Grand Army Reapers

Track listing:

1. Black Tape (explicit)
2. Distraction from Sadness (explicit)
3. Long-Covid Blues (explicit)
4. Screenplay 1979
5. Snowed Out (explicit)
6. Bug Hunt

Singles: Black Tape, Distraction from Sadness, Long-Covid Blues

 Credits:

Bass – MK

Guitar – Krish

Guitar – Chuck

Drums – Ben

Vocals/Samples – Erik

Alto Sax (tracks 5 & 6) – Patrick

Tracking by Erik, RFN Records. Mixing and mastering by our neighbor Mike, Behind the Curtain Media. Album art by Raphael Cornford.

Brief Description:

You ever listen to an album, and then go see the band live, and it sounds nothing like their recordings? Kinda sucks right?

Alive, Alive (from King Killer) is a 6-song EP, self-recorded in our little practice space over 2 days in December. This album is a rejection of sterility and control in the studio. This album is a naked vehicle of primordial muzak, juiced and distilled under great heat and pressure. You can smell the sweat.

All instrumentals are live. Vocals are a mixture of live and overdubbed. After we thought we were done with tracking, we found a feral saxophonist named Patrick and brought him in for a few songs on here. So vocals and saxophone aside, this is basically a “live” album.

Long Description:

Alive, Alive (from King Killer) is a mostly live studio album, self-recorded by Grand Army Reapers over a few days in December 2021. This album is a reaction. This album is an invitation. This album is a lie.

This album is a reaction against the sterilizing and homogenizing effects of studio production, social media, and streaming services on our punk and indie rock peers. Recording is weird. There’s a lot of pressure that goes into using your time and money wisely. We also feel that trends and standards of quality have emerged within our little social media bubbles that diminish raw human performance in favor of “clean” and “professional” production. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but social media makes this more pervasive and self-policed among our peers than ever before. At some point, we’ve gotta ask ourselves, “What are we actually perpetuating as musicians in a genre that’s supposedly to be rooted in DIY production, self-taught musicianship, and confrontational performance?”

This album is an invitation to weirdness and spontaneity in the studio, improvisation of performance as well as production, even if you have to make your own studio, even if you’re not sure what you’re doing, and even if quality objectively suffers. Fuck ‘em.

To that end, we had to set a few rules for ourselves.

1. Record ourselves in our own space.
2. Limit 3 takes per song.
3. No listening back to each take while recording, just keep it moving.
4. Limit 3 vocal takes per song.
5. Oh no, we found a new bandmate
6. Record sax now, I guess.
7. Let Mike deal with the mixing/mastering.

This album is a lie. Alive, Alive (from King Killer) is kind of, sort of “live”, but still very self-conscious and meticulously planned. The instrumentals are live. Vocals are a mix of live and overdubbed, and after we thought we were done with tracking, we found a feral saxophonist named Patrick and brought him in for a couple songs.

Alive, Alive (from King Killer) is a naked vehicle of primordial muzak, juiced and distilled under great heat and pressure. You can smell the sweat.