Liminal by Makrotulpa
AKA: trying to be cheerful while the world falls apart.
Bringing a more positive vibe overall, this release is the result of jamming, iteration and constant recording in order to mesh an ear for tunefulness with the urge to sound design.
I feel that I’ve achieved my goal when certain tracks get stuck in my head instead of the awful 80s cheese pumped out by the local grocery conglomerate.
From around 4 hours of varied material I focused and honed the stuff that stood out and, despite it being mostly quite simplistic arrangement-wise, I’m pretty happy with this.
In a recent interview Robert Smith said when he has the first and last track then he knows how the album will progress. Liminal was always going to start with…
a mind full of owls
Tuning in to Rick Wright’s magic keyboard solo from Crazy Diamond and perhaps seeing Ken Davis play live at Expo’88 we slowly creep towards Ghostwood Forest where we must be mindful of owls.
gonk farmer
A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat. Bit of IYKYK pun-ishment that works on multiple levels title-wise however the sonics are 100% East European Engineering (Latvia for the LXR drum machine and Poland for the Polyend Synth.) A box has been ticked.
the enshittification protocol
One of the few tracks that leans towards the Makrotulpa of old with loops of “realistic” sounds mulched by a Chompi sampler / Kaoss Pad combination. Is everything getting shittier or am I just an old man yelling at clouds?
it might not rain tomorrow
Earworm#1: jammed out in a few takes during a month where it seemed liked it would never stop raining. OP-1 loops lock it together with desert guitar courtesy of the Osmose and distant brass from a granular Iridium patch.
dissociate freely
Started out as a dumb experiment slicing some grunge rock on an MPC that morphs into an industrial homage to Steve Reich with gamelan vibes and mesmerising delay feedback.
parasomnia
Earworm#2: turning off the metronome on the MPC is the way to making WTF time signature music and this one works really well. I woke one morning slightly depressed as I’d somehow dreamed an entire alternate reality that wasn’t quite as shitty. This is a sonic impression of the dreamed world.
edifice complex
A strange find that I cannot remember recording. Maybe I was drunk? Could be I was channeling some Butthole Surfers vibes as the slowly creeping evil psychedelia seems some steps away from reality while the carnival is calling…
the wind wrapped my ankles
Earworm#3: another loose jam with some woozy piano multi-samples I found on a forum channeling Musick(s) to Play in the Dark era Coil maybe a little too much. The title references the slightly sick / giddy with joy feeling of being barefoot outside towards the end of autumn as the winds start to chill.
I are become life
Another track that starts in an older Makrotulpa style with a wooden robot coming jankily to life. The swerve towards a rough glitchy dub vibe is perhaps unexpected however interesting life is everywhere, often buried under normative slop, and to search is to find.
tiny golden suicides
Opium club noir in another throwback to the Grimoire of the Fool. Having hardware instead of software synths for physical modelling has made me much more expressive (pretentious?) and I’m hoping to start cracking the Osmose synth a little more intentionally with the Eaganmatrix and Loris editors.
a home for retired playground animals
…and this was the last demo recorded, providing a map for the entire album. It starts as a lullaby for the rotting Eeyore/donkey toy photographed below. Speculating on his life beyond ours leading to dreams of worship and ultimately confrontation with some kind of post-collapse cargo cult.
