All About Corpus Alienum's "testing, testing..." Album
Corpus Alienum’s fourth album, “testing, testing…”, will available on Bandcamp and all streaming services 12/11/23
Every two years or so, I look on my hard drives to see if any music lurks there in need of finishing. In this case, I started working on the new album after I got out of the hospital last summer. I worked on it for weeks as I got my strength back. When it was finished, it felt like a victory.
"Uncle Festus" was written for a friend who used to live in a cave in a town in Missouri called Festus. Really! He build a wood frame house in a limestone cave and lived there with his family for many years. It's a town that's about fifty miles from St. Louis--not the cosmopolitan kind of place one would normally associate with a funky soul groove, and maybe not a place on my radar if I didn't know someone who lived there. The tune came to me on my way back from visiting him. I associate Festus with good times shared with close friends. Curt is very friendly and sometimes avuncular, so from Uncle Fester on the Addams Family, I got to "Uncle Festus".
The recording was pretty easy. My truly gifted brother Chris Kase recorded his trumpet parts in his home near Madrid. In fact, getting guest soloists to be on the album came to me when I was working on this tune. I was tired of being the only improvisor on Corpus Alienum albums and thought the music could use some variety. The robotic funk groove gives way to a Steely Dan-inspired chorus. It's for butt shaking.
"Legend of the Melonheads" is a reference to a suburban myth in my hometown in Connecticut, which you can read about on Wikipedia. The melonheads (my spelling) are bulbous-headed creatures who attack people in the woods of Fairfield County, Litchfield County and New Haven County. I thought it was time they had a tune of their own. It began with me improvising on electric piano over a repeated bass line and drum loop. I literally made up the composition as I went along. It's what the Melonheads sound like to me. It could be their national anthem. This was the very last tune I wrote for the album at the last minute.
"Shawskank Redemption" is a tune I wrote when I was listening to a lot of African guitarists like Barthélémy Attisso from Orchestra Baobab, Mdou Moctar and Vieux Farka Touré. I love the rhythmic tension and the open, uncluttered space for soloing of ska and have returned to it time and again. I have nothing but love and respect for all the styles of music that I imitate here in this cultural mashup. As for the bad pun, if you know, you know. Fantastic solo from Dave Farver on tenor sax. He really takes it into the stratosphere.
"Here Comes the Asteroid" is an expression used by people I know. That the human race, along with most life, could be wiped out at any moment by external cosmic forces is a distinct possibility and our troubles would suddenly seem insignificant. I had 16 bars recorded when I revisited this idea and fleshed it out, fresh from the trauma of being hospitalized that summer. The organ solo captures the pure, spitting sarcasm and rage that I felt when I recorded it. It was my response to a summer of trauma. I was inspired by the asteroid that crashed into my life.
"Lost My Glasses (Trumpet Mix)" featuring Chris Kase on trumpet is a cycle of key changes. I loved adding the delay and taking out the drums under his solo, making it sound like he’s falling into a gorge. It also has a field recording of the Metrolink light rail service in St. Louis. I actually did lose my glasses after a night of gigging and drinking downtown and had to make my way back home on the train and the bus while barely able to see anything. It was all a bit melancholy.
"Rinn's Refrain" is named after Rinn Netherton, a violinist here in St. Louis who is an adept improvisor. I took this groove from the archives and spruced it up for Rinn to solo over. I told them, "Don't be afraid to hit blue notes and it's okay to be a little tragic." What you hear is Rinn's reply. There's nothing quite like the thrill of hearing youthful imagination and virtuosity, especially when you're in the room when it's happening.
For "Decadence", I envisioned a scene of artificiality and excess, a noisy, hedonistic gorge by impossibly grotesque revelers. The sound of noisy consumption and bilabial gastrointestinal effects were provided by cartoonist John Blair Moore and myself on a sunny day several years before he died. And now he's captured forever making mastication and farting noises on my album. He would be pleased. Dave Farver delivers another great performance on tenor sax.
"Cold Snap" is a a sister composition to "Fireflies" on Mantovani Boogie Man. It was a cold, cold day and that's what it sounded like. A seasonal portrait. One of two "chill" tracks on the album.
"Shakes" is a rock instrumental tune that was stuck in my head for a few days before I finally recorded it. It has a middle east modality in it, which seems to be a thread running through some of the tunes on the album that feature guitar.
"Beach Bacchanale" is adapted from Camille Saint-Saëns' 1877 opera, Samson and Delilah. It's an Annette Funicello beach movie morphing into a teen version of Lord of the Flies.
"testing, testing..." features a familiar sound in St. Louis, a tornado siren. I went out with my field recorder near the speakers in my neighborhood and recorded what I expected to be the test siren and announcement, but on that bright sunny day, they played the emergency recording that tells people to seek shelter because a tornado is in the area. I couldn't believe my luck.
"Goodbye Voyager 2" was named after the spacecraft, launched in 1977, that left the solar system in 2018 headed for deep space. I think about it, with the gold record on board that has greetings in many languages and Chuck Berry music and mathematical and telemetric data about how to find us (and perhaps eat us). I was about to begin third grade when it launched. And it'll just keep flying into the outer reaches of space until it hits something, as will I, or what’s left of me, someday.