Mappa Mundi

“Lost” is an older song, one of the earliest to earn the Mappa Mundi label. It was originally envisioned as a rock song with loud, driving guitars, but then when I started this whole Chamber Pop experiment it turned into one of our clearest examples of that. For this series, however, I wanted to try to strip it down again, with the piano taking (some of) the string parts. It’s still got the distorted ukulele but it’s weird for me to hear it without the string arrangements. Someday, when the Song of the Fortnight process is more streamlined we’ll do another version involving the best of both worlds!

Lost by Mappa Mundi

This song came together a few years ago, after a period in which I had to stop playing altogether for a while due to wrist injuries from practicing too much. Oh, cruel irony! Needless to say, that was a bad time. However, it eventually forced me to think about what it meant to be an artist, and specifically what that meant to me. Eventually, this whole spate of material came out of that period, and this song especially became, in some ways, a thematic call to arms for Mappa Mundi. Or what would become Mappa Mundi. Or what is becoming Mappa Mundi.

Therapy sessions aside, you recording geeks may be interested to know that the effect at the end is actually created with a muted trumpet and tinkering with some digital delay. I just bought a real acoustic (or semi-acoustic) delay pedal, so I can’t wait to expand on that idea. Yay, psychedelic trumpet!

As always, please let me know what you think in the comments, and please also feel free to download/share/whatever these tracks. Use the buttons on the right side of the player.

“So Obscure” definitely falls into the category of story songs told through the use of inner monologue. It’s about two people with the arguably noble ambitions of creating something meaningful and valuable with their lives. Despite continually scaling back their expectations and dreams, they remain frustrated. Over time, they realize their dreams are unattainable, that the world of beauty, reason, and art simply doesn’t exist. Their ideals have no place in the real world and it doesn’t do to dwell too long in the realm of ideals. You’ll be ruined for the real world. Yeah, it’s a literary reference. I know!

So Obscure by Mappa Mundi

The instrumentation is guitar, voice, ukulele, distorted uke, some basic percussion, and fuzzed-out keyboards. The string parts had to be left out, but I’ll record another version soon enough with those in. For comparison’s sake.

As always, click on the ‘down arrow’ button on the player to download. Embedding is right below that. Anyway, hope you like it! Let me know what you think in the comments…

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concepts of choice and absurdity – about the idea of planning in general, and moreover how so much of our frustration and loneliness comes from that tension. At least mine does.

Anyway, I tend to lean toward ‘story’ songs usually, and toward writing from the perspective(s) of the character(s) as sort of an inner monologue. So this song is the realization (or fear?) that all of the character’s plans and choices might be irrelevant after all, a big lie, or worse yet, a joke, and that he/she might really be out too far with a false map.

Musically, I had been tinkering with the chords that eventually became the intro and bridges, which sounded old-worldy enough to be appropriate for a Mappa Mundi song. Also, I’ve been trying to write in more pentatonic or bluesy modes. This is rock ‘n’ roll after all! So, after combining those two ideas the song just fell into place, coming from wherever it is these things come.

I’m pretty pleased with the fuzz on the trumpet sound. I think it sounds old-timey and simultaneously crunchy/rocky. I mean, who needs lead guitar when distorted trumpets sound so cool, right? That might be our manifesto…

Let me know what you think!

Out Here by Mappa Mundi

“Right” came out of feelings of weepy, crying-into-your-whiskey sentimentality and lock-jawed stoicism, while thinking about ideas of loss and change, and realizing that no genre better serves that paradox than a country song. So, “Right” is an attempt to stay within the confines of a genre as an experiment. It turns out working within certain arbitrary rules really can be extremely liberating. It also seemed like the appropriate time for some depression-era and/or Mariachi-style trumpet flourishes.

The title, if you’re interested, comes from a concept in Vedic Brahmanism called “Ṛta,” which is also a common origin of the English word “right.” It refers to the proper order of nature, etc., and I had been thinking about what happens when that gets upset.

Let me know what you think in the comments below…

Right by Mappa Mundi