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NeurOnFire

by Iambic Beats

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fyeahmetal
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fyeahmetal It's a stunningly beautiful sonic tapestry that weaves together many different voices, field recordings, chillwave beats, and all sorts of ambient and electronic goodies into a soothing, uplifting experience. There's so much to unpack here, with little details revealing themselves with each listen. The subject matter of mental health couldn't be more timely. Favorite track: Depression is....
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1.
What is a memory? What is a mind? The sensations The perceptions The ideas The recollections The reasonings The emotions The desires The imaginations And the acts of attention and of will These appear to be, at first glance The elements of mind Unformed Chaotic splatters of paint Decades embedded in brain fiber These tiny swatches of pain Ttched onto the mind’s blank canvas Once unmarked Now molded into imperfect forms Like raindrops on life’s camera lens We strain to recall or is it avoid Still We remember The scent of white pine Soft earth giving underneath bare feet Dances celebrating equinox days The strident cry of the jay Quiet peace holding love’s hand Nothing Yet everything we have Meandering minds reflect Discordant images in The flickering mirrors of our lives
2.
(When you have a memory You don’t retrieve something that already exists fully formed You create something new) I’m sorry, your memory is not available right now Please leave your message after the tone I remember you I build you anew in my mind When I picture your face I recreate it each time I paint your smile first The way your lips parted, lopsided You tried to hide it Do you remember me too? Do you reconstruct or undo? It’s like composing a song about me and you And when you try to sing along The notes are all wrong But it feels like it’s true (Vividness does not guarantee accuracy) (Memory is an artist as much as it is a scientist) Do you sing in tune, alone in your room? Does my voice fill your ears awakening parts of you asleep all these years As we build each other back to life? Neural paths we rewrite And if we get the math just right Will these memories grow wings? Take flight? (Memory is about the present as much as it is about the past) But what is a memory? It’s not a box with a top And a lock I can pick or take off It’s a new story And once the beat drops I can’t stop I make it up as I go Even though it seems so real The tiny hairs on your skin I can feel them My neurons replay the same flickering reel And I view these old movies That do nothing but prove we have history Moving these old mysteries My mind holds them like truth (Vividness does not guarantee accuracy) It’s just these brain cells Ingrained in the stories they tell Taking my senses on a senseless adventure Without intention Necessity my motherless invention Spining yarns peddling dopamine Necessitating intervention Because this fix fixes nothing (Memories are changed by the very process of reconstructing them) Memories are changed by the very process of reconstructing them Message complete If you are satisfied with your message Press pound To erase, press 1 Message erased Goodbye
3.
We come around eventually In the auburn light of a burnt out season The absence of that one love Compensated by overgrown lavender fields A silver brook carved through time Like someone knew what healing was needed Ahead of our foolish bodies The water is cool Reflecting your finest moments Gems scattered spontaneously in the hazy evening heat Ripples running off to that obscure horizon Where we cannot see past our conscience Only hear an echo of all that came before It sounds like warm ochre grass under bare feet Her white linen dress skimming salt waters Rose wine being decanted from fine crystal While our minds ride The violet breath of the universe
4.
It’s just a memory (As a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me; all things leave me; You remain) (Not only the learning of the scholar But the inspiration of the poet The genius of the painter The heroism of the warrior All depend upon memory Even consciousness itself could have no existence without memory There could be no consciousness of change Memory, therefore, May be said to be involved in all conscious existence A property of every conscious being 100 billion neurons Thousands of pathways Hundreds of memories But only one you A construct A fable A picture of ink spilled on the table I’d erase it if only I were able But all I can do is bathe in that ink Your name is all I can think (As a perfume doth remain) Constructs and contrasts You’ve gone but your memory lasts And I die a thousand neural deaths (In the folds where it hath lain) Brain damage in the darkest depths (Other thoughts may come and go, Other moments I may know That shall waft me, in their going, As a breath blown to and fro, Fragrant memories; fragrant memories Come and go Only thoughts of you remain In my heart where they have lain, Perfumed thoughts of you, remaining, A hid sweetness, in my brain Others leave me; all things leave me; You remain)
5.
(Oh if I could go back If I could go back To when you were young…) I came home from a tough school On a spring day Thinking life might get better And discovered my sister’s shoe On the roadside at the bottom of the drive I picked it up Walked home Only to discover my world Would never be the same (I miss your small voice so much Sometimes I think I can hear it)
6.
(The theory of relativity Is intimately connected with The theory of space and time) (She found herself falling down What seemed to be a very deep well She had plenty of time As she went down It was too dark to see anything) (Time is unreal) We perceive time but can we Believe time? It’s got me contemplating on the same thing on and on perseverating Out I climb With nothing but these rhymes But even then I’m only masquerading still these neural tracks are fading down the rabbit hole like vines The tag says drink me down like wine Bottoms up I’m feeling fine I forget about time I forget my own mind Everything is future present past I suture up these wounds so fast But still I’m bleeding why does nothing ever last? I guess it’s true It might blow your mind But I’m telling you There is no time (Theology never holds itself Apart from mysticism For any long period And almost all mysticism Denies the reality of time) (But alas for poor Alice When she got to the door She found she had forgotten the little golden key)
