Welcome to the second edition #MattyMonday, the streaming debuts of songs off my new album “Meta Dada”.

ICYMI, Episode 1 featured Tracks 1 & 2: “Satan Gave Me Sunglasses” and “Media Casualty”.

LPs are available at local record stores and on my Bandcamp page, but each Monday I’ll be rolling out the songs online—you name the platform, they’re gonna be on it. If you haven’t heard the songs before, I recommend listening to them first before reading all the context and lyrics. For those who have heard the music, I hope these posts will add to your experience. 

*Note* — I am and likely always will be an Album Appreciator, and if you happen to also fall in that niche, you might consider waiting until all these songs are out (or, dude, just buy the record now) because I truly did try and shape these 12 songs for a single, continuous listening session. No judgment either way, though; mostly glad you’re checking out the songs, however be your bag. 

I only meant to do two songs last week to introduce this concept, but I kinda like the way the two different songs can play off each other, so at least for this #MattyMonday, here’s another duo of “Meta Dada” ditties, starting with a particularly chill number:

Track 3: “In Our Coldest Time”

Links

Bandcamp

Spotify

The players

Monologue: Valentine Michel

Drums, Percussion: Sam Farrell

Keys: Alex Drossart

Acoustic Guitar, Electric Bass: Matty Day

The session

This song, ornate as it came off, was perhaps the most brisk (pun: accepted) of all the album’s songs. The structure itself is quite straightforward, and beyond Valentine’s monologue, it features no guest performers, which can’t be said for any other tracks on the album.

For whatever reason Alex wasn’t around when we started tracking. I had the structure/chords, the lead guitar line, the vocal melodies, the lyrics, and an idea of what the drums should do; as I did with “Media Casualty”, I had completely forgotten to come up with a bass part. I showed Sam my impression of what the drums should do, and he wound up recording himself doing an improved version and looping it. For what was to be a pensive late ‘60s song, it had a surprising, underlying groove. That foundation helped me play the guitar parts more delicately, but also inspired me to play the bass part more groovily, too, doing some Donald “Duck” Dunn-type runs. We may have considered using the drum loop as a scratch/placeholder, but there was something so satisfying about it, and by that time we’d built around it, so we delightfully kept it. Again, I was so pleasantly surprised at this rhythmic bedrock—I’d never messed with loops before, nor would this be the last time on this album—after which Alex joined and added all this delightfully baroque, pastel color.

From start to finish this song took us four hours, including chill time, naturally.

Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here

I’d had the main melody, sans lyrics, for perhaps six years. This is the first of three songs on the album I had imagined would be Priggs songs.

Not that they’re nonsense, but the lyrics were almost entirely made to match the melody. Other than the recurrence of the song title, it’s a bit all over; Van Dyke Parks style of wordplay, with some pseudo-rhymed finishing phrases (“Andalou”/”out the blue”). Maybe it corresponds to some sort of icy, detached academia, though sung warmly enough with double-tracked vocals. Blue coldness + red warmth = perfect for purple prose?

I’d had the idea for the French monologue intro, probably inspired by T. Rex and The Mystery Girls. Sam happened to have a French friend, Valentine (“val-en-Teen”), and wonderfully she was game to do record and send a simple phone memo recording. I had used an online translator to change my English-written intro, but she graciously cleared it up—though to this day I don’t know exactly what she says. One change, though, was that originally I’d had her use the French word for “Day” instead of saying my last name as is, but then it just sounded like a random snippet of French dialogue, so she graciously re-recorded it, and Sam dropped the file in and timed it up over Alex’s keys. Merci beaucoup, Valentine!

For those keeping track, so far you’ve heard English, Latin, and French—who knows what else you’ll encounter on this expedition! Not Italian, though, as I mentioned in this list:

I won’t belabor the album concepts/motifs introduced/perpetuated in this song because they’re probably pretty obvious to you, though maybe the Chronos/Greco-Roman mythology bit deserves mention. But in terms of album arc, by my estimation, so far we’ve rejected Christianity, amused ourselves to death, and found ourselves left in the cold. Le sigh…

Lyrics

(Approximate French translation:

Ladies and gentlemen,

Listen to this song with all your heart,

And let it change you deeply.

Presenting: “In Our Coldest Time”,

By Matthew Day)

In Our Coldest Time

Catch our frozen breath

Even in tropical clime

Scarcely recognize

The way we look inside

Breaking Un Chien Andalou

In our coldest time

Fail to see the sleeting waters

On our eyes

Feel our central nervous tics

Beatified

Sigh a final allelu—

Typical of the cynical types

To smile while they cry

Shifting the look from left eye to right

Trimming the eccentricities

Just to re-dandify

How many times do we learn not what to do?

