside the waste treatment plant on Deer Island, which SCUL loves as a destination. The buzzing sound on this track is made from the high frequency electricity of a TIG welding machine trying to establish an arc.
11. Escape Velocity 3:22 – mp3 flac
Trying to leave can take effort sometimes, this track is meant to portray that effort. There’s an audio illusion called a Shepard tone, in which the note seems to go up forever and ever.