7.
The human mind is the only thing powerful enough To question itself To question the universe How did we get here? How comes the world to be here at all? (How comes the world to be here at all Instead of the non-entity that might be imagined in its place? Apart from man No being wonders at its own existence When man first becomes conscious He takes himself for granted As something needing no explanation But not for long For with the rise of the first reflection That wonder begins which is the mother of metaphysics That the non-existence of this world Is just as possible as its existence The philosophic wonder thus becomes A sad astonishment And like the overture of Don Giovanni Philosophy begins with a minor chord) (The bodily organ of the mind Is a thing of physics That collection of matter Which is called the brain In it, mind and matter come together As far as the mind is concerned It must be admitted that no study Of its own operations can give the least inkling On this question Any more than a study of the words of a telegram Would reveal how a wire came to conduct them) (Matter only exists by contradistinction and opposition to mind If mind did not exist Neither would matter)
8.
(That all the material composing the content of a dream Is somehow derived from experience That it is reproduced or remembered in the dream This at least may be accepted as an incontestable fact) (All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream) Which peculiarities though generally observed Have hitherto defied explanation Yet it would be wrong to assume that such a connection Between dream content and reality Will be easily obvious The dreamer is therefore in the dark As to the source which the dream has tapped) It’s not our fault no one ever told us Where we go when we dream or when we die It’s all the same place Of waiting and begging on bended knee Have I drawn pictures or curtains this time? No matter I still chose wrong I dreamed the poem back to front And I ended with a feather undipped Even yellow wood can die from Frost And no meter can contain your eyes That read the poem backwards too What if all our stories began with the twist And we read and read until the first page? Until we didn’t know the characters or plot anymore? (All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream)
9.
Standing under a billion star sky Yet only seeing the dark of night I didn’t know what was wrong My doctor asked me how I felt My answer was Restless, anxious, sad, hopeless, and worthless Depression is feeling paralyzed Depression is the eternal feeling of your heart Being chipped away one piece at a time In the most painful way imaginable Depression is the loss of our ability To find the words for our heart Depression weighs with the gravity of Jupiter Depression is a life eater Depression is loss of hope An abyss that takes hold of my true desires Depression is a too long cluster of cloudy days A memory that won’t go away Being the one that folks forget The end of the road, rough with regret Depression is living in a box made of fear Year after year after year Depression is emptiness Depression is uncertainty Depression is a motherfucker Depression is choosing to be alone It is never wanting to heal, Not the way the world wants me to It is pills and therapy I will never believe in It is a life locked behind invisible bars A permanent deferment of reality The orphan soul with no identity beyond a poem It is wanting to end my life Depression is completely and utterly immobilizing Depression is sucking the life Out of everything and everyone you know Because you just can’t be satisfied Depression is a thief It bleeds you and takes everything Depression wears a smile one day While it puts a noose Around your uncle or your best friend the next And no one wants to talk about mental In between mass shootings Depression is a capsizing ship in a peaceful sea Depression is starting over again and again and again And each time, each iteration you just compound the loneliness You asked me to describe depression I point to the open mouth of the cave What if pain was a zero sum And it was collective like ancestral memory? We’d pass it around but it would forever be Pain will never die We know this It will only be shuffled from body to body Let me take yours I don’t care if it hurts I’ll treasure it, for it is from you I’ll hold it I’ll smooth the edges until it glides softly downstream It won’t go away But if we share it It can be beautiful Depression is All of us
10.
Cut 02:02
For the longest time I thought meaning Lay just beneath the skin Not deeper inside These scars These tracks are a map Of my search for life But now when darkness hangs Upon my horizon I read poetry And quietly slip into another world Into a wonderous world of beauty and truth Where I never have to cut myself to feel
11.
Safe Now 03:01
Safe now / I tell myself At least once Every day / Like waking From a dream world / I held All the sharpest things, fast enough To bring blood / Lost In believing I was wrong In remembering and keeping love / Safe I am safe now I tell myself At least once a day or whenever I need / A ritual Of burning relics to mix With earth and watch rise
12.
The little girl who has trouble reading faces but can hear her schoolmates laughing The figure in the sleeping bag Huddled near sewer vents The bird who calls and calls But can’t seem to find her nest The failed mom and pop shop and the family you don’t see who lost their dream The woman who puts on a brave face for her children, even as her own mother is dying The boy who spends every afternoon doing theater Because there he can be anything, even a girl The man who reads and reads And writes and writes Until his pen runs dry But at the end of the day Must return to his non-fiction life I love them all I carry them like smooth stones in my pockets They are heavy and it’s too much sometimes But I fill my breath with each of them And when I sing When I sing, they are my harmony