Don’t surf sub-lunar tide

Bid it valedictory for

The first last time

Sighs of seismic ‘portionate,

Surprising prime

Peak a fine height out the blue

Onto ardent rendezvous…

Slow raindrops solidify

Upon my windscreen

No matter, no need to take a drive

Oh, I find you interesting,

You may not like why

All of us fell in love when we withdrew

As we acquiesce

Always searching

Chalk it up to experience

Do believe I’m done pining

For past movements

To progress, yes I’m prone

In our coldest time

Less concerned with messaging

Than words that rhyme

Hold the phone,

Caress the wristwatch you unwind

Toss Chronos another stone

Track 4: “Mild”

Links

Bandcamp

Spotify

The players

Drums, Percussion: Ryan Seefeldt

Back-Up Vocals: Jaci Day

Keys, Acoustic Guitar, Synths: Alex Drossart

Additional Electric Bass: Sam Farrell

Upright Bass, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass: Matty Day

The session

This song has three basic parts, which required at least three, several-hour, Wednesday night sessions. It started with getting the main upright bass riff, then have Ryan pound away to that, and then do another pass or two adding some more improvised fills. Loved bringing Ryan in to do something so far out; Sam, Alex, Ryan and I have played countless shows together, with Cory Chisel, J-Council, and Adriel Denae, but also backing up Shannon Shaw, Chuck Auerbach, Rev Sekou, and tons more of incredible one-offs.

Building up that groove was a blast. Cory popped in and bolstered the vibe, and somehow the idea came up for Ryan to shake one of those giant tubs of cheeseballs for percussion. Alex did some free jazzish piano plinkery, Sam filled in the low end with some murky electric bass, and I added something of a trip-hop guitar line. We did this before I knew what I was going to do lyrically, so we actually recorded quite a bit more than we needed. Loved the disoriented, hypnotic groove. We decided it would add to that by disregarding a more rhythmic cadence for the vocals, opting for laconic sing-speak.

For the second part, as per usual I supplied an awful demo, and Alex simply took it home and made a full righteous synth piece. We dirtied it up a bit with some distorted breathing a la Depeche Mode. Doing the low octave on the vocals was wild; it felt like Syd Barrett singing “Maisie”.

I hadn’t planned for a third part—I was thinking it would just menacingly fadeout—but something about it suggested Alex request I go full-on pop with it. With that bit of homework, I came up with the vocal, and we went as pop as possible. Jaci was game to record some “Vogue”-esque vocal snippets for us, Sam came up with the Nile Rodgers guitar part, and I added the Peter Hook bass. At some point a Shirley Temple was drank.

Uh, Matty, what’s the deal here

Great question: I’ll… get back to you on that.

Well, I had the first bass part in my back pocket for almost 15 years, and for whatever reason always imagined it going from this organic dungeon to something darkly electro. Going to something brightly electro was a mid-session revelation. On it’s face this is the weirdest song I’ve ever been part of. I’ve so primarily worked in rootsier genres, but electronic music started blowing my mind in my late teens and shattered my rigid sensibilities of what rock’n’roll is.

Writing lyrics across the drastic changes, it sort of feels like this move from (self-)loathing to radical (self-)acceptance—a warming up process of sorts, after the previous song, but hey, careful now: the pendulum may swing too far in the coming tracks!

Lyrics

(Heavy) like a gas can

On the side of a highway

I endure this blurred survey

What I had for the week,

I went through by Tuesday…

My whole life is a Mild seizure

I move like a action figure

I squander this tenure

For strangers

I’m ex-ex-extroverted

Exoteric *and* subversive

I summon the sun

While you call the curtain

Mild

And yet I cannot get a witness

I’ve got a healthy sickness

I’m an analog mess

You’re wireless

So we do the new dementia

You resent me, I repent ya

Disparate business,

Compliments offend ya—

How can we even talk?

Frankly, I’m a flawless angel

All my ideas are anti-fragile

It’s true by degrees I wager danger

Eternal Blaise Pascal

I burn internal bridges

Endless

I drive private wedges

Creative differences

Nix my solo projects

Cautious, on the fence

Still I will this selfish slog…

Will we ever get past the prologue?

Condemned to engine

I wanna be your cog

Mild

The sound of a robot breathing

Half-open blinds, Venetian

Dialed to mild

N’ no longer freezing

I haven’t come to complicate things

Benevolent manipulatings

Keep it on the D.L. I am

M-I-L-D, my friend

You wear a silver harness

You call it virtue

I call you a masochist

Snow in June

Kicked out of the scene

Stylishly realize your mildest dreams

And when she wants some good

She comes to me—mildly

That’s how I put it

So mild…

———————————————–

Just like that, you’re a third of the way through the album, and yet—as I bat my bedroom eyes—fully through to my heart for reading these so far. ‘Til next Mondee,

-Mattee