On the Origin of Corpus Alienum

John Blair Moore’s pencil draft of what would become the cover to Corpus Alienum’s Mind Control Dace Party (2019)

What does the term "corpus alienum" mean? It's Latin for "foreign body", a medical term for something that's inside your body that shouldn't be. You can use your imagination. It sounded cryptic and inscrutable. And its difficult to say, apparently because disc jockeys have trouble with it (the next album begins with the words "corpus alienum" pronounced clearly before the music starts as a public service). It was also a name not taken already by a band on iTunes, so I went with it.

Back in 2013, I was trying to finish my first solo album, some of which was released on my self-titled EP. I had taken on quite a task in playing most of the instruments myself and I was slowly getting better at engineering and mixing my recordings, but something happened; halfway through, the ideas for catchy songs weren't coming so quickly anymore and I felt a terrible feeling of self consciousness that made it impossible to be freely creative. I felt as though I were writing to a pre-conceived idea rather than making music naturally. So I stopped and started on a project that was entirely different. Under the name Corpus Alienum, I have made my most natural and honest music ever.

I had mostly written songs up to that point, but as a violinist's son I was well acquainted with classical music. These influences found very little outlet in songwriting. I had an interest in 20th century avant garde composers like John Cage, Edgard Varèse, music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, musique concrète and early pioneers of electronic music like Vladimir Ussachevsky and Wendy Carlos, Frank Zappa and even Joe Zawinul. I also have strong ties to jazz, music I love. I wanted to create music that drew from these influences.

So I conceived of Corpus Alienum as an outlet for whatever the hell I wanted to do. I began to put together a five movement piece called Dark Signal (2014) from some of my experiments with composition. I enjoyed the process immensely and was very pleased and encouraged by the result. I released it as an EP in 2014 (this year it became a full album with the addition of four unreleased tracks). And then, nothing happened. Nobody was interested and downloads were almost non-existent. I didn't really make an effort to promote it because that wasn't the point. The point was, I had taken a decisive step in another musical direction and enjoyed it a great deal, even if very few understood or liked what I was doing. I even took the cover photo. It is an album probably loved by myself alone, but it's a personal favorite of the albums I've made.

I took my time completing and releasing Mind Control Dance Party (2019), editing the soundtracks of vintage out-of-copyright educational and training films looking for samples to use in new compositions. This became the basis for the album, in which I would create little sound collages with beats.

Politics were (and are) truly awful and I felt a need to comment on them in my own way. I found much in the way of subject material that fit the mood of the present day.  The plea for a moderate, measured approach to consuming news media in the film "Let's Get the Facts" found its way into two tracks. Media literacy is crucial to a functioning democracy, and it's increasing scarcity is something I'm concerned about. I also included bits from nuclear scare movies, films about alcoholism and home economics films on some of the other tracks. The paranoia of the era mirrors our own in some respects. The album is a bit patchy, but I like the ramshackle, noisy and thrown together nature of it. I learned much from making this album. Cartoonist John Blair Moore did the artwork, but didn't live to see the album's release.

I was listening to a lot of Ornette Coleman when I was making Mind Control Dance Party, and the thing I love about his work from 1959-62 is that no matter how frenzied and abstract the improvisation was, everything was bookended by these great little tunes he wrote, sometimes only eight bars in length. However crazy things got in the improv sections, it was always wrapped by a fun and sometimes catchy tune that tied it all together. I also stayed away from labyrinthine chord changes because not everyone can follow the music. Although I personally enjoy hearing that kind of thing done well, I think one can make music with interesting harmony over static, repeated bass lines and few modulations. Indian classical music is like that, and its some of the most interesting and beautiful music in the world. That aesthetic is, more or less, still the approach I take to Corpus Alienum releases.

Mantovani Boogie Man came in early 2021 as the world started to awake from covid. I had worked on it off and on for about eighteen months when I put the tracks away for a year. I wasn't sure if I really had anything or not, but when I dusted them off in late 2020, I thought the tracks I had were good so I finished the album and put it out. It got a bit of critical notice and radio airplay in St. Louis and people seemed to like the funky grooves. As I wrote on the CD sleeve, I was inspired by the music of the 70s, the music of my youth, to write "instrumental 'B' sides of fictitious hit singles". It was the most accessible Corpus Alienum album up to that point, full of thick grooves and hooks, all meant for booty-shaking. I didn't consciously make it more accessible, I just went with my feeling and created the music I wanted to create and it has coalesced into a style.

I created all of Corpus Alienum's albums in my tiny home studio in St. Louis, MO using a Mac running Logic Pro. Most of the tunes, especially those on Mind Control Dance Party and Mantovani Boogie Man, were inspired by themes that grew from my improvisations, usually drums, bass and electric piano. I use loops and drum programming, but I do play real drums sometimes. I also play guitar on several pieces. I've made albums in both analog and digital, and while the sound of the former can be very pleasing, working in analog is a much slower process. Digital gives me more flexibility, dynamic range and frequency range suited to the music I make. I like the technology of the age.

I created Corpus Alienum as a clearinghouse for musical ideas that defied category. There's a lot of jazz and R&B and avant-garde music in me, and it came out naturally, even on the first album. Corpus Alienum has become a crucial creative outlet. What was once a side-project has now become my main thing, it seems. Watch for the new album testing, testing… in November.