My first record (that wasn't a bunch of demos, or totally horrible), done in the summer of 1992 (my senior year at UC Berkeley) on a 4-track Tascam, using a Roland Juno-60, Alesis SR-16 drum machine, and an Alesis MMT-8 sequencer, and of course one Boss DS-1 distortion pedal used on guitars and vocals, and a Boss DD-3 "Digital Delay", which is totally NOT digital.
Production Notes:
Ahmed's Theme
Backwards guitars, synth pad, and recording of an old radio/alarm clock while slowly turning the analog FM tuner dial. Some of the radio tuner changes were recorded at a slow speed, then sped up. A metaphor for the birth of the information age.
Koranik Katatonic
The first song aimed squarely at the wickedness of any fanatical religion. Starts with groove beats and echoing guitars, then goes into 4-on-floor dance madness.
Why Can't I Have It
Ash and I (Kundalini Shock Attack) used to record acoustic guitar songs in the bathroom of his place in college...bathrooms have good acoustics and nice reverbs...we called them Toilet Tracks. One of our favorites was a song about really wanting a blow, but never being able to get one. I remade a groove version with lots of swing for the Disco Moslem record.
Wonderful Friends
A New Order influenced song that is dancy but with lots of guitars and bass, and the lyrics are all about people I knew in college who were so "cool" because they were so "artsy" and how normal people completely "sucked", and how weary that elitist attitude made me. It's a little too literal, but then again, lyrics were never my strong suite. Note the high vocal harmonies - I did those by speeding up my voice.
Lesbophobia
Janelle Rodriguez, a friend at Berkeley, and a proud lesbian, wrote this as an award-winning essay, and we decided to make an electronic tribal version. She gave me a lot of free salads at the cafe where she worked. Free food served up by a hot lesbo...Aah, college...good times.
My Throbbing Bass
An instrumental composition with nothing but four bass parts. I often lament about how experimental I used to be.
Your Plastic Face
More along the eastern theme of the record; an interesting beat; backward guitar intro - you have no idea how hard backward stuff was to do before producing on computers became a reality.
Nero Joue Du Violin
Translated to "Nero Plays The Violin." I wrote this song in French while taking an Advanced French class at Berkeley. The evil laughter was done by laughing into the analog delay pedal and messing with the delay timing in real time, a neat trick for creating strange pitch bends. The song is about setting people on fire. Strangely, when I played it in my french class, no one understood any of the lyrics. :(
Always in Mind
Guitars, bass, groove beat, synth pad. Not much else to day on this one, other than the fact that I can't play bass that well, so I played it slow and then sped it up. Again, I have no shame.
D Must Die
A goth synth version of a very cheezy song written by me and D (full name witheld) when we were younger; upon listening, Ash decided this song had to be called D Must Die. I really don't want D to die. Just the cheese of D...that needs to die for sure.
Candydream
Another Kundalini Shock Attack song from the Toilet Tracks period, and also about getting a blow (Ash was and still is really into blows); reworked and nebulized, with a twist in the middle.
