#ourmusic — Public Fediverse posts

I had this odd realization during my post-writers group smoke break today.

I think I – as well as my system as a whole – approach making art the same way that jazz musicians play music. I was thinking about this because the piece I ended up writing today in group pulled heavily from “My Island” and yet putting an entirely different spin on it, and it got me thinking about all of the different times that I’ve done that while making music especially.

And honestly, if I had to sum up my approach to just about everything in life, I would say that I approach most of my crafts like a jazz musician even though I don’t technically play jazz. I don’t believe in just one final product or making a recording or a piece the be all, end all. A single song can inspire me for over ten years and I’ll keep coming back to it lyrically, musically, poetically, even, in a sort of self-referential game of call and response, making something new with each iteration and reexamination.

In the process, I’m building a recursive universe the longer I make content and art.

I fucking love jazz.

-Allēna

I finally got to play “A Weapon” live on a keyboard for the first time in years last night!

This was at an open mic called Showcase Onstage:

https://youtu.be/pVosJxnx2iY?si=cBzPpNiOahd8yu_9

I’m so happy I was able to do this.

-Allēna

The podcast had to reschedule 😭

However, Laz came out and kinda went ham this evening to make up for it. Emerson was speaking at a panel to educate kids about queerness and sexuality, and the fourth speaker couldn’t make it at the last second. So Charisma McGee stepped in in the other person’s stead and taught a bunch of kids about…. polyamory in a very blunt and honest fashion.

This was apparently not frowned upon, and was, in fact, encouraged.

The absolute motherfucker also found an electric piano in the basement and apparently he can play. Really, really well.

He ended up recording an arrangement he’d cooked up on the fly of a song Allēna had written a couple of days ago, as well as a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” and something Allēna wrote so long ago we can’t even remember the name of it anymore. All we know is that she was approximately 13 when she wrote it.

He surprised the hell out of everyone, including himself.

On that note, I’m going to sleep here shortly.

Goodnight.

-Ashley

Be The Fletcher To My Island

Sometimes having DID and headmates that are JUST as talented as you at both the same things – and different ones – is a fuckin’ gas, y’all.

Back in 2014-ish I wrote a poem that turned into one of my better-known songs about a crush of mine. It was called “My Island”. I was obsessed with the Mutiny on the Bounty for reasons I still can’t quite articulate, and the second verse contains one of my favorite lines I’ve ever written:

“Be the Fletcher to my island, be the Fletcher coming coming home”

I’m not entirely sure why that line gets me so bad more than a decade later. It may be the fact that it’s a reference to Fletcher Christian, leader of the Mutiny on the Bounty, choosing the South Pacific over duty, country, etc., and settling with a few members of his crew in one of the most remote places on Earth, Pitcairn Island, after mutinying, and wanting to feel chosen like that. Maybe it’s my love for history references in general. Maybe it’s that I still yearn for people like I did when I was 14-17 and I struggle to express it now, and I love that line so much because it’s My Peak Teenage Yearning, something I feel like I can’t verbalize anymore, even though I’m arguably more safe now to do so than I was then.

Anyway, here’s the original take as it appeared on our first self released EP Fletcher Coming Home: Good Stuff From 2014.

A different cut appeared awhile later on our first album The Mellon Session as well:

But my favorite version of “My Island” came much later when Eight was host and he snuck into a church while bored out of his fucking skull to record this absolutely achingly beautiful take of “My Island” for his then-partner Juneau.

I can still feel the longing even now, and his arrangement is so fucking beautiful.

Holy shit.

-Allēna

Well, Ashley decided to be a motherfucker.

He went through SEVERAL old accounts and dug up THE ABSOLUTE MOTHERLODE of old music (we’re talking like 5+ years old) and elected to post some of his finds on social media like a gremlin.

So, fuck it. I’m gonna post something he dug up.

This is a rework I did when I was 19 of a song from my EP Nothing Will Keep Us Together.

This is the ✨electrified✨ version of “Pull Us Under”. Enjoy.

And to my family members who called it boring, they can suck it. One day I’ll finish electrifying this extended play and it’ll be over for you motherfuckers.

