Fastened Bulbous - Hard to Shine

This song is available on WiMP and Spotify.

I started this blog with the intention of uploading songs that for most part have been released (with the exception of the songs by VEP, who never released anything) and in the version they were released. So far this only goes for one. This time, though, I provide the first song from the first album by Fastened Bulbous. The last of my songs to be written for that album, I still consider it to be one my best songwriting efforts. But, it must be noted, without the splendid basslines of PG, and the wonderful interaction between him and drummer Espen, this would have been a much lesser song. Or is it, more pretensiously, a piece? There are no choruses here, and therefore neither any verses, just a few themes sewn together.

I remember making this song on a Saturday in August 1995. Somehow I came up with the main riff (the "verse") that morning. It seemed so urgent to finish that song asap that I wrote the other themes and came up with their sequence within a couple of hours. I think this flow in working out the song is reflected in the song itself. At least to my math-rock ears, the various themes come and go as a fairly natural flow (unlike most math-rock, where the various themes are attached in a more - deliberately - contrived manner). Few of my songs have been so little altered in its way from demo to final version. Most other songs display band-efforts, either in rehearsals or in the recording studio.

I have never hidden the fact that this song is inspired by the complex post-hardcore of Rodan. In fact, the working title of the song was "Kentucky" (Rodan hailed from Louisville, Kentucky), and the final title is a line from their song Shiner. Of course, there are attempts as having a melody here, unlike the shouting and whispering of Rodan.

I have done a slight remastering to each track/instrument here, and therefore also remixed it. However, I have tried to stay as close to the released version as possible (or at least, the intentions of the released version).