Preview of "The Beauty and the Terror"

Hello, I know, it’s been a while, but I totally have an alibi for my absence.

The greater part of May was spent deep in production, getting multiple episodes of Dulcimerica shot, edited, uploaded and scheduled, creating exclusive Patreon content, writing workshop materials and ordering things from Amazon Prime (no luck, they haven’t delivered by drone yet. Soon) to prepare for summer tour. I wanted it all done, way before the 11th hour, so that I could carve out some time to just sit, write, record and create without trying to run the business at the same time.

Man, it was nice. Really nice! Patreon’s kept me productive and on a schedule, which is perfect for my ADHD. Structure + Something I Love is a perfect pairing.

So, I got a lot of work done on The Beauty and the Terror, which I’ve been writing now for over a year, and I’m really surprised at some of the directions the music has taken. The tune I’m sharing with you here started as a sassy country song when I first wrote the music, but soon became something different altogether. “Undertow” is my response to all of the media noise out there, stoking up fear and loathing, jamming everyone’s naturally groovy rhythms. The chorus proposes that there’s no fearing “what you don’t know”, so maybe ignorance truly is bliss. I just wanted to acknowledge that the way forward may get rougher, but we can have a positive attitude about it anyway. And the lyrics were easy to memorize, so there’s that.

I’m not finished with the mix, but I wanted to float it out there during the run-up to completion of the album. I’ve added it to Reverbnation as well as Soundcloud. Early reports are good, and Jae likes it, so there’s that.

The Beauty and the Terror is a direct follow-up to Dive!, and if you’ve heard that album, you know that it’s like, super-heavy and theatrical. This one seems to be more song-based, I’m having fun working with pop and R&B forms, and some really crazy shit has come out of the writing sessions. The title reflects a lot of the dichotomy of modern life, and there’s a spiritual element that makes some contrasts appear in the stories. There’s a lot of upbeat, fun stuff, and there’s a lot of deceptively simple-sounding that are sort of emotionally stacked. I’ll do more writing and demoing while on tour and then, hopefully, wrap things up when I get back in August.

So, I hope you enjoy this new tune, I’m kinda stoked about it, and I look forward to hearing your feedback!