Off the Record

Tyler Farnes 3:11
this is WKNC at a point one FM Raleigh, I'm your host elope. And this is off the record and interview podcast series here that we can see where artists of all shapes, sizes, genres and backgrounds are interviewed. In this edition I had the pleasure of speaking with Casey of Canary complex a visual case solar project. You might know them as a guitarist from flood Dittrich and my reel with that group. But this is their solar project complex, which is super dope. That song that played at the beginning of the podcast was eaten off of the off of Kerry complex sophomore album, The tragic dance of dying leaves. So Canary complex Casey, how are you doing?

Kasey 3:50
I'm doing great.

Tyler Farnes 3:51
Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much for being in the studio. Sorry.

Kasey 3:54
yeah, we're both very polite people.

Tyler Farnes 3:54
Here, yeah. So we're about halfway through the, I guess sort of just like general sort of feelings. We're about halfway through the, to the little bit over halfway through the year now. That's 22 the halfway through 2023 has been treating you good, bad or so. So you you obviously have been doing a lot of musical stuff as well. So how's your journaling treating you?

Kasey 4:24
I am I can honestly say that 2023 has been the best year of my life thus far.

Tyler Farnes 4:29
Nice.

Kasey 4:29
It's been nothing but positivity. At least if we're speaking from an artistic musical standpoint, it's just been consistent movement and I couldn't be happier.

Tyler Farnes 4:42
Nice. I will say we also I forgot to introduce we also have a Michael on the mic

Michael 4:49
from the depths.I enter

Tyler Farnes 4:50
from the depths and to the pod from flood district. You helped Casey with with the album Correct? Yes, please some parts of it. So Obviously, once we get a little bit more into that, well, we'll hear from your perspective, but you know, you just talk or whatever, you know, it's fine. Whatever. Alright, so first off, carry complex, that is a pretty dope name, I think that there's true of like,

Kasey 5:18
Thank you,

Tyler Farnes 5:18
especially that the complex part of it, I think it definitely, sort of your music is very complex, at least for me, there's a different, there's a lot of different elements as sort of into it. Where do you get the name from serve, how to come to be.

Kasey 5:31
So the name initially started, it was sorry, this is going to be like a whole Old TED talk. No problem, very complex. Initially, it was a short story that I wrote. And it was about a painter who lived at the top of a high rise apartment in Manhattan. And he thought his entire existence was like a canary trapped in a cage and the cage being his tiny apartment. Yet it Canary complex apartment complex. It's not that deep, though, that name. It was just, it was just a short story. But it was kind of like, it led the way for me to just say, Okay, I'm going to use that for a solo project. But I didn't make any moves with it. Michael was around at the time when I first started recording as Canary complex, and it was to say the least not very substantial compared to what I'm doing now.

Michael 6:22
I think the material was very good. Just weren't as good at recording it.

Kasey 6:25
Yeah. And it was a bad singer. But we, we made our way here.

Tyler Farnes 6:29
I was gonna say that that's the one thing that I think is like, you stand out a lot from like, just like everybody else is that you? Oh, is that you are just an excellent singer. Oh, I feel like you have a lot of vocal range in your voice. And it is sort of like it's very served as like, always out there. And it's just very, I don't know, just like, It's deep. But yeah, it's just like, very like high. It's like, oh, no, thank you. You have a lot that vocal range. So, um, how long has carried complex been around? Essentially? So how long have you had that idea?

Kasey 7:02
So, conceptually, like I said, it was probably maybe a year after I wrote that short story that I decided to start writing and recording my own music that was like 2014 13, it doesn't matter as much now because it didn't become really active until like 2018. And what led to this incarnation of Kinnari complex, and what made me fall in love with the concept in the name is, I was sort of hit with a barrage of tragic events, there was one after the other. And I realized then that Canary complex also meant something else, it wasn't just the name of the short story. And you probably know this, Tyler, I'm sure everyone listening probably does too. But canaries they were carried down into the mines with coal miners. And they were brought down there so that if oxygen starts running low, their little lungs would collapse, and they would die before humans would. That's what I assumed it was relation to the whole time. Yeah. And it was sort of like, you know, they'd stop singing. And it's, that's just a cute little sacrifice, so that the miners could escape alive. And when a person goes through something horrible. Or you can hear me turning pages, I made some, some notes for myself, anxiety will ensure that we're hyper vigilant and on edge all the time, we're ready for that next tragedy to strike. And that that's my canary. It's kind of my disorder, my complex, it never goes away. The sense of dread that something bad is gonna happen. Anytime. And I know that's probably not a unique story, but I feel like, it's probably very relatable to a lot of people. And I, you know, I'm no scientist, but I put a name to a disorder, you know, yeah. And that's very complex. Yeah. Okay, look out tick tock.

Tyler Farnes 8:55
That's, um, I do definitely think that a lot of people can relate to that, especially in sort of Age of just sort of, a lot of mental well, being awareness, sort of coming to the forefront of a lot of things. And I think that having something like as simple as a name of a sort of, of your solar project, being that relatable is definitely super strong, and just super just sort of, like, vulnerable. And I think that that is definitely sort of comes out in your music and also, you know, your, your, your, your your solar project in general.

Kasey 9:39
Thank you so much.

Michael 9:41
There's like a state of mind. Yeah, and the music is like that as he it knows. I'm coming in. Yeah, I realized the cold yeah, I

Kasey 9:48
never told Michael the story. I'm the perfect third person.

Tyler Farnes 9:51
Yeah, there you go.

Michael 9:52
Yeah. involved.

Kasey 9:53
I brought you in. You're the everyman character.