about

*IMPORTANT NOTE* 100% of profits from the sale of this album (and any other merch or albums in my catalogue) through the end of August 2022 will be donated to The Jed Foundation, a non-profit org dedicated to supporting mental health of young adults and preventing suicide.

As the name suggests, NeurOnFire is themed around the brain and mind. Having studied neuroscience in school, I love all things brain. But the artist in me knows that the mind is far greater than the sum of its neurons and synapses. We are not just 100 billion neurons, but rather we are thinking, feeling, loving beings who experience joy and pain and have memories and trauma.

The album has 3 distinct phases:
1. We begin with Elements of Mind, which is about the types of memories we have and what it really means to be a human being: to dance, to smell the forest, to love, to wish to forget. The next 4 songs explore memories, both in theory and in narrative practice, painting pictures of vivid recall in bittersweet verse. Just like real memories, some tracks are soft and wistful; others evoke the longing or even agony we all know can be tied to memory.

2. The next phase of the album deals with the metaphysics of mind. How and why do we exist? What is time; is it even real? I play with existentialism and dreams in this middle phase of the album and the result is a fun shift toward music that is odd, dark, and evocative.

3. The final phase of NeurOnFire is heavy-hitting, tackling topics of self-harm, depression, empathy, and trauma through music that is crafted to uplift. In these songs, I wanted very much to express that pain is a necessary part of life and it will always be, but together and through poetry and song, we can turn it into something beautiful.

As always, the cover art features work by the incredibly talented Sionann Mastromonico (@impeccablechaos on Twitter). Sionann is also a wonderful poet. Be sure to also check out her track on this album (Safe Now)!

credits

released July 25, 2022

Cover features art by the incredible Sionann Mastromonico (@impeccablechaos on Twitter). Special thanks to Dr. Charles Fernyhough for his readings in track 2 (more info in the notes on the song page). Poetry in track 1 by Paul (@loverdesart on Twitter), poetry in track 3 written and performed by Vikki (@VWC_writes on Twitter), poetry in track 5 written and performed by Matt (@MG_7_9 on Twitter), poetry in track 10 written and performed by Subbo (@Subbo7 on Twitter), poetry in track 11 written and performed by Sionann (@impeccablechaos on Twitter). Track 9 features voices from more than a dozen writers from around the world.

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about

Iambic Beats Los Angeles, California

We have so many titles. A few of mine are: scientist, poet, writer, singer, mom. I like to think I live at the intersection of music and words and always asking questions. A goddamn lovely place to be.

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