ALL HOLLOW NOT EVEN is a Halloween Album. When I was working on the album artwork I showed my ex, and they did not understand the title. I MEAN C’MOOOON! Halloween is an amalgamation of “All Hallows Eve.” With this album I try to give a feeling of hollowness, like feeling empty, but knowing that something is off. When describing the production of this album I hope the theme becomes clear; as I only name an album when I’m finished with it.

The first track is “desperate.” This samples a radio in between stations, and the instrumental for Fastlane by Bilal featuring Jadakiss produced by Dr. Dre. I remixed this track in its entirety on my album CRUSH. The earie “ting-ting ting” sounds are me strumming my Telecaster above the nut.

Quick sidenote about that Tele. My friend, Micah, gave it to me for free; because he bought it but never really played. He thought I could do more with it than him. I offered him money, weed, some other stuff, but he was like, “naw it’s all yours.” Thank you Micah! You gave me insane inspiration for a long time until a string broke and it’s been sitting in a case ever since.

Sick guitar; I kinda trashed it tho.

Anyway, the ‘deep bass’ is a wave I made with my Korg monologue. Again, a sad story of my equipment kind of breaking. I used that synth to get a pRofEsSiOnAl sound when recording, but it pooped out on me cuz I used the wrong voltage adapter.

The radio gradually gives way to a talk radio station talking about the Biden vs. Trump presidential election. I’m not going to explain all my political views, but this track is named ‘desperate’ because that’s how I felt with the political climate.

I also think this feeling was exasperated while being in an abusive relationship. My ex screamed at a guy in the McDonald’s drive-thru because he had a InfoWars sticker on his car. They kept screaming “NAZI! NAZI! NAZI!” while not seeing the group of teenagers trying to cross the street (mostly poc), the Uber sticker on this guys car, and the fact he was wearing headphones. Like…. he’s not hearing you, the only people being affected by your ridiculous behavior are the ones you would give your left tit to protect, and now we have to pull up to pick up your hotnspicy.

I showed this song to one of my ex’s friends and he said “you should increase the volume of the voices.” My ex gave the criticism that I should match the notes up with the beat better.

I do things for a reason. When I make music, I know it’s experimental and I’m trying out a new process, but I make decisions in favor of the theme. This song is supposed to feel like it’s barely holding together. It foreshadows the rest of the album by being a obvious sum of parts. I recorded everything in this album separately. No huge WAV files, no live performances with multiple synths, barely any post production.

(I think it should be noted that I am editing this album as I write this post, what four years later. The album was initially titled “ALL HALLOW NOT EVEN,” even though that doesn’t line up with the artwork. Also the next track upon release was CALLGIRL 1800 etc. However, I wanted it to be ligroyphobe. Whoops! I think this harkens back to my About page that debates on whether my art is influenced by trauma or mental illness)

The next track is ligroyphobe. Ligroyphobia is the fear of loud noises fast approaching you. As a kid I would have nightmares where the only thing I could hear was a deafening banging. As if large monoliths of stone were falling from the sky and crushing down to earth, landing closer and closer to me. I would wake up screaming. Sometimes in anticipation of such an event, my subconscious would subdue my body to rock back and forth and chant the phrase, “mommy, daddy, sister, mommy, daddy, sister.”

This track aims to be a lot “tighter” than the previous track. Every part, as described earlier, is recorded separately. I used the a cappella version of Dayshon and Squabble’s “Thug Lady.”

The next track is “CALLGIRL 1-800-FUCK-YOU-PAY-ME II.” The first installment of this track can be heard on my album “OXXXY.” This track is a section of my “Scythe Tapes” series that I haven’t come out with yet (it was a live DJ set I did by myself with all my synths). Since my “Scythe Tapes” recording is completely mono, I put some paulstretched vinyl samples on top of it to add space.

After a spooky interlude, we transition to “ROT.” When making this album I was heavily inspired by POiSON ANNA and Heron Fischer’s album Doll Dance.

I did not have my cDJ at this time, and I wanted to sidechain the reverbed radio with the drums, so “ROT” is the closest thing I came to when trying to replicate this sound.

I somehow got in between stations so that a rhythmic bzzt-bzzt-bzzt played. I then created a snare using my monologue and recorded that in time with the feedback. There’s no booming kick in this song; which may be a fault of this track, but I still think it is very atmospheric.

The next track “Scab Face,” is an experiment gone horribly wrong. It’s based on a poem I wrote when I was still in high school, dealing with the symptoms of Acutane.

“Cuts run deep
scars stay long
These things I keep
sing this song

Shot me through
to hear my calling
go through the clear
By God, I’m falling

Going through the night
Can’t see through the sight
Every day’s a fight!

