#slightly shorter post today orz

[jamiepaige]

Constant Companions Closeup #2: NOT QUITE THERE

(also on spotify!)

b-b-back once again

Round two of the Constant Companions Closeups - a series of in-depth dives into the songs off of my latest album, Constant Companions! Yesterday was track one, Dyad - today is track two, Not Quite There, featuring the incomparable telebasher!

This one's a bit of a dark horse relative to the rest of the album, but it may very well be my personal favorite song on the entire thing so dammit let's Yap

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For the uninitiated, this song pulls heavily from a song off my previous album called Gummyworm, both in vibe and by very directly quoting its synth motif.

Both of these songs deal with two sides of the same emotional coin. I actually don't want to go into too much detail about it - I feel like the lyrics spell things out clearly enough - but I will say this:

When it's all you know, it's easy to believe that a love that isolates you, a love that doesn't respect you, a love that hurts is better than no love at all.

You deserve better. There are always people who genuinely want what's best for you, who want you to feel truly loved. It certainly isn't always easy - it's genuinely good if your interpersonal relationships have a little friction sometimes - but love should make your life brighter.

You deserve a love that's fair.

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The original version of this song was actually intended to be on Bittersweet alongside Gummyworm. The original concept for that album had a whole heady concept involving duality, songs reflecting each other, the two halves basically being reprisals of each other... Ultimately, I'm glad I scrapped that idea, because it was waaaaaay too much for me to manage after a couple years of barely making music. Maybe I'll revisit it someday though?

The drums on this song are sampled from an Instagram post by Louis Cole, where he's doing this crazy one-handed hi-hat blast by holding a drumstick sideways. I'm a drummer and that shit genuinely scares me a little like i dont know how he does half the things he does its fucked BUT. I bring this up because he's one of my biggest inspirations as a musician! I'm really big on jazz in general, in case my love for spicy chords wasn't enough of an indication, but his specific brand of freaky hyperactive bullshit just does it for me.

Seriously, go watch his band KNOWER play their song Overtime. Absolutely insane performances across the board. also Clown Core

This whole song is really just my attempt at matching some of that hectic jazzy energy with my own style of music, so I figured it only made sense to make it another collab with another musician making delightfully frantic jazz bullshit - the legend herself, telebasher! I really am such a massive fan of her work, and I struggle to think of anyone who plays guitar quite like she does. We previously worked together on another Bittersweet track, Asemic Speech, and her guitar work is a major reason why that song is still one of my favorite I've ever released!! She's just built different like listen to this oh my god!!!!

Lastly, since this song was one of the first written for this entire project... it is admittedly a case of me shoehorning the album's leitmotif in after the fact. It's a little forced when it shows up in the backing vocals! But, the choir of vocal synths during the guitar solo served an additional purpose - my own voice doesn't show up on the album again for another four entire songs, and this would've otherwise been the only song on the entire album that didn't feature any vocal synths. Thus did I attempt to bridge the gap, as it were. Hopefully it makes the final product feel more natural!!

Either way, that's all for today's post.... i think.... which means that tomorrow.... we're gonna rot.... for clout