"Pareidolia"
by Virgo Power

pareidolia
pareidolia
when your brain is making sounds
out of nothing at all
out of nothing at all

pareidolia
pareidolia
when you think you’re going crazy
but you’re really making sense of your environment
your brain is struggling
to interpret what it hears

pareidolia
pareidolia
wish I’d known about you when I was growing up

pareidolia
pareidolia
pareidolia
pareidolia
pareidolia
pareidolia
pareidolia

I think I’m hearing things
I think I’m seeing things
it’s not really there

I think I’m hearing things
I think I’m seeing things
it’s not really there

credits:
R. Brookes McKenzie: vocals, Omnichord, mixing

field recordings used:
“aggressive bird chirping & street noise”
“foghorns”
“sirens”
“electric sawing”
“roofers talking in Slovenian”

liner notes:
SpoilerI have had pareidolia my whole life, but mostly the audio kind. I used to think I was going insane because I always heard a song in the noise of the air conditioner, for example. (Btw I recorded some A/C noise with the thought of actually singing the song I sometimes still hear in it, but of course it suddenly deserted me when I sat down to make the music for pareidolia the song. Or maybe I can only hear the A/C song IRL, not on the recording - or when I'm falling asleep. Like a ghost?? I dunno.

Anyway, I ran Omni through my new pedal board (thanks Nivs!! 8-) 8-) 8-) ) for both drum sound (again from Omni) and actual played notes - I used my Whammy pedal extensively to really spindle and mutilate the sound as much as possible. Then I sang extemporaneously over those two tracks. Then I threw all three into GarageBand, took my field recordings and used them like instruments to complement the music I had already made.