My name is scabface
Loneliness is my friend
Stuck in this skinned case
These scars I can’t shed

Trapped by time
Judged by age
I can’t see the end
Of this eternal phase”

YEESH! That’s some depressing shit from a 16 year-old. Anyway, the track starts with a moody, halloween-inspired beat. I was messing with my Flashback pedal and put the first setting to never decay so my guitar could sound laggy and huge. However, while I was recording this track the recording cut out for some reason.

I didn’t know what to do, because the song sounded cool when I first recorded it. I didn’t want to record EVERYTHING over again, and sacrifice this great take (how arrogant of me; as if I haven’t sacrificed thousands of amazing takes due to accidentally recording off my laptop mic). So I made a totally different hyped up techno beat that was almost twice as fast as the original beat.

To try and “meld” them together a bit, I used paulstretched sections of each beat to signal the transition. I kept showing it to my ex trying to find a way to salvage it, and they kept saying it was shit.

I can’t really disagree with them, but I think I successfully captured the theme of my poem. The song is constantly switching from structured, moody beats to a more hyper less appropriate style. This is how I felt (and sometimes continue to feel) when I was 16. A deep all encompassing depression, that almost shelters you from complete desolation. Counter that with hyper-anxious, almost euphoric feelings of doubt and misdirection. This coalesces into a debilitating insecurity, that fringes on disbelief in reality. How can you make a song about insecurity, if you’re not insecure the entire time you’re producing it? Maybe I’m just describing a mental illness I have yet to be diagnosed with.

The track may not be as professional or dance-y as the other tracks, but it still accomplishes what I was aiming for in regards to theming.

The next track “deadend,” samples a Russian folk album that I could not even begin to know how to look up.

The album has a ton of hits; some more romantic and dramatic, and then there are some straight up bangers.

While producing this album, I was experimenting with playing multiple drum machines with different effects and tempos at the same time. I was listening to a lot of Igorr and a lot of deep-house, and I wanted to produce my drum machines like miking a live set. However, I never worked with Ableton or any other DAW besides Audacity, so it was difficult to get that live drum sound off of single stereo recordings. Hence recording a kick, then the snare, then the high-hats, etc.

In “deadend” I try to get away with using this practice but with multiple patterns instead of just one instrument. Less feelings in this track but there are different ways to express my theme. Hollow may not refer to a expansive void but may refer to the spaces in between structure. The beats are often NOT EVEN to call attention to those spaces. Think of a porous rock where you can feel the texture created by the tiny holes along the surface (HMMMM SCABFACE HMMMM?!)

I’m not trying to be pretentious, it’s just that I feel like I have to really drill home the point that I mostly make music to adhere and explore a theme. This theme expressed through process or decision making, usually helps me make sense of the world around me.

I’m so glad that I found this on YouTube! Trying to look this album up led me into a weird, but overall harmless rabbit hole about the ethics of celebrating Halloween as a Christian.

The background BRRRRRRRRRRM and FcKCHK Krrrrgggg Krrrrrrgggg is me playing my monologue with my feet while pushing the input cable in and out (and we wonder why most of my synths are broken). I was fucking with the pedal board while trying to kick my synth enough that the input would dislodge. Then I would kick it again to lodge it in and play a super nasty bass drone. That goes on until I turn the reverb on both channels on full blast and fuck with the delay.

This was a pretty fun track to record, and I hoped that this song would inspire the feelings one had during a metal concert or emo party. Just hanging out with a bunch of other depressed pansies, sulking in our loneliness together. It’s pretty cathartic and can lead to great friends. However, most of these people suck as much as anyone else. Congregation percentage, ya know?

The title track and the final track on this album is a mix of a couple of sessions on the table. I mixed Diana Ross’ “Eaten Alive,” that Walter Cronkite Apollo record, and a couple of cassettes.

In this mix I wanted to try and create a couple of dance loops with delay pedals. It’s pretty ambient and kind of unstructured, but there are moments in the track where it could maybe turn up in a club. For example: right at 4:14 there’s a Diana Ross vocal line being looped that kind of sounds like “dancewithmedancewithmedancewithme.”

The process kind of reminded me of Ghost Adventures, when they play a indecipherable sound back but slower, trying to ascribe meaning to it. I’m trying to instill the message to dance and party subliminally. I’m no psychologist or CIA goon so I don’t know if that’s what I actually did, but that was my aim.

In my opinion this is what spirits and ghosts would listen to, when they want to bust down.

So that’s ALL HOLLOW NOT EVEN. An exploration in isolating my recording process, and the feelings that come with isolation and anxiety. I have to fucking live like this, so I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom. I think it’s fun to find the celebration within the suffering.

The link featured in the background is a 9anime.to link to “Love Story.” At the bottom of the cover, you can see me typing some shit about how I don’t really know where my life is going, and I’m not sure if this album is any good or not.

Upon reflection, I think it’s killer.