Down² is the twelfth of twelve tracks released in 2024. Many of these releases will feature unique collaborations and will later be compiled on a wider full-length streaming release in 2025.
This was the second track completed for this project and one of the widest-ranging collaborations. Hiyori is based in Hamburg, Germany, and Jason Trahan is an old friend from Athens, GA. I passed the lyrics along to Hiyori first, which, at first, I did not understand, but over time, I realized stemmed from my first grief experience: the death of a pet hamster… Fred. Hiyori took a snarling David Yow inspired and I loved it out of the box! It remained bass/drum machine and vocals for many months while I considered the next layer. I was listening to the Residents one day and realized it needed that kind of guitar. I only knew one musician who could serve that up, Jason Trahan. The tracks he served up were fantastic and weird. I quickly shared a mix with my bass coach Joe Lally who loved the pull between the vocals and the guitar.
Ultimately, this track is the only way to wrap up this project. My local grief over a hamster works pretty well for national grief right now and anything in between.
Let’s down, down, down down….