Michael 9:58
I'm so the audience can relate to you Anyway, no, but I mean, it makes sense to me, right? Like you're describing, like, very, like, currently normal feelings. A lot of people I relate to that very much, but like the expression of it is what's unique, right? Not necessarily the core idea. Hmm,

Kasey 10:18
absolutely.

Tyler Farnes 10:24
So, um, yeah. So going in from that for a little bit, let's talk more generally about sort of, like, your music and sort of I'm sort of a what, what gets you there sort of, in your mind and your brain? So I mentioned earlier in the introduction that your visual K solo project, for those who don't know what visual k is, can give like a very general synopsis and sort of like some, like, some like tidbits of it

Michael 10:55
Tune into the flood district interview

Tyler Farnes 10:57
By district thing, but you know, I mean, yeah, no,

Kasey 11:00
you can just grab my little section from flooding. Drop it in, and we'll have the other bandmates chiming in out of nowhere. No, it's, um, visual K is a very specifically Japanese musical subculture. It initially it grew out of glam rock, and post punk of the 80s. It's kind of the early days of visual K were like a hybrid of post punk and glam. So you had like the goth imagery with like, all black and the very, very striking makeup, but they also had the huge hair of these glam artists. And the more flamboyant aspects of that just much more goth. And it's evolved in several directions since then, I mean, their visual K is less of a musical genre identifier, but more of a way of describing all subculture. It's just a music.

Michael 11:52
Yeah, it's a whole thing.

Kasey 11:54
I think goth is a perfect comparison, because goth isn't just an image. And it's not just music. It's a whole subculture. What's your mindset and a lifestyle?

Michael 12:01
Just imagine you've never heard of Goth before. Suddenly your goth, it's like that. All income.

Kasey 12:05
Yeah. And there's so many different like, musical sub genres of Goth And the same could be said for visual. Okay.

Michael 12:12
Yeah, like death metal bands. There's like pop bands. Mm hmm.

Tyler Farnes 12:15
It's it's very, not much not just a musical genre, but also, it's very much an aesthetic and a culture and just sort of like something that can sort of encompass a sort of somebody's whole personality and serve everything, right?

Kasey 12:27
Absolutely.

Michael 12:28
There's a vibe, there's a shared vibe for certainly, all over the place. Go on.

Kasey 12:32
No, yeah, you're good. That's what I was gonna say. Like, amongst all the visual kei bands, no matter what genre they are. It's probably simply because they come from the same region, and they grew up listening to the same influences, which are distinctly different from what we in the West grew up listening to, is a very unique songwriting style that visual K artists encompass. And I think it's a matter of the way they put their chord progressions together. Yeah, like we tend to focus on four barre chord progressions, they might focus on eight sometimes 16 bar chord progressions, and it creates a sound it's a very people say like, that's anime intro or that's Sonic music.

Michael 13:10
They were listening to the same music to at the same time. Yeah, so

Kasey 13:13
it's like it's distinctly Japanese.

Michael 13:15
What we're trying to say definitely be like saying like, like a like a American video game soundtrack from like, the Genesis sounds like a grunge record, because they were listening to grunge. Yeah, and exotic. Like, exactly the same thing.

Kasey 13:28
Absolutely,

Tyler Farnes 13:28
I do definitely. See at least, like, I guess, generally, just like, also, you're talking about goth balsall. Like grunge as well. It's like, that might be something where grunge was not only a musical genre, but also just sort of like a subculture and sort of just like, a visual style and aesthetic. Yeah.

Michael 13:47
It's like the same era. Sorry, I'm totally buddy. No, no, this is this very specific part of this discussion is, like, people want to hear is incredibly fascinating to me, like the notion that like, in a, like a pre internet music scene, which, like I was, like, just not pre internet, but like, pre like, social media, I guess. Like I was, like, just barely involved in or I never had MySpace. Social media was like, nothing. Yeah. Like, I remember like, like, like, Laurel. I didn't upload anything to Spotify until like, 2017. Laura lives Michaels because we were on YouTube. Yeah, cuz we were on YouTube. But like, yeah, that's not the point. The point is that like, that's fascinating to me that like in like, say, like, 94, right. Like, over here. It's like nevermind in in utero, right. And that's like it. Yeah. And then like in the UK, like, yeah, that's the thing, but then it's like, I don't know, like massive attack protection and like Blur and Oasis. And that's like everything. And then in Japan, you're getting like mother by lunacy, or you're like getting like art of life by ex Japan and these are in different parts of the world. I was in those parts of world That time, obviously, but as I, as I see, looking back, they seem to be like all like equivalencies of like, these are pop music. But then like, one of these is like, deeply neoclassical influence like rock and pop and metal. Another one is, you know, Nirvana and another one is blur. It's very interesting that you take disparate influences, and you have different ideas of what is 90s music, right. That's my that's, that's a huge, that's a huge can of worms. I won't.

Kasey 15:28
I love this can of worms, we can just cancel Canary complex, and they can areas

Michael 15:33
like literally, to me, that's what that is. Because it's like, everybody right now for examples into like 90 stuff, right? Yes. And I would argue that Casey is pulling from a lot of 90s stuff, but like an entirely different section of the world pre internet 90 scene, because he has the internet, because we had the internet. We had YouTube when we were 14. Yes, it's very, it's very interesting. The Darren gray add on views in 2006. And that was actually what did it for me.

Kasey 16:04
And I was there to friend. No, that is a really great way to put it. It's such a uniquely modern phenomenon

Michael 16:12
that could have never happened before. Yeah, we're like, RJ go you're physically go over there. It's like, like envy blowing up in America, even though the Japanese before in Japan because they like the word California. Anyway, that's all.

