ZEUS IN ORBIT
released MARCH 24, 2019
RELEASE 62
Eight outtakes from Skin At 15 Degrees. "Intro" was an attempt to write a song that justified being called "Intro". I don't like when albums just have an intro track called "Intro", except perhaps Demon Days. Feels like a cop out. "Zeus In Orbit" is fine but, as I say in the intro, it sounds too much like "Victoria Grey" by the Cleaners From Venus. "Needle Stars (Version 1)" was my initial stab at that song. Versions 2 and 4 of this are on Suitcase 5, which came out in December 2021, so it'll be a long time before I get to talk about the full development of this song. What I can say is that it's almost certainly the most versions of a song I recorded before I felt like I had even one definitive version. "Resident Daily Cutter (Version 1)" sounds a great deal like the album version, just slightly worse. The drum machine was captured on my Tascam DP008ex's built-in mic rather than being plugged straight in, so the drums sound worse. There was a reason I ended up doing that but I forget what the reason was. "Dust" is a rare case of me having all of the lyrics ready to go before I'd written any music. Actually, some of my newer stuff is like that too, but none of those songs involved tuning my guitar to an open tuning so I'd have something to strum while I sang, just to lay the foundation. It's a solid tune, but I imagine I left it off the album to make the album sound a little more cohesive. There's not a ton of acoustic guitar on Skin At 15 Degrees.