Autaar & 404

Locked in a room, locked in a house, locked in a street, locked in a city. The only way out is in, as I explore the inner spaces of despair and loss.

I feel locked inside myself, too. Feeling even more alone now, because the world has torn, it seems.

Everybody has started calling it “The Situation”. These semantics remind me of talking to refugees, speaking on the invasion, the hidden war, their inevitable flight.

A beast of razors behind the curtain. Fangs slightly touching the silk. Tiny tearing noises from a terrifying silhouette. Air filled with astringent fear. Scratching at the back of your mind.

The signal slowly moves into capacitive focus. Resonance from another realm exciting eddy currents within. Humans leave their trails across the stars, painted in eternal light.

In the din of electromagnetic nature, we oppress our silence onto the resonances in the sky. Our grubby tentacles have always been reaching out. In light, in water, with waves and blockades. Well before we became arrogant we were already dangerously voracious.

This track is like a photograph, taking the once-was and engraving it onto another domain.

As I am torn between murder and flight, I explore the musical details of having an emotionally stunted and underdeveloped neighbour. One who decides to start playing super-loud techno at random times throughout day.

Is it because he wants to assert dominance? Does he want to feel seen? Perhaps he’s just high on cocaine again?

I can’t take it anymore.
Fuck. No!
Please, just stop.

The noise. It invades both mind, heart, and sleep equally. Not only is it a death sentence to any kind of mental work, it immediately throws the hard-won feeling of ‘home’ to the blazing, ash-filled wind. The invasion is especially hurtful because I came here looking for peace and quiet, and only very recently at that. He shows no insight. “You need to subjugate,” he tells me. “Because I’ve lived here longer than you.”

Visions cross my mind’s eye: Hellfire, charred bodies, disemboweled, cut in half, raised on an inverted cross

Subjugate? Am I a dog?

Trying to stop my imaginations of scooping out his brains with a nearby screwdriver, I stand at a crossroads: Start a war, or accept the natural order?

I can’t do this to my loved ones, I cannot hurt this person. That leaves only one way forward.

Please, no.
We need to move house.
Again.

Is this running away, or life-goal stability? Is this weakness, or acceptance of Nature unchangeable? Why do I have to ponder this proposition? What forced me to this decision?

Why don’t I just give up?

Some people are truly better of dead. My neighbour? May he live a long, long life.

As such a glorious life it is: Scared, lost, lonely, addicted.

He is already in hell.

Are we together?
Our committed bond?
Is this our family?

Yes babe — Check out my onlyfans.

Turns out I had lost track of how to be human. I became a mind, disconnected. A mind with wants and needs of human form, yet abstract in its senses. Working through it, accepting time as ever-flowing and my eternal companion. Change inevitable, the true fabric of reality. I learned to accept and love the cyclic imperfect: The revolving, evolving, swirling hum beneath it all.

It is like the duct tape of the Universe. It holds our cosmos together. The drone is within and without.

As above, so below.

You try to ignore the immeasurable stone mass floating above you. Dread shadows promise crushing nothingness, forgotten eternal.

“No!” you say, “There is no death here, there can’t be!” — Convincing no one but yourself.

Centuries have filled the vault with ancient ashes. The floating corpses of the buried wealthy touching you. Tickling the back of your neck with decomposed feet.

Hollow windows, like broken teeth, up there. The torn rags of empire’s flags calmly waving in stone halls, above.

Floating above you, threatening all.

This is my cathedral.

I have completely rebuilt this track four times. (Thanks Joost!)

This is not really a typical style composition for me, and I would almost categorize it as being poppy, were it not for the screeching synths, the theremin, and the truly goosebump-invoking guitar work by 404.

For me, and for many others that hear it, there seems to be a glimmer of hope in it. A rising from the ashes, a regain of control.

Well, this track is about grilled cheese sandwiches, after all — which is definitely something to be positive about!

But to stay serious here for a bit: I love this track deeply. It is chronologically the last one we made, and I really think we found our vibe together here, It just works so well.

It feels like this track breathes a new, hopeful beginning. Something we could all use, right about now.