Kasey 16:29
Yeah, no. Oh, no, it's

Tyler Farnes 16:30
um, so like, I think that like, like, like, this musical phenomenon is obviously very unique to the Internet age and will continue to, to influence and sort of just like be a core part of music in general, where it's like, we have so much information we have just so much just like access to it to like different musics to in different decades and different genres, that it is no wonder that an artists like like you can airy or just like, like everybody else will take little bits of pieces of everything, and sort of Smash, sort of nicely smash it all together. Because that seems very sort of just like primal, but sort of like meticulously kind of putting together like some puzzle to create a whole brand new image that sort of just that love the way you put that is very cut that's very consistent and very beautiful. And it's very nice. And I think that is definitely sort of what what you have done with your, with your US sophomore album, The tragic dance of dying leaves. So I guess speaking more on to that sort of general sort of feeling was process of combining all these different elements together into one musical musical piece in your latest project was it a lot of work was just something that came naturally to you like, like, like what was

Kasey 17:48
okay, so that, I guess it opens the door for me to explain a little bit about how this album came to be. My first record, it was called When I Say Rain, it was very meticulous, I worked so hard to put this piece of music out on my own. And I intentionally didn't accept any help from anyone. I wanted it to be from my soul, because I had just gone through these, the series of tragedies that I had mentioned earlier, and I wanted to put that into music. I wanted to write about this and put it out like therapy. It was kind of an experiment. And so I did it all myself. It's not produced very well. It's very low fi. And it's honestly a little hard to listen to compared to when I say I mean compared to the tragic dance of dying leaves. But that was hard work. It was like I had to really work hard to write the songs. But after I got them out, the water Gates had opened the floodgates flood district gates.

Michael 18:47
True I did ask him to join for unrelated

Kasey 18:50
Yeah, actually, right after I put up my first album is when I was around the end, it is interesting,

Michael 18:54
we had the same trajectory of timelines. 2018 Our idea is Michael,

Kasey 18:59
you and I are the same. I didn't know Michael Rambo and I Kasey and Canary Kasey. We are the same person.

Michael 19:09
Just change it. I'm just he's just changing his voice.

Tyler Farnes 19:14
Speaking of that vocal range.

Kasey 19:16
Thank you, thank you. But to to shine a better light on the tragic dance of dying leaves. It's like when I started writing this album, they the songs wrote themselves, they are so much more structured and textured. And I think of the first album being black and white just like its album cover. It's almost entirely grayscale. And it sounds that way. There's very few glimmers of color in that album musically. The tragic dance is just, I mean, it's like opening the whole Crayola box or a painter's palette oil paints much more tasteful colors than your Crayola

Tyler Farnes 19:54
have. Yeah, yeah.

Kasey 19:55
Look at the album cover. Yeah. So The color is all just poured out of me, then I think it was really interesting, I had to just get that sort of therapy out of the way before I could enjoy making music and when I could enjoy it, because I did not enjoy the first album, not making it not listening to it. If anyone enjoys it, I'm glad they do, but I don't. But it was therapy. But I do love I love this sophomore album, I could listen to it myself, because I feel like the best music is the amalgamation of all the things that you are interested you the artists are interested in, you're like grabbing, like you said earlier grabbing pieces of this and that and meticulously crafting them together. So of course that's going to become like, that's your baby, and you're going to love it if you do exactly that. It's the amalgamation of all that you like in this world.

Tyler Farnes 20:47
so I guess speaking more on just sort of what, what, uh, what those pieces of things that you like, at least like on your sort of a, on your website and sort of just getting it Joe, you do sort of describe it as sort of what sort of impressionism indie rock goth and Baroque pop you have a lot going on with this. And I definitely well, I personally really like this sort of, like, impressionist side of it.

Kasey 21:18
Me too.

Tyler Farnes 21:19
I definitely do enjoy that. So I'm, what I'm, what exactly is I guess? I don't know. I guess we can ask what exactly is impressionist and what have you taken from it? And what do you like specifically about it? That that that so much that you kind of just put it into the sort of art form and format. I know that it's technically like a musical style too, but I but I do like the art of it has

Michael 21:44
written reference to the art style. Yes. Yes. Particular. Yeah.

Kasey 21:49
Thank you, Michael. Yeah, exactly. I have heard musical Impressionism and I get it, but it's not. I'm not channeling any of that. So specifically, it's the visual art. When I was a kid, I was just obsessed with one specific painting by Gustaf Kaya, but it's um, Paris St. Rainy Day. It's, it's in a Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Yeah. And isn't that kind of funny how that is the reason that this album exists.

But yeah, so that it became an obsession for me for some reason, like, I just, I saw that. And it made me feel something. It was what we would call a vibe today, but I didn't know what it was called back then. And it kind of like, every time I looked at it, I felt like I was in that place. It's a place in time that does not exist anymore. And it will never exist again. that specific moment in time. 1862 or whatever, that Gustavo is looking at the street, this modern at the time architecture, and painting it saying like, wow, look at this modern architecture. But now we in today's age, look at it just like wow, that's so timeless and quaint. Yeah. But that's a little bit of a diversion. But that became my obsession and that vibe. I've always wanted to find a way to put the vibe that I felt as a kid into my music since I started making music. And not just good stuff. Kibo, branching out into Monet, and Renoir, the specific palette of colors, and the way the colors are applied. Or it gives like a misty Aretz, almost everything that you look at is dreamlike, it's blurred. And the colors are not refined don't mix very well together, they can just like splatter some white on top of some yellow. And you know from a distance you see a flower, but up close is just the mess. I wanted to build my music kind of like that. And think I succeeded with at least like stuff like Bell Esprit, and parasol deep sky. They invoke a very specific place and time and I know from everybody who I've asked without viewing them as to what I was referencing. They told me they were like, that looks like a French painting. That sounds like a French painting. I think of the 1800s and I'm like yes, thank you. You caught it. Well, speaking of influences, I was channeling David Sylvian with the ending of Paris Oh, he's he was an 80s New Wave artists art founder of a band called Japan. They were like very kind of like, almost on the lighter end of the spectrum of new wave and new romantic. But he went off and did a solo project throughout the 90s. And his music is very, very dark and experimental because he will just grab musicians from here and there and not give them any cues. Just say like, alright, well, here's an A minor chord. I want you to play something and then he'll chop up what they lay down in the studio and build it stack stack it together until he makes like some really out there music. And that's what I did with specifically the end of Paris. I was like, What would David Sylvian do here?

