Happy 11/11! With it comes a new release, this time a little bit longer than my EP's where I feel confident in calling it an album, therefore being my first. I released one song as a single at the beginning of this year, Phasing, which is also the first song I recorded out of all of these.
Listen to the album on Youtube and the song Omr Þors Reið on Newgrounds (Other songs to be uploaded in the coming weeks)
The songs and this album have been in the works since last year, 2024, with getting my phaser pedal. It's an experiment with a range of different waves and aquatic sounds, there's some harmonic rock, grungy songs. and even playing around with some borderline surf thrash. Omr Þors Reið, Ægirs Feast, and Waterfjalls were all improv'd, the latter being my first guitar recording release. I kept going back and forth between keeping it as it is to adding additional instruments, but eventually I went with keeping it as it is as I first intended. I just like how it sounds, and maybe in the future I'll develop it into a more layered song with additional instruments as I would like to do that.
Accoutrement Croissant (I just realized I spelled Accoutrement wrong on the back cover), Phasing, Snow Thrills, and No Comma were all recorded in 2024, and Omr Þors Reið, Aqua Frolics, Ægirs Feast, Swans of Urð (Phasing Mix), and Waterfjalls were recorded this year, 2025.
Accoutrement Croissant is honestly one of my favorite songs of mine that I've released so far, it's the least phaser sounding song on the album that's centered around that sound, but the way the melody grows throughout the song and the emotion expressed, it just sounds so joyous! Aqua Frolics too, which is in DADA tuning, builds in such a cool way and appropriate for the title I sample some quotes from Rifftrax's Aqua Frolics short to segue into different sections. Snow Thrills additionally has an MST3K sample. Swans of Urð (Phasing Mix) I recorded around the same time as my EP of the same song, but I felt it appropriate to put the phaser pedal version on here instead of the EP.
The album cover is a drawing by me of Lord Shiva coming out of one side of the waves, and Oðinn, the other. This duality is connected to my belief of Shiva and Oðinn being very similar deities in their search for wisdom and creating to learn more about themselves. In both Hindu and Norse stories I feel a connection, the languages share some common words and meanings, and the ancient lord of the animals believed to be Pashupati (Shiva) relief from the Harappan dynasty in India reminds me of Oðinn's ancient origins being associated with many animals along with his two ravens and two wolves. The trident is also a symbol to both Shiva and Oðinn in Icelandic depictions in manuscripts of the Prose Edda. Interestingly the drawing started as the crescent moon over the waves, but then the inspiration came to me to draw Shiva and then after drawing the trident I thought of Oðinn.
Played on a 5-string bass, except for track 9, played on 6-string guitar.
Recorded and mixed in Audacity/OcenAudio
All music and cover art created by me.
