bad apple tree.

A message from Vov Abraxas .
wednesday march 17 2021

first of all happy st. paddy’s day.
normally i consider the holiday to be somewhat controversial but the world is ending and everything is meaningless and im just happy that you’re happy. just a little recap of some things i’ve been up to.

EVIL GIRAFFE IS OVER. – if this is your first time hearing about Evil Giraffe, I have good and bad news. The good news is, it was a fun entertaining project and the music is good. The bad news is that Im no longer making it available to you. This might change in time but for now this is where I’m at with it.

LONELY SEA MONSTER – This project is currently active. – A fog has taken over Ghost Cult City and has turned its residents into a serene canabilistic hive mind horror story. – The fiction blends in with the reality of the pandemic and the focal point of the experimental rap project is the normalcy bias of North America in different phases of the COVID19 pandemic. At the time of this writing there are 4 Lonely Sea Monster releases.
Lonely Sea Monster – (march 26, 2020) – (the pandemic begins. normalcy bias, it can’t happen here)
Lonely Sea Monster – LSM – remix EP1 – (april 5 2020) – innocent me thinking the album is the one time im gonna be talking about covid19 in my music. at this point im thinking only the first album is going to exist.

Lonely Sea Monster – Archipelago – (Oct. 30, 2020) (the pandemic is raging on, normalcy bias; this isnt happening but it is/riots and bunker life) – “the fog is a friend. i can see forever” – ayy what can i say? im a sucker for sci fi horror… – this is my favorite of the Lonely Sea Monster albums so far. reasons why: some really intense things were going on in North America at this moment in time, not to fearmonger, but there was a chaotic feeling we were digesting in that moment. I feel like I showed that uncertain feeling some respect with this album.
The first Lonely Sea Monster set up some ideas, and Archipelago expanded on them in a next logical step sort of way. Its just a worthy continuation and I’m glad it is because in retrospect, I don’t think this project is strong enough with just the one album. Also I’m happy with the structure of Archipelago as an album.
it begins with chaos and gradually comes together ending with the coherent songs at the tail end.

halloween was the next day and i regretted not having a holiday themed album planned for some reason. (sometimes im a sucker for gimmicks too, im not made of stone) so i began working on the lonely sea monster christmas album which is what it sounds like… the covid19 christmas special with the fog and the hive mind and the people who can see forever.
Lonely Sea Monster is the perfect project for a twisted dark Christmas project. With normalcy bias being the guiding theme we watch the evil of Christmas prey on the good of Christmas as we do every year, but this year its extra twist with the pandemic raging on world wide. its painful and cathartic to watch people cling onto normalcy at this moment in the pandemic. and with that I became tired with the project. but as months pass, the vaccine roll out is complicated and the public is antsy again the fuel of the project is combusting and the engine is rolling for a fourth Lonely Sea Monster album. (the remix EP doesn’t count/but will have a follow up sister EP at some point)

A FLOCK OF DUCKS– behold a respite from the dark. i dont want to say too much about this project and spoil the magic of what it is. this is the duck content you need right now. find it at my bandcamp. a link will be at the bottom of this post.

THE DEVIL CAME TO TOWN – is currently inactive. future TBD.

RAVEN HAVEN – is my electric piano project/ the production of these tracks are random. with a schedule like this I can’t tell you when the next one will be. In 2020 it took form of a quiet piano diary i kept during one of the loudest and scariest months of 2020 (most of them were loud and scary) I was inspired by a solo album I heard by Chick Corea. He probably didn’t mean for it to be so, but the album felt like a study album made for other musicians. Squarepusher has a similar album for solo electric bass. im not a virtuoso at all, but i can improv and carry a thought for a minute, so i tried to capture that and chop out the bad shit; hoping stepping out of my normal aesthetic zone to return to the familiar space later with some new nuance to bring to the table. Raven Haven (2) was released June 13 2020 and features nothing but an electric piano setting on a microkorg.

FOUNTAINS – is an ongoing ambient project , tho, i think im going to take my time with the next one because i feel like there is a little bit of clutter in the FOUNTAINS catelogue.
FOUNTAINS FLOWERS PAGANS was released on the last full moon of 2019 and you can see the naive optimism in my write up for it in bandcamp. still tho, this album is my favorite of all the fountains material so far. all fountains material is about magic and healing and mystery, thats what im thinking about when im making it, i get specific here and there but theres nothing in the music that communicates that to you. i can’t know for sure what you’re experiencing with this music, but for me its a magical healing exercise. fountains moon run and fountains salt pillars are also available. there are 2 other fountains releases. see what i mean? a little cluttered. but i encourage you to check them out you might like them. they’re made in the spirit of healing, hopefully they help you feel better too.

ketchup chips – is a weirder project. similar concept to the piano project, ketchup chips focuses on drum samples only. tempos changing while recording, layers punching in and out. glitchy edits. seizure warning! personally im proud of this album, really stuck to my guns on the format from beginning to end on this one and was still some how able to expand moods throughout the album. people who need melody and things like that to appreciate music probably won’t like this album, it would probably sound like a broken washing machine to them. but if you’re like me, you might like the nuances i brought with it, tracks fading in and out. theres something soothing and nostalgic about this process, there are moments that feel like raw house music. but if you keep listening, you know this isn’t house music, or at least the house music we know. more like field recordings of whale sounds and radiation. i know that doesn’t sound appealing to everyone. but im certain that the two or three people out there whove been wanting an album like this will be delighted. KETCHUP CHIPS released june 13 2020.

WASP ODYSSEY – im proud of how this project turned out. check the bad apple tree TV youtube channel. check the playlists, there you will find WASP ODYSSEY, a sci fi horror series I made in lockdown with toys. there might be a little bit of story left or i can leave it where it is. i haven’t decided yet. at the time of writing this, there are 16 episodes of WASP ODYSSEY at the bad apple tree TV youtube channel. a complimentary soundtrack album that helps as part of the story is available at bandcamp. it was released october 22. 2020. the process for this music is similar to fountains with a heavier emphasis on composition and structure. i got really obsessed with a technique called leitmotif for this project, i tried hard to make one.
theres so much to say about this project about what makes a character have emotion and perspective and color psychology and visual storytelling and society, time space and life and death but i feel like saying too much might spoil the experience.

and then i have the 100 video game cover project on youtube. sometimes i go in with determination and pump out 15 tracks at a time, other times i couldn’t be bothered. its a special project worthy of your attention tho, i would go so far to say i did a good job on a couple tracks. i love my red soil super metroid track. but theres plenty others. the reasons for doing this project shift as the project rolls on, but my favorite part of the experience is dropping tracks in the middle of the night without warning.

thats about it for the recap i think.

moving forward i’m going to try to sit on projects for a period of time and know what i have before announcing them, and then rolling them out a little cleaner so we can have an experience together about it. i’m working on a lot of projects right now, some of them I already mentioned. others i haven’t.
but im getting excited about this entire process again, and thats probably the best news I could have right now. thanks for your attention. wishing you the best. stay strong and be good to eachother.

here’s the bandcamp link. you should get the app and follow me with it.
lots of cool indie music on bandcamp that deserves some love.
https://vovabraxas.bandcamp.com/

Vov Abraxas

ps. i’ve also been painting.