-Allēna

Hi, I (Allēna) am back in front and low-key panicking…

I know that the people who know me will probably be like “what else is new” but I’ve honestly been so hung up on the fact that it’s been ten years since Xavier died this month that I forgot that all of the albums that I wrote and recorded in the wake of losing him will also be turning 10 as well until I saw a video of my Painter Guy headmate playing my arrangement of “Heroes” by David Bowie on a piano he found in the hospital we go to??? So that’s kinda fucking me up.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUvyJXxl9de/?igsh=MWFlYTdtcTY4MnJkZQ==

I honestly didn’t think I would live this long. I know a lot of people when I was 18-19 certainly didn’t think I would live this long (I was a hot fuckin mess and it took me years to get out of that tailspin) so while I’m none too happy about having to figure out how to promote a metric fuckton of albums on what is soon to be the ten year anniversary of their release, I am also trying to be compassionate toward tiny grieving past Lēna and keep in mind that I didn’t have a blessed clue that I would live to see 28-29, my depression was so goddamn bad and I was constantly trying to blot myself off the face of the Earth and writing albums instead of doing worse dumb shit. As badly as I want to go back and kick Past Lēna and to some extent, Past Eight in the ‘nads for writing and recording music like they were running out of time in 2016-17, they really didn’t know what the fuck else to do and had just lost Xavier. So I can’t really be all that angry. That being said, a bitch is fucking tired and I don’t have anything close to a promotion strategy for any of this shit. I don’t even have regular access to a piano anymore.

So yeah. There is all of that to contend with.

Wish me mother fucking luck.

-Allēna

Please enjoy the long overdue performance footage from Lēna’s and Emerson’s venture to Saint Kate for the poetry marathon the other night.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUKjLfpDWSr/?igsh=MTlrcHZ2dXVtd2hoaA==

-Castor

So I performed at the Woodland Pattern poetry marathon tonight!

Here’s a short clip from it.

https://crowdcast.io/clips/e7f280e0-6e6e-4355-acd2-76f9c249c598

If you want to watch the full performance, I come in at 2:43:10 thereabouts.

-Allēna

I’m about to be the featured performer at Poet’s Monday tonight. I am low-key panicking. But I’m also excited.

-Allēna

I performed a very old song of mine tonight.

This is “I Was The Sun” from my record Primrose Path (2017, rerecorded 2023) live at Poet’s Monday.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSlsl-vDOyY/?igsh=MWF4bzRjMnUwenFjNQ==

I recorded a new extended version of my song “someone else’s problem” today.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSaujytjuSw/?igsh=MW5tY2Jiemt6eHE3ZA==

Enjoy 💛

My new headmate has a villain song.

I wanted to post it here now that things with Zelda have gone…south, as it were.

It is titled “Australis.” Eight wrote it a year ago. Enjoy, along with a bonus meme.

-Allēna

#australis #disstrack #folkpunk #meme #ourmusic #zelda #zeldaSystem

I pitched an idea for a spring themed multimedia show to a shop and studio here in town in March or April. They say they’ll get back to me next week.

If this goes well, I want to do it again. I think I’m going to put it together regardless, though.

-Allēna

#ourart #ourmusic #ourpoetry

I went down a rabbit hole today.

I ended up listening to our EP 39: Odds and Ends and I have to say, it goes harder than it should. I like it better with each passing year.

-Allēna

#bluesy #DarkFolk #FolkMusic #folkpunk #ourmusic

I was clicking around the blog after months in a dormancy coma and I’ve gotta say…

I love what my headmates have done with the place.

Pretty neat.

Have Allēna’s and Eight’s masterpiece album Mago as a treat before you go. If you’re finding the system via the MadMastodon tag or related ones, I think you’ll like what it has to say. It’s all about deconstructing a high control faith, surviving psychiatry and long term abuse, and finding ourselves. Enjoy.

-Castor (he/it), the system’s original host.

#DIDSystem #DIDThings #dissociativeIdentityDisorder #exmormon #MadMastodon #mentalHealth #OurMusic #plural #plurality

So I remembered our album Hardshell existed again. Have an appropriate song from this swamp creature of a record.

from the album Hardshell

Occasionally I remember our own music exists, lol. This song feels especially appropriate given the current.. Well, everything.. Going on right now.

Enjoy.

-Allēna

#ArtWithOpensource #FolkPunk #musician #OurMusic #USPol #WeirdFolks