On the off chance you think I’ve purposefully ridden my unicycle off the Golden Gate Bridge in hopes of falling into a game of roulette with fate, I’m going to be posting Carnival of Psychos recording updates. Yes, we’re in the recording studio. Yes, the musical berth of Carnival of Psychos is massive—predictably the size of a city block in Chinatown. That is why recording 90 minutes of music is taking longer than expected. In fact, a spider could crawl across the Bay Bridge before we’re done. And that is why we are heads down, butts up and ears open.
NOTES FROM THE RECORDING STUDIO BY THE HISS 🤡
Two hot days in July, we entered Studio 69 with Matt Cohen and recorded all the organ parts for Carnival of Psychos. The hypnotizing Paul Dab was hired for the gig. He wrestled the music like a spider wrapping up its prey, and ended each session stretching his lithe limbs. Up until the last performance at the Great Star Theater, every piece of cacophonous music in Carnival of Psychos featured the electric organ heavily—19 pieces, 90 minutes of organ music. The show was over drugged with organ. No one could find the off switch. The organ hummed when everything else was silent. With an itch to scratch, mere days before the performance, I arranged the penultimate tune for saxophone and tuba. My ear hairs wanted a break from the organ and I wanted the saxophone to have a moment in the moonlight in his fortune teller costume. The tuba had already built a reputation for driving the sound bed forward like a giant arachnid barreling through the dark tunnels of its labyrinth. In as many days, said tuba player Johanna Klapstein comes to Studio 69.
NOTES FROM THE RECORDING STUDIO BY A SPIDER 🕷️
Last moon-cycle, my eight eyesss spy three gangly giants enter my labyrinth and engage in harsh noisemaking blowing webs of sonically charged particles into the air like a twister. One giant rests over a lot of blips and blinking stars. A second hairless creature hangs over a black and white board, it has insanely quick tentacles that dart back and forth. The third and most grotesque, hisses at its companions when the noise stops making them jiggle and then the harsh noisemaking starts again. Stuffing my ears with feathers and wood chips does little to stop the penetrating clamor. It raises my hairs and shakes my abdomen. Two days of this torture is enough to make my venom boil. Next time the gangly giants come eyesss be waiting.
-Samson
Image: Rita Deiola