Tyler Farnes 24:58
Going back to sort of at Impressionism, I, at least, artistically bliss. So. So I did our thinking as well with Impressionism and your music. Thank you. And something that really struck me we're both listening to the album and received research on it is sort of the relationship between sort of visual kei and impressionism that you have. So I think they kind of perfectly described sort of impressions as a sort of just like, more or less a snapshot of like, what what that was, like, what that moment was, and sort of like it, and sort of, like, sort of keeping it there. And I think that visual K is very sort of, uh, at least how I describe is very theatrical, sort of like flamboyant, sort of very out there on time and stuff, which I believe would be, it's not necessarily like in stark contrast, but it's like, kind of like opposite of sort of like impressionism is this album and and sort of snapshot and impression of your sort of complex and sort of like your yourself in general, sort of just like it's a snapshot that of what you are like visual K, all that influences what you as a person. And do you want that to live on forever? sort of as a sort of like, what music and what art is, sort of in general? Is that something that that you wanted to achieve? Is that something that sort of like you had going on, but

Kasey 26:28
absolute chills to that question? Yes. I think every artist whenever they release a new album, they're like, this is the best thing I've ever made my magnum opus. Yeah, I'm not saying that. It's probably I want to make even better one day, I think it is the best album I've ever made, but maybe not the best I will make. Yeah. However, I will never be like, embarrassed by this album, or I'll never want to just like, forget about it. I think it's, it's a lot more universal than my first album, because that was very specifically, from my perspective, every song, My tragedy, not your tragedy. The tragic dance of dying leaves, literally is something we all know. We all, we don't just see the dying leaves outside. But we we know that things go in cycles, people live and die, and they reborn or Well, concepts and art is reborn in different forms. I'm not trying to speak of reincarnation or anything spiritual here.

Tyler Farnes 27:26
Yeah.

Kasey 27:27
But um, I think that concept of writing songs from other perspectives, using my own experiences as fuel for that fire is kind of what I did with this album. And I think that can relate to so many more people than what I did on the first one.

Tyler Farnes 27:52
so speaking on that, sort of being sort of universal answered this, like a sort of everything. Is this. Just sort of more Did you want to capture that specifically? Or did you or did that sort of come that way? Because I know that with like, a lot of just like, with music, or at least how I look at music is that I very much relate to myself, like specifically. So is that how you want it, wanted everybody to feel sort of like take that as sort of like relate to themselves a lot more.

Kasey 28:29
That was the goal. Okay. So I think I was channeling a lot more of the singer songwriter style. Traditionally, in my first album, I'm really into the band Bright Eyes, kind of reverse being the lead singer, and his lyrical style is very personal. And it can be abstract, but it's never like, it's never very decorative. or very rarely. Anyway, I'm not insulting Conor Oberst. I love bright eyes. But this new album, I felt like I wanted to channel more of being a storyteller, while using my own experiences, so something like Bell Esprit, which is about a girl, a father who lost his daughter, and LaBelle, a puck which is like, the Victorian version of France is version of what the Victorian era was in England, the grand age, the Golden Age is what it means, I believe. But he lost his daughter then. And she was a ballet dancer. And he just this grief drove him to just absolute delusion. And he thought that you can just recreate her from wood and use her like a marionette and make her dance that that becomes her and the song is about him just like grappling with. I'm losing my mind, but it's better to have my daughter here with me. Well, I lose my mind then not to Yeah, and that grief is something I know very well, but I didn't write it like telling you the story of why I'm grieving. I wrote it like, Here's a more interesting book. version of what I've gone through.

Michael 30:02
so did you Sorry. So did you? Did you read a story similar to that and be like, I relate to that I will write this as lyrics, or did you feel that thing and think I would like to create a more creative, I have a more creative way to express what I'm feeling less just, for me.

Kasey 30:20
Fantastic question. No, I didn't read that. But I saw a painting by Renoir. And it's, I forget the title, but it's like little girl sitting by the sea. And, um, I sort of the story told itself to me, like I just saw that as being like, a memorial picture of someone who may have lost this little girl. And it was painted in the era that I'm channeling in the song, of course, you had to get like your

Michael 30:45
Frank Reynolds moment. Yeah, the painting

Tyler Farnes 30:48
you definitely like Sir, like, seeing any sort of like expanding it a lot more creating your own stories, and sort of like through simple images and sort of everything?

Kasey 30:56
Absolutely. Yeah. Like something like that can tell a whole story if you just kind of let it. Um, obviously, that's not what my Renoir was thinking when he paint it, but I'm not Renoir, you know, rip. I'm trying to like, pull what I can out of that. And that's what I found. And I wrote the song about it. And I feel like, it's just an abstract version of me grappling with the grief that I might have tried to grapple with on the first album, a lot in a lot more of a cringy fashion, because you don't want to hear about my actual pain. I personally don't like to hear that. It's kind of hard.

