New song, raw acoustic recording on my iPhone. It’s, um,...

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:25:36 -0400

New song, raw acoustic recording on my iPhone. It’s, um, indie pop - not my usual! Hope it resembles your weekend!

Audio

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 05:06:53 -0400

Time Dysphoria

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:05:46 -0400

I’m hoarding hundreds of unreleased songs, languishing (or luxuriating?) in my castle of catastrophes. A castle without roots. A castle at the crossroads. I have to leave the liminal, and bring my children with me.

Please listen to The Siren, a tender song I wrote in 2006....

Fri, 18 May 2012 04:23:18 -0400

Please listen to The Siren, a tender song I wrote in 2006. It’s experimental, very unlike my other work. Thoughts?

Andra Dare - Epic Lifestyle - Kyanos | Andra Dare A lament for...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:49:24 -0500

Andra Dare - Epic Lifestyle - Kyanos | Andra Dare

A lament for the lost children of the world.

A Guild of Monsters

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:05:00 -0400

This might bemuse some of the musical adepts I’m collaborating with at the moment, but I’ve got a secret pact with their inner monsters. And together we’re making musical monster mud pies, these behemoths and I.

My ingenious friends; beautiful freaks one and all. I’ve always been a monster magnet, and I know why. Monsters are forces of nature; powerful, hungry, unconcerned with protocols and uninterested in lies. They have the easy ability to change reality just by opening their gnarly, magnificent mouths.

But society does not suffer a monster lightly. Especially a society, however big or small, whose foundation is built on secrecy, distortions, and lies. One untimely, truthful bellow can blow the whole game. And delicate structures don’t well bear the crashing and stomping about of unfettered self-expression.

Great pains are taken, therefore, to silence and re-shape incipient monsters. And if they can’t be silenced or contorted into a more suitable form, then they will be hidden away, exiled, or destroyed.

Yet, despite these extreme measures, monsters do survive. Very often hidden deep inside of us. It can take some time to remember our innate power; time to realize that what others found fearful and hideous is, and has always been, courageous and beautiful. It takes time to realize that the original oppressors are gone, and that only imposed self-hatred remains our faithful gaoler. In time, we must confront the gaoler, name it for the lie that it is, and break free. The time this takes; cycles during which awareness crests, submerges, and crests again, can be frustratingly long.

In the meantime, even the most potent of dark swans can seem rather mousy. What should be a roar comes out as a squeak. One is self effacing when she should be thundering. Monsters of this sort learn early to swallow themselves, to conceal themselves in spaces that are far too small to contain the full force of self.

Given all that has preceded, perhaps it will be no surprise when I say that I struggle terribly with singing. Many days my voice emerges slowly, like the undead, stiff and dusty, frail and uncertain. Like so many among the cavalcade of creatures whose ranks I inhabit, I was taught to fear my full roar. I was taught to bring my voice down to a respectable peep, to make it sound pretty and as unoffensive as possible. Singing, therefore, while it allows some release, has been an act of self torment for years.

Until lately. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

First, I must return to the topic of collaborations with other sinister sorts.

I think we find each other, not by accident, us monsters. We collide in the muse-o-sphere, and these collisions rattle our outmoded shells and break them apart. From the fractured chrysalis, our voices emerge as new songs, as new expressions of reality. Thus we heal ourselves; and thus we heal each other.

Rescuing my own inner monster began long before I started writing Epic Lifestyle. After all, I am an acolyte of the Goddess Hecate. But the process of writing and recording Epic Lifestyle was far more than a mere exercise in musical production. It was a journey through the underworld; a journey which is not quite over yet.

Along the way I’ve encountered some pretty amazing muses, and through their Lethe-gliding vessels of word and sound, I’ve been brought closer to the cell where my power has been imprisoned for years.

The Forest, a poem by Ellen Zaks gave voice to my ponderous, but winged sorrow, and perhaps I gave primal voice to Ellen’s sorrow as well.

Dr. Ohm of Heavenly Creatures gave me an instrumental piece provocatively titled “The Evil Inside”, and while traversing the streets of downtown SF on a half-lit night, words and melody came forth, and those words represented the act of parting the veil which keeps self-awareness only half available.

Now that Epic Lifestyle is finished, the journey continues and I find I have some surprising psychopomps traveling alongside me.

Martin Birke (of Genre Peak) sent me a wonderful instrumental piece, noir but sublime, smoky but replete with scattered gems of light. The first thing out of my mouth when I switched it on and started singing was, guess who? My inner monster; no longer afraid of itself; no longer hiding. It’s terribly exciting and I can’t wait to share. But I will. Monsters aren’t patient, but they do like to make an entrance.

Øystein Furevik of the Dead Birds graciously allowed me to cover his song “God Better”. In this song Øystein confronts one face of his inner monster, and not necessarily the pretty one. The chorus starts, “God better stop me before I hurt you again.” With these words, I get to wail my own confession - not to God, who, if such existed, I would be incapable of hurting - but to humanity, whom I can wound with either action, or inaction, silence or thoughtless words. And trust me, my inner monster, or its gaoler, has done things for which I feel deep remorse.

The Veil and the River, a song written by Ivan Van Kult, seeks truth, and acknowledges time wasted chasing chimeras. It’s hungry and it despairs. This song was written at a threshold, the classic dwelling place of monsters, and its scope encompasses not only Ivan’s internal reflection, but that of the entire world as we struggle to wrest ourselves from the oppressive grip of corporate tyrants and their puppet-overlords. As I sing his words, I must sing them with my own voice if I’m to sing them at full potential.

Which brings me back to the topic of my undead voice. I think I’m done with all that. My monster self and I are emerging from hell and coming into the light. If anyone doesn’t like it, to hell with him. Or her.

Lately I find myself singing with my full, unself-conscious voice - lucide et nue - and I don’t really care who doesn’t like it. I do care about those who do, however. I suspect they are sublime little monsters, just like me.

Me back in the silent movie era.

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:56:10 -0400

Me back in the silent movie era.