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Back to the Salt Mines

by Monumental Folly

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Scott Burland
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evereman
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Custom made, hand printed, with unique art/packaging and individually created painting.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Back to the Salt Mines via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 14 days
    edition of 50 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Download will include print-ready PDF. If you wanted a physical copy mailed I'd make some special one-off packaging with an original painting or something.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

1.
Pockets 02:19
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Would I, would I? Turn to a better man.
2.
Back to the Salt Mines 09:25
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It's still so hard to take this medicine. Is pulling plows through rocky ground what heaven sent? When you can't press two dimes it's Back to the Salt Mines. Deciding when to make a bed of it is always softer in your head than under it. Whatever game you play whatever choice, your skin gets rubbed so raw life's a lucky charm. Back to the Salt Mines The garden was a dream and only dreamers lie birthright's a bed it seems everyone gets to try. May as well punch the clock a fight this life can't stop that Sisyphean rock starts rolling ready or not. When you can't press two dimes it's Back to the Salt Mines. Don't take this as a loss My eyes just choose to see each moment as the boss of me and only me. Work... you've got to work...
3.
The Twenty-Five Thousandth 03:15
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I know your name.
4.
Left to One Owned 04:27
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Plutonium and platinum it's like a disease unlike this ad infinitum which is all I can see How much increasing hostility can bring people ease? It's only a voice in the chandelier compelling the scene. Whenever my eyes ever evergreen the course is over, it's time to begin each burden laid under this tree is one less to burn. What did it matter?
5.
Blur Lagoon 06:07
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What becomes becomes as mountains wreathed in flames illuminate your face Atomic animals run underfoot and wonder why wonder why we laugh You came by to see me: it wasn’t like before
6.
Radial Relations 09:12
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7.
Demarcation of Marks 05:29
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Ending is sad because. Just because.

about

A guiding principle was to begin with an improvisation and then discover what structure exists and develop. The development was in most cases extremely extensive, however, the improvised parts remain, such that often there is some weird part that is persisting along with what was developed much later. A second principle: maximalism.

Some other principles: 1) most of the parts are played (rather than programmed); 2) less by principle than necessity, these were made of a very long span of time, with a brushstroke or two added here and there with wide separations in between; 3) I largely didn't use effects as a significant aspect of the work; 4) most of the pieces have multiple, distinct sections.

Also there is singing. My sympathies.

The title track is about having to working in mindless labor because the need for income requires it.

Some influences on these pieces -- influences on me over the whole course of musical life that, after I had mostly completed these, I thought, “well, there is that.” First, The Residents, because the pieces began with improvisations and are unusual in structure and voice. Second, J.G. Thirlwell in his earlier period, because of maximalism and using the studio as an instrument. Third, The Beatles White Album, because the development of pieces came about by following them wherever they led, and the album overall has a range of oddments. Fourth, Negativland: the construction of plunderphonics in the first section of the title track.

Instrumentation includes: guitars, bass, snare drum, roto-tom, ride cymbal, clay pots, tambourine, architect right angle and other metal percussion, electric pencil sharpener, Volca sample. microKorg, MakeNoise 0 Coast, Roland Juno-60, Sequential Circuits Pro-One, Bastl Kastle, VST synthesizers, Casio SK-1, littleBits synth, frogs, Gopichand, mbira, melodica, Suzuki XG-1m (a somewhat difficult midi guitar controller: hence the awkward synth solos on track 2).

credits

released February 15, 2019

Composed, performed, produced by Jon Ciliberto, mostly in 2018, with a couple pulled from 2017 and some finishing in 2019.

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Monumental Folly Atlanta, Georgia

Monumental Folly rather speaks for itself, yes? Monumental Folly also embraces a sheer willingness to leave things rough at the edges and to carry through improvisation from start to an often much-attenuated finish. Also singing, for which I apologize.

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