Michael 31:31
Well its yours? Yeah, yeah. The thing Stop getting input.

Tyler Farnes 31:36
No, no, no, it's fine. Okay, sorry. It's just okay, just making sure it's just asleep.

Kasey 31:42
I wouldn't like I would have panic, too. No, no, no. I'm sorry, if that was like a long, my brain kinda like follows breadcrumbs. And I move out sometimes,

Tyler Farnes 31:52
yeah, no problem. I am. I love the sort of self indulgence, especially sort of like digging, digging into the minds of two sort of artists and sort of individuals. And always the best way to do that is through any art that they produce. And just sort of like, if you are, this goes for every like me scars in general, like, you're already such a talented person for sort of bringing that self indulgence, sort of that view and sort of like bringing it to the masses in a very, either clean or very, sort of like pleasing way, no matter what. And I do definitely think that bell, a spirit, as you were describing it, sort of like making that story out of out of just a single painting is deftly I think, great, not beautiful. I haven't necessarily,

Kasey 32:52
really I appreciate it.

Tyler Farnes 32:56
So, again, with the it's like, it's, I guess speaking on Bel Esprit. In general. It's very, sort of, again, this sort of like it's very, like, I guess, out there and sort of like, dreamy, like sort of a aspiration to be like in general terms right now. But it does also come to like a sudden stop is served as like a sort of, it seems like a sort of sort of sudden realization or smacking back from reality from like a trance is that sort of like, how you were feeling when you're sort of like when you come up with these, like, sort of like stories, so sort of just like ways that are until you kind of like, go off to the brink hubs, and they just sort of like snap back to it.

Kasey 33:33
I never thought of it in those terms before. But yeah, I literally like I felt what you're describing. I'm just like, the character in my story is kind of like indulging himself with this delusion of bringing his daughter back at the end of the song. You know, he kind of like, does that last long note and then sort of Wales, and it's like, wow, here we are, she's gone. I can't change that. And that's sort of like reflecting back to me. I sort of have to like, I always snap out of this like trance when I'm writing songs. And I think that subconsciously, that's kind of what happened at the end of that song.

Tyler Farnes 34:13
It just sort of just like, I guess, you're speaking on grief, sort of. Again, I'm not trying to make assumptions, but sort of like dealing with the grief and coming to a reality with it. Yeah. Is that in? Is that Is that a good way to sort of describe it?

Kasey 34:29
That's a great way to describe it because that the vocal the ended up on the song. It was actually like probably the second attempt at recording the vocals to that song. It was just, it was intended to be a demo for me to like rerecord later. And I tried many times and same problems. Yeah. And Michael was like, I don't think you're going to beat that one. And we both agree that it wasn't recorded the best like it sounds kind of Lo Fi as a main vocal,

Michael 34:56
but it came across in the final product but but did it one We're at like massage, heavily enabled. Not that there's, it's not the performance. It's just like, it was not like thought put into the engineering, right? It was just like getting it done.

Kasey 35:08
Yeah,

Michael 35:09
it just happened.

Kasey 35:10
There was no mic, it just happened to rip that I was thinking about it. I couldn't top it. And I think that was because I was feeling the grief when I sang it. And later on later attempts, my emotions were a little bit more blank, I wasn't feeling it quite as much. So it just never came through the same way.

Michael 35:24
We had the same thing on Eden. I think it was Eden, I like asked you to like rerecord some vocals, because I was like, these are like a little Lo Fi. Yeah. And, and he did. And he sent it to me, it was after we had finished mixing. Um, and I was like, You know what, the ones that are there, even if there's like a little bit of like this, that or the other that I wasn't, like, thrilled about from an engineering perspective, or, like a certain like, pre processing thing in terms of like, what I like what I was trying to do, at the end of the day lost, get lost, whatever the thing, the emotional thing is, that's been eaten in like the versus in this instance, it just, it wasn't there. So I was like, this is just feels flat, like, I don't care that it's better, quote, unquote, like, performance, just nice, it isn't actually better to listen to. So I kept the demo, quote unquote,

Tyler Farnes 36:18
is that is, is that sort of, sort of a mentality of sort of, like, getting that server, getting that sort of emotional response from the lyrics and in front of music. And just like, like, like, like, no matter what, sort of, also with everything else with the album and the songs, because I feel that this, this, all the songs on the album are very well produced and very distorted. Like, you know, it sounds very good. But then you're also saying to me, like, oh, that's just like a demo that did I find your lecture post production? So like, is that? Is that sort of mentality unique to these two songs? Or is it just sort of just like something that sort of like, was out for the whole album in general,

Kasey 37:12
Michael produce, mix and master the album. And he probably has a lot more insight into that than I do. Yeah,

Michael 37:20
I find that okay, so it given the context of everything that I find the like, from, like, a very literal perspective, the production of the rights because it is very, the aesthetics of the creation of the record, if I'm, I guess, are completely different than the aesthetics of the record old bike purely by necessity not even getting the mixing I obviously like I wasn't there for like most like the recording of it, because Kate but because Casey did all of it in his house. But it's like goes beyond that because I am very you record and kind of right at the same time, like I do, I do, like you don't like come up with a part. I mean, you might come up with a corporation and go record it, but like, it's like, your gender like this is it, I'm gonna go record it. I literally do like, and I'm the same way Brian I don't like right and then hold on to it. Straight into the doll or okay. And so Hasee was working for what is still working. Right. But like it was working from home at the time at a job. Data Entry, right? Yeah, that like just had a lot of downtime. So like, like,

Kasey 38:28
no, it's fine.

Michael 38:29
You don't do that anymore.

Kasey 38:30
I set macros to like program most of my day automate most of my day.

