no permanence is my second ep, and is rather different from most of my music. it consists of short songs placed somewhere between progressive metal, mathcore, and post-hardcore, but with exclusively clean vocals. it was mostly made in the span of a week in june 2024. lyrically it is a miniature concept album broadly about love, shame, uncertainty, and the intersections thereof; though on a more specific level it is about certain experiences i have had with those feelings in the months leading up to writing it.
recognition was created as an intro track similar to the types used by prog bands in the early-mid 2000s, with an initial slow, high-pitched descending line followed by interlocking, rhythmically alternating double leads. the snare pattern for the last bar was extremely difficult to record over, even with how simple the guitar parts are.
shame was the song that originally motivated me to create this ep; the beginning lyrics (you called this home/a desperate beacon of hope) and accompanying guitars were the first of the modern contents that i wrote (although the vocal melody itself was originally somewhat different).
dislodged was a fun song to arrange thanks to the polymeter in the middle section. it also feels a bit like a break in some way, being mostly gentler and more melodic than most of the other songs.
forever was the last song i wrote for the ep. contrary to how the parts may sound, the guitar in the beginning was much easier to record than the ones at the end. the lead guitar in the ending is the only instance of an alternate tuning in anything i have released so far, using E A D G# A# e. this was purely a matter of physical comfort and not a requirement to play the part.
contact has a lot happening. the guitar part originated in an old demo i recorded back in 2017 that kept surfacing periodically. it is also the only song on the album that breaks from the 2 guitars + voice + drums format, using only one guitar but adding in piano and having a quiet ending section with a completely different arrangement. the lyrics in the buildup and ending (please don't leave me/please don't stay here/and as you released me/something feared it would be the last time) were an attempt at synthesizing closure, or at least trying to process the overall themes of the ep.
discussion of contact ending (i originally posted this on cohost):
it's kind of hard to hear exactly because the percussion comes in under the guitar fade but the section before the piano and bass enter is 42 beats total. during this, half of the high percussion is in 7/4, while the other half is in 6/4. on their own they both have a fair amount of internal shifting around the beats to keep them from getting too repetitive, but not so much that they become erratic or clash against each other.
the kick is a fairly simple 10/4 pattern, with an extra measure of 2/4 at the end to line it up with when the other percussion loops into the piano section.
once the piano comes in the percussion realigns and resumes the 7/4 over 6/4 over 10/4 polymeter from a shared starting point. the piano and voice are a very simple, repetitive 4/4, being a point to hold onto through the constant shifting and uncertainty (very similarly to how the section is emotionally in the context of the entire ep). this is accentuated by the tonal repetition, with the piano essentially playing an assortment of extended E major arpeggios and the voice repeating a simple melody over the top of it.
and the bass loops after 64 eighth notes, suggesting 4/4; however, it is divided up as 17 + 17 + 17 + 13.
forever music video:
contact guitar recording session video: