Notes from Brett about this album:
Tree and I have taken quite a long time on these songs and I'm still as proud of them today as I was when we first wrote them.
1 - Excessive Chill - I love this song so much. The weird sounds are strings, sped up by fast forwarding through a cd player, recording them, and then sampling them. I think it sounds really cool and we wrote the music around that. The chords and the progression are quite unusual too, I believe, so that makes it even more interesting and fun for me to play. Finally, I love Tree's melody, lyrics, and vocals on this.
2 - Faces in the Water - We wrote this song acoustically, then somehow it became quite a difficult production with tons of tracks. It took a million mixes to get right, but I think we finally got it! As in all the songs, Tree's singing and his harmonies are so great.
3 - Scar - This originally appeared on our "EP1: Sleepwalking on the Highwire" cd. We always felt that this song was a great single, so we added it to this cd, as well, to give it another chance at getting heard.
4 - Addicted to Oxygen - I love this song so much too. The string melody has haunted me for years. I just love it. I also really like the lyrics, based around a line from a Bjork concert video from long ago. Tree and I were watching it together and in an interview section, she said something to the effect of enjoying seeing people in airports and said, "I'm flying, but I'm lying, because I'm swimming through buildings". We instantly looked at each other and knew we had to use that for a song!
5 - The Viper Comes Home - Tree kept telling me to make this song as hard and aggressive as I could, so I really pushed everything as far into the red as possible.
6 - Sensory D Tank - Tree was staying at my place and wrote this while I was sleeping after a very long day of writing and recording with him. He knows that I love Duran Duran and Silverchair - so he played a bit of "Save a Prayer" on the piano and wrote the line "in this brine" (a reference to one of my favorite songs ever - "Tuna in the Brine" by Silverchair). It's really sweet of him to do that, so of course I loved this unique song. Another unusual part of this song is that we used a fun Bart Simpson sample in it (try to pick it out!). I reworked the mix several times and we both decided that we liked the most stripped down version that appears on this cd the best. What is the lyric about? We'll have to ask Tree because I have absolutely no idea, but of course I love it! It's so creative, abstract, and unique.
7 - Excessive Chill (Fomite Remix) - Our friend in Venezuela, Fomite, did this excellent remix.
credits
released March 28, 2018
All songs written by Schieber/Hobrath.
Tree Hobrath - vocals, keyboards
Brett Schieber - guitar, bass, keyboards, programming
Mandy Watson Crosby, Tiffany Watson Ray, and Mary Beth Bryant - violin, viola, and cello on "Addicted to Oxygen".
Recorded and mixed by Brett Schieber.
Mastered by Calvin West.
Cover Photo by Gavin Fisher.
On this Bandcamp page, you can purchase music from Brett Schieber, including his solo music, Arcanum (Brett & Tree), &
Prankster. You'll find a couple albums he produced for others, as well. Brett's music for Mark D. Pencil & Friends can also be found on Bandcamp by searching for that name. Thank you for your time, ears, & hearts!...more
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