Michael 38:35
So he's like, he's like, between, like, doing like data entries stuff is like, for whatever reason, that's entirely personal to Casey feeling very inspired to because it's physically the same. It's like two monitors right next to each other data entry. Okay, exact logic, right? Like, and you're in Cubase you're in logic, no, I don't use either, obviously conversation. Girlfriend bizarre, because I can't do that if I get started on something I'll get completely second. I also work from home and I have a very different type of job also, to be fair, but like, um, but then on top of that, so what we're doing here is we're like recording the exact material 100% of it guitar tones, the only things that weren't the only things that weren't recorded physically in that room. Were the drum like and not even all the percussion just to like the drum kit on Golden Gate Bell Asprey and ForeverGreen every single other sound was recorded in Casey's home office largely between data entry automation, which in which also means usually during like the middle of the day, and like the morning Yeah, you're getting demos at like 10am Yes Manning is my have like checkouts thing I just made what do you think it would be like Bella spray? And I mean, what I'm like, I just woke up. Going on.

Kasey 39:59
I do that to you alot. Im sorry.

Michael 40:01
Not in a bad way. It's more like I can't like I do all my stuff happens like afternoon or like, like, well into the night because that's just what I'm napping.

Kasey 40:09
Yeah Im a morning person.

Michael 40:11
So to me like the contrast between the music being completely created in a home office in the middle of the day in Greensboro between data entry work, besides I'm sure the little bits that were done not well on the job and, and the mixing it like in my attic is completely aesthetically different from this very, like pastoral like, kind of old world like very like melancholy but full of color and life and impressionists. It's like totally the opposite. It's kind of, it's like, it's almost in spite of the situation as Yeah, and yeah, yeah, it happened very fast. Like, I remember him being like, I have ideas. And then like, it was maybe like, maybe like four months later, like, I'm not saying the record was done, but like it was pretty much all down, like of just like just just a sketched out phrase, like, I remember showing up one time, and he's like, Hey, I'm working on this thing. And it was like, all of the piano for the ending of Parasol (deep sky), like, in the MIDI, that he was like, I just lived this out, and I'm about to throw this drum on there. And I was like this,

Kasey 41:22
if I may it, I'm in a lot of my writing style, at least for this album. I also tie back to the Impressionism, I realized impressionism is very spur of the moment, a painter would go outside and just paint the scene with the sunlight exactly as it is. And that really killed for it as well. And they had. Yeah, and that's what I'm doing. I'm improvising almost every part. Yeah. And if I don't like the improvisation, I'll just scrap it. I don't, I don't just leave it there or anything. But I wait till I improv a perfect take. Yeah, and you can hear that in like the piano for parasol at the end. Like, you can't write that it's very random. And wrong notes are like noise.

Michael 41:58
Like there's a lot of guitar takes that are, have like, quote, unquote, wrong things in them. But like, yeah, that, but they're not meant to be isolated, like a lot of the songs have like, like, five different electric guitar parts playing at the same time, sometimes, or more and an acoustic part. It's when you stick them all together, and you blend them in. And they're all like pandas specific ways, Casey kind of likes these big stereo things. And like, it's not big on like, double tracking on the wire, it's like putting something to the left, it's something else to the right, you put it all together. And even though there's a lot of quote unquote, mistakes, and things like that, that come from just improvising everything and just recording all of it. Until it lands on I like this. All the mistakes as they could be described it, and other studios are just like, the emotion the the character of the final product, and it doesn't sound like mistakes, it just sounds like a band.

Kasey 42:57
I also have my mic running like, at least back then I had it running 24/7. So if somebody's in my room having a conversation with me, that's my wife, Sofia. I will be recording that, or I was recording. Not anymore.

Tyler Farnes 43:12
And he we need these red lights right here.

Kasey 43:15
You hear a lot of voices on the album, just like talking and laughing. And that's me like grabbing some of that. And sometimes I'm speeding it up or making it slow and weird. Other times, I'll just record the audio of the French film I have playing on YouTube. And like grab bits and pieces of that. Please don't sue me. I made sure it's outside of the copyright limits. But um, yeah, I'm very distortive like it doesn't I'm chopping up

Tyler Farnes 43:39
creatively. What is that is like you're parroting it or something. You're creatively altering it.

Michael 43:46
We call the firings under the Dumb Starbucks parody law.

Kasey 43:49
Shout out Nathan for you. So that's happening a lot too. And that's part of the Impressionism. My voice cracked there that was embarrassing. Part of the impressionism was trying to trying to bring in because like those moments will never happen again, like that conversation will never happen the very same way. And I caught it. And it's a piece of that point in time. So the album, even though it's channeling an era in the past that never really existed anywhere, but my imagination after seeing Impressionist paintings. It's also very much of its time. It's like it's capturing inside that square CD case that we have on the table here is like November 2000, doesn't 21 through like, May 2022. Yeah, that's the time frame that towards the end of the album,

Tyler Farnes 44:42
is that when the majority of the work was done also or like, how long was it? Like it was like start to finish? Would you say? If you could put a start date to it.

Kasey 44:52
The majority of it was finished in about four months. There's a couple of songs that I, you know, messed around with or a couple of months later, but like I said, As Michael was giving an explanation of it just poured out of me, didn't have found this album.

Michael 45:06
Like, literally, it'd be like, sorry, I'd be it'd be I get Bel Esprit. And then like a week later, I did, like, here's a demo sketch, and it would be like, a rough version of the entirety of For Evergreen. And I'm just like, what? Yeah, I just thought of this the other day was like that structure will never ever work. Oh, I gave it option. Yeah.

Tyler Farnes 45:26
Was that during quarantine that time? Or was it kind of like,

Michael 45:30
what links were getting a little bit more, getting more relaxed?

Tyler Farnes 45:34
I just think it's like, it's so it's so fascinating. Just like when, when you give somebody time, and you just get Ed like something, not necessarily boredom, but just like, just like, you know, just sort of, like being there like at home, you could just like, it can pour so much out of somebody. And that seems like it definitely that's what happened with you.

Kasey 45:54
Yeah, you know, it's not even boredom. It's some people say that, like, what it was a

Tyler Farnes 46:00
Boredom was a bad word, sorry.

Kasey 46:01
No, not at all. It actually made perfect sense. And I get exactly what you meant. But in my case, it was not boredom. But it was like, the freedom of finally not having to go to work and come back home from work physically, every day. Yeah. I feel like the whole world opened up to me in that moment, when I realized I have these extra hours. Why am I not using those to record an album, something that I can be really happy about, instead of just going to work and going to bed. And I think that the pandemic that was a very big silver lining of the pandemic, in my personal experience. My whole like, process towards music changed my take on Eden. Conceptually, I knew Michael was writing a song called Eden to carry and I thought to myself for the quickest second isn't going to be like stepping on his toes if I release a song called Eden, potentially, before our song even comes out. And I thought to myself, we both love lunacy. How could it be? Yeah, that's I mean, like, Lucy has now been called Eden. And that's a visual kei band that inspires like, almost all of my guitar playing. And I always knew I wanted to write something called Eden because that album is very evocative of something. It's something ethereal, and something dreamlike. And it's kind of like just the idealized version of the Garden of Eden, I think. And so I thought to myself, what's my ideal version of the Garden of Eden, and that's the first human was born, made androgynous. You know, there's no man, there's no woman and he, he is very, they are very fulfilled and happy in this garden. But maybe it's God's horrible sense of humor, but he just rips a woman out of this person's side. And then there's man and woman, and they're no longer happy. And there's a line in the song about now I sympathize more with the serpent. And it sounds really dramatic, of course, like to say like, I sympathize with the devil, not God. But like, we were all we've all grown up in this Bible Belt. We've all been told, like Satan is evil, and God is good. And we've only ever heard these, at least for me. I've only ever heard these like horrible things that God did in the Bible. So I'm thinking to myself, why do we? Why do we look down on the serpent Satan for offering knowledge? When God is the one that like, these horrible things without any explanation? I have to assume he just thinks it's funny. Yeah. And I'm not trying to be offensive to any Christian listeners, I have respect for you. I'll go to have a conversation about this if you want to hit me up.

Tyler Farnes 48:31
I also really like with with Eden, I appreciate the sort of seamless transition between it and golden gates. very seamless. I always love it when what albums are like that we can listen to through track one to 12 and just have a very seamless way.

Kasey 48:49
That was very intentional, the whole album to flow that way, and I haven't, it's eight songs. And it's divided. If you look at the back of, if you have a copy of the CD at home, which is made to look like a vinyl record, it says Side A and Side B, obviously you can't flip a CD, but I designed it to work like a vinyl record. So when I can finally afford to press it on to vinyl, it will be listened to as intended. Or even a cassette. I mean, like it's, it's meant it's set up into two halves, and the first half being like it's one specific aesthetic, and the second half is another one. And I think it's sort of like songs one through four, which are even Golden Gate Song of Healing and the endless are kind of pulling from my previous influences just a little bit like I'm kind of coming off the first album. But when you get to tracks five through eight, which are ForeverGreen, Bella esprit Pearsall deep sky, and the alchemist, they're venturing off into a territory I've never touched and it's certainly the direction I want to keep pursuing in the future. Although the whole album does cohesively fit, it does follow that sort of trajectory, and I had to split it that way in my mind. Like it gets weirder. It does, it gets weirder.

Michael 49:59
I've filled out as a listener who did not write the right is a very deeply strange record that is masquerading as quote unquote like normal guitar music. Like the more you pull I love you like, like The Alchemist that we put we put like a like a like an EDM like filter sweep at the end. Yeah, only on like on the hand drum but it sounds like a EDM filter sweep on like a bossa nova track.

Kasey 50:31
Yeah. And the whole track otherwise it's so organic. So it's, it's really interesting.

Tyler Farnes 50:36
Definitely, I I do definitely feel that with, with just more elements being added as you go through the album

Kasey 50:48
becomes more and more of a dream. Drifting deeper and deeper.

Tyler Farnes 50:52
As that's a good way to describe it. Well, they kind of go out of order a little bit. We talked about that less than eaten. But I do also do want to talk about a Song of Healing. Okay. So I couldn't really get this one down. It does definitely feel like you're sort of taking luster through a journey. What is that journey? Specifically? Like? Like, what like, what is it because I'm assuming I'm like, I don't know. I'll fish like, like, like, why let's do I was writing down these notes. But I was definitely sort of completely just sort of out of my mind with it also.

Kasey 51:23
Yeah. So have you ever played Majoras mask? Yes, Legend Zelda Majoras Mask, the Song of Healing is a very important song in the game, which is it's just Zelda is all about in reverse. Yeah. And canonically in correct me if I'm wrong about what it sort of means in the game. But it's a Song of Healing, which releases these spirits who are trapped in this negative place. And just, I mean, it doesn't ever say that they're dying and going to the afterlife, or whatever. But that's what's happening. And I wanted to give myself a Song of Healing because my, at least in the first album, that era of my life, after the tragedies, I was sort of stuck in this shell. I was literally a shell of who I was before that, and this, the Song of Healing is good early, like me laying out all of the things that are at least some of the things that happened in that time. And trying my very best to like, forcibly pull the positivity out of that. And it's, it does go on a journey. And it's it ends up in a place that still kind of dark and that wasn't intentional. I was kind of like, upset that I couldn't end on a major way without it feeling fake or corny. So I just ended it with like that nasty scream like, I kind of didn't work

Tyler Farnes 52:44
I like that to

Kasey 52:45
the My Song of Healing didn't heal me. But but you're hearing

Michael 52:51
the little piano like trio is like that, to me it does and on like, like positive and healing aren't necessarily the same thing.

Kasey 52:59
That's true. And that's also the thesis of like,

Michael 53:02
sometimes you need a feeling and The Legend Zelda blast beat at the end of the song.

Kasey 53:06
Yeah.

Tyler Farnes 53:06
So just like with that, with that sort of healing, like you may have not like, necessarily felt like that. That was the ending where you feel healed. But for me personally, like, like, whenever I have like a burst of emotion like that, where that just like, by myself, or just like, sort of like in my mind, mentally, I feel I have overcome something. So I mean, I don't know. So definitely does seem like

Kasey 53:29
that was actually spontaneous. It happened in the song at the end of the end of the final little riff, like it was going to just trail off. And so this is the third time that this specific riff happens in the song. It's a specific melody, and it was going to just kind of trail off like the first few times. But in this last time, I felt so overwhelmed and frustrated. I was like, I don't know why it just hit me. It bubbled up from inside and I was like, I just started screaming and hitting the acoustic guitar. And then I realized, well, that's not the ending. I want it but that's the ending we got. It sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? Yeah. And so I threw down a blast beat on the drums and

Michael 54:11
piano too. Yeah, I've sold that piano. It is like a child pay is not correct, but it's literally complete. Nonsense. And yeah, right. When the scream is done that complete nonsense kind of finds a key. Yeah, I find that very, very interesting. That was subconscious. But that definitely, that's it exactly the healing part.

Kasey 54:34
The lyrics also like I write my lyrics, and I focus hard on the lyrics I write but some of the lines that I come up with are improvised as I'm just like, humming out a melody. They'll just come. And then I'll write a whole song around these words that just felt right for that moment. And I'll, you know, I'll change things a million times. But initially, some of those words that I just improvised are probably going to be their last question. Yeah.

Michael 55:00
You know what words if there's any particular line and Song of Healing that came out like that you write around

Kasey 55:06
your warm embrace the chorus, you

Michael 55:11
the part the part I'm identifying as a part of self acceptance healing. Okay, yeah, exactly at that because it is a song to self deprecation. And

Kasey 55:21
what about myself,

Michael 55:22
like for yourself because you wrote the self deprecating parts with intention, but the part that came to you naturally was like the beginning, like, more accepting that. Yeah, you're that.

Kasey 55:31
But the in there's a liner. I'm just singing to myself in my ear, radio life and the guy in the mirror, singing every single word back at me. And his face is only apathy. Exactly, but behind the glass, he bleeds with each word. So knowing more, I'm talking to myself throughout the song. That's that's the concept. Awesome. Sorry, that was a long tangent. But you love that kind of work? No, no.

Michael 55:57
I love what you have as content.

Tyler Farnes 56:01
I love opening up cans of worms because I also do enjoy just listening to people.

Michael 56:06
And fishing

Tyler Farnes 56:07
and fishing. Yeah. Okay, so um, alright. Is there anything else that they want to mention before? Before I sign off and shoot over to you for socials and whatnot? Or is there anything that we haven't touched on that you want to touch on?

Kasey 56:26
I don't think there's a specific concept that I would like, I guess I should give credit for one thing. Um, The Alchemist has a main theme that is played in the oboe part. In the beginning of the song, by my dear friend, Abby, the oboists shout out to her she is literally tick tock famous and incredible at what she does. But she played that on oboe, but that's a melody that my wife Sofia was singing one day, just like humming to herself. And I told her to come in my room and just record it into the microphone. And I just build a song around it. And then I'd wrote words to this melody and decided that I couldn't escape the melody. So it's just got to go on and on throughout the whole song, whether it's me singing or something else, and I decided I'm going to get a guest performer Abby, which is the only guest besides Michael who did anything on the album. But um, yeah, Sofia went uncredited for that, but I do have to give credit where it's due because that song couldn't exist. Otherwise.

Tyler Farnes 57:30
All right, so before before we get off there get off to get off the record, I guess. Where can we find more of you a canary?

Kasey 57:40
Well, I exist on all the expected social media platforms of course, and I do believe that my handle on all of them Instagram Tik Tok, and Facebook is at Canary dot Complex, or Facebook is just slash Canary dot Complex. And if it doesn't work with a dot try without but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Um, I also I'm on Tik Tok, but it's not a Canary Complex specific account. It's more my personal tic tock where I play visual Okay, guitar covers. And it's a lot of fun. But I'm also playing a show at Ruby Deluxe here in Raleigh, on June 8 With Neem the Animist and shout out to Tweekeen and Carrey who are also on the show. And one of my favorite artists Kamus Leonardo is hosting the event. That's going to be a lot of fun and that is coming up this Saturday.

Tyler Farnes 58:34
Nice. This has been WKNC 88.1 FM. Raleigh. I've been your host The Loaf this has been a Canary Complex. Again, awesome. I'm gonna leave you off with with two songs off of Canarys The Tragic Dance of Dying Leaves Bel Esprit and Song of Healing. So, thank you very much for listening. Thank you so much Canary again for coming on. And

Kasey 59:09
enjoyed every second. Truly

Tyler Farnes 59:11
I did too. Thank you. Thank you listeners peace.

Michael 59:19
That was a fun interview.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai