Earlier this month we reviewed Megadead, the latest album from Benjamin Shaw. As has come to be expected with Audio Antihero releases, we were big fans, with Shaw continuing and expanding his atmospheric explorations of contemporary weltschmerz. However, far from being a one-dimensional lesson in pessimism and misanthropy, Megadead provided a careful and clever examination of exactly how and why such feelings are so prevalent. As we wrote in our review:
Though to focus on terrible feelings as a beginning and end of Megadead is to miss the point. […] To flatten this into the trope of anti-social introvert misses the true admixture of forces at work—the guilt, the shame, the dreams impossible to achieve. The promises that could never be kept, the nostalgia for things that never existed.
We’re really pleased to be able to share Shaw’s own words on the record with this detailed track-by-track analysis.
1. megadead dot party
Like most of my stuff these days, this started off as me just playing a sad melody on my laptop keyboard. Qwerty-Fi. And like most of this album, it mostly sounded rubbish until my friend Neil (Broken Shoulder) added his magic guitar noodling. I sent him the album demos late last year and asked if he could add as much or little guitar to them as he could, with the condition that my control-freak self could still chop them up and use them however I wanted. I loved the guitar on this one so much that I didn’t touch a thing and fairly instantly promoted it to album opener.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=717538209]
2. All Body Start Feeling Down
More Qwerty Action. I feel like a lot of work went into this, but I’m not sure it shows. Finding the right samples was key to setting the emotional tone here I think. The main keyboard melody is lowkey sad, but it’s the answerphone messages that really pushes it over the edge. It kinda continues with the party theme too. Your loved ones miss you, you don’t even want to be at the stupid party, but yet here you are anyway, in a mess again.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2862921537]
3. Melanomates
The title here is some of my best work – encapsulating my dual fears of both skin cancer and making friends. It doesn’t have much to do with the song, but it’s a winner. The song however, regales one of my bucket-list wishes to take a golfclub into work and smash up the office. I don’t want to hurt anyone, just cause insurmountable property damage.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=4206545529]
4. PUSH IT DOWN
Another one here where Neil’s guitar probably saves it from being a pretty unremarkable B-side. He didn’t have to write three completely different and complementary guitar parts, but he did, because he’s a saint. It’s one of those moments where I think “if I’m just going to rely on someone else always saving this album from being consistently average, should I really call it a ‘Benjamin Shaw’ record?” But then like everything else in my life, I just PUSH THOSE FEELINGS DOWN and let my sub-conscience and existential early morning anxiety deal with it. It’ll be fine.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=129676652]
5. Terrible Feelings!
Speaking of which, here is one of my favourite songs on the album. I just like that it has no real structure or pattern, just keeps pounding and spinning like those hangover panic attacks you started getting recently. Let it be known that this is MY GUITAR on here though. All mine. Hence it just repeating over and over again like it’s an artistic choice and not just lack of skill or imagination.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1963902092]
6. This is Stupid.
A quick palate cleanser here. I honestly think this is just on this album to undercut myself. Or more likely to make it look like I’m undercutting myself, so the singer-songwriter-ness of my choices aren’t so shameful. The slots and pokies sounds were recorded at the Croxton Hotel just down the road. It’s a nice place with just old people playing the poker machines all day, and they let me sit there on my laptop for hours with just one drink.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3684624493]
7. Blue Teeth Thursdays
This is a whole lot of emotions here. Too much for me to cope with anyway, so I’ll brush over all that. The bones of it actually date back to like 2006 or something, and there’s snippets of the acoustic guitar in there from the original 2006 demo. It’s actually one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written. I like how there are completely definable melodic sections to the song, but none that could be called a verse or chorus with a sentimental hook. It just keeps leaving and moving on and starting again, never really finding itself. SOUND FAMILIAR??
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=723268719]
8. A Brand New Day
I swear this started out as an upbeat tune, like something that Eels guy would crank out in his sleep. But then Neil added his guitar and I was like, ‘damn, all this has to go’. So I binned everything I’d done and just kept Neil’s numerous guitar parts and shifted them down a few tones and speeds, and ended up with a nice wee dirge. The robot voices are from a neat freeware voice synth called Alter/Ego. The internet is ace.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3961705249]
9. hole
The first song I wrote for this album, and the first song I’d written in around 3 years. Again, no real chorus, but I’m not a miracle worker. I’ve seen a lot of people say they think this album is weird, but it really doesn’t feel like that to me. I honestly tried my hardest to make this album sound as beautiful as I could, and I think this last song almost reaches what I was grasping for. It’s a sad one (obv), but it’s got some nice bits in there. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4076318048 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1134395099]
Megadead is out now on Audio Antihero and Kirigirisu Recordings.
Photos by Aisha Latosski