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This Is Not Modern Life

by Friends Without Faces

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DJ_GREYMUZZLE
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DJ_GREYMUZZLE Good luck not getting any of these tracks stuck in your head! Favorite track: Sunny Side Up.
Atha Fox
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Atha Fox I love how every time I listen to this it feels like I discover something new inside of it. That chorus just rocks every time. Favorite track: Sunny Side Up.
snazztacular
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snazztacular Uh, yeah, this is cool as hell. Super frenetic at times, yet always intricate, and interspersed with many beautiful moments of serenity. I also love how seamlessly and simultaneously this album is melancholic, heartfelt, and entirely poetic— all while retaining a charming sense of silliness. It feels like closing your eyes and jumping into a moonlit pond. Great job here, FWF :] Favorite track: It's All Just A Game To You, Isn't It?.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    A CD print of This Is Not Modern Life, with a few bonus tracks. Less content than the Deluxe SDHC print, but more copies available. Includes the 11 tracks of the base album, plus "What We Do", "The World I Would Hold in My Hands", "This Website Uses Cookies", and "Secret Garden (KITSIMI Remix)".

    Includes unlimited streaming of This Is Not Modern Life via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • This Is Not Modern Life DELUXE EDITION - SDHC Card Print
    USB Flash Drive + Digital Album

    The 5th Friends Without Faces album, as a deluxe SD card print with high quality audio, bonus tracks, music videos, remixes, and more! Includes a liner booklet and a read-only SD card containing all content mentioned.

    Includes unlimited streaming of This Is Not Modern Life via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
These roots run deeper Than we thought I'm distraught But not overwrought Without a keeper Now and then The lichens grow And stifle so my breaths In my secret garden Where time's my warden And I can't come down But I'd do anything So I could hold a pardon Everybody wants you to love Unless they break up Unless they break down The sound of the crowd Grows far too loud I'm coming undone Becoming someone's Not easy I'm uneasy At times, I'm certain That a drought Or a bout of frost Could kill my sprouts But life's unburdened By the woes, or the foes Unfettered By the weather's deaths In my secret garden Where time's my warden And I can't come down But I'd do anything So I could hold a pardon
2.
You just can't please everybody When you try, things get so gaudy That the art falls apart Bleeding hearts à la carte Can't articulate what the mind dictates The room's eyes turn to me: "Enfranchise all of these Lost souls" is our aim tonight And with that, please recite I fire up my buddies over USB Stayin' evergreen in the Holocene I'm so glad to be the function bourgeoise The hottest thing on the blockchain B/C I put my hands up, then I put them down I keep my head up and I go to town I'm in the cockpit when we fly in the club And that's how we keep it sunny-side up “Headstrong” once again The song starts to end When nothing else keeps Helping you in stealth In moments soon to pass Atonement comes so fast At last, a fire starts to swell And still spreads, though dispelled I fire up my buddies over USB Stayin' evergreen in the Holocene I'm so glad to be the function bourgeoise The hottest thing on the blockchain B/C I put my hands up, then I put them down I keep my head up and I go to town I'm in the cockpit when we fly in the club And that's how we keep it sunny-side up Drafting prose is a waiting game Stepped-on toes near a window pane Summer haze drums my Winter nights End of days comes before the light, Alright! I put my hands up, then I put them down I keep my head up and I go to town I'm in the cockpit when we fly in the club And that's how we keep it sunny-side up Oh yeah Oh, yeah!
3.
At night when the sirens ring My blanket falls over me I miss the cell tower trees Whose branches formed canopies Under which I would Lay my strife and put to rest All of those things that Would cause me duress Tender, foveated renders Of your world surrender To the will of so-called defenders Powered, fiber-optic flowers Stalk our moves for hours on end And gleam along their towers All hail the sun blooming into the light Above our warring skies Where the clouds form a line I've knelt in a tranquil rill Baptized by its babbling I've pondered the fawn uphill Its antlers like circuitry Branching towards diodes Nonextant although defined As if by spirits Tracing split timelines I wish my art could change a mind Or right a wrong Anything useful When I write a song Tender, foveated renders Of your world surrender To the will of so-called defenders Powered, fiber-optic flowers Stalk our moves for hours on end And gleam along their towers The rising moon brings peace to my mind I know the stillness of night Like our hands, intertwined Peace will surely find me in the end
4.
All you do is bring me down I don't want to keep you around It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game! It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game... You can't hide your shit in stealth So waste your time on someone else It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game to you, isn't it? It's all just a game!!! (I, I'm done! I can't... I can't fuckin' do it. I rea- like, I can't! Are you kidding me? I'm... I'm transfem, I got my fursona on the cover this shit, like, a song with breaks in it? Are you kidding me, man? It's so fucking overdone. It's so... FUCKING played at this point. I'm done, I- I'm out of here. I'm out!)
5.
There comes a time in all our lives I've seen it It's stored away in their archive All recounting bits You think that I don't give a damn In that case Just move your hand off your webcam So I see your face Don't think that I don't see it all Without eyes I have your life, free to recall Without compromise In matrices and spreadsheet docs I know you Regression lines speak up to talk So we rendezvous All that you know and all you do I keep track To repeat thoughts to you, brand new So you don't hold back When you log off, I take my leave And follow So all the life you'll ever breathe Will be mine hauled so
6.
Ma'ili, HI 05:21
Every photo of you That I have is online And the likes still accrue But I don't own the rights I can't recall your face I don't remember your name It's as if you were erased And I fear I'll meet the same Fate And live like hell in the free state I'm in mourning This love I've lost is a warning I never knew we'd agree to Rendezvous here with me Standing on the coast, I'd laugh and say Take me to Ma'ili, Oahu, Hawaii Don't you know your ghost stays the same? Since you were disappeared I've had dreams where we're back Where nobody can hear Making plans of attack Drawing borders from brick In this sepulcher town Searching profile pics Finding yours for a Download But all I see's a QR code In my memory The bit rot's making things hazy Just why are you nobody, still In my view? I can see Everybody most [of] the time by name Take me to Ma'ili, Oahu, Hawaii Don't you know your ghost stays the same? They can switch my happiness for malice But they can't steal this from my mind palace Vague feelings of love in the summertime; A town's welcome sign; someone undefined And that's all I've got to remember you by Fuck the days, like the birds, that Flew away with those words I would say to roast your heart aflame Take me to Ma'ili, Oahu, Hawaii Don't you know your ghost stays the same? It stays the same...
7.
I Can See It 02:52
I can see it In your eyes tonight I can feel it grow I can see it When the light shine bright I can see the glow I can see it In my head alright I can feel your woe I can see it Storing kilobytes I can see the snow When the time draws near I cannot see or hear you clearly It won't appear My words start feeling insincere Pining for forested swathes of palm bush Sidewalk margins Laying for rest in the brutal solar winds In new skin I feel out of touch Ennui from speaking double dutch, and My sonic crutch Starts to decay, but not by much Even at midnight, the stars aren't in the Sky anymore Dampened by searchlights adorning our Versailles From the shore I can see it In the morning light I can feel it slow I can see it From a satellite I can see you know I can see it
8.
A New Day 03:37
Let's paint the town red tonight And spread this earthly blight A coral canvas awaits Bleached white, a virgin slate But we're already Reft by sour rifts until we're Almost destroyed On dour rafts, we'll brave the rips into an Aphotic void When the morning comes, they'll see the light, though... Get up, get out, go start a new day Don't you want to seize it all away From the proles who don't know the prose of their manifestos Fear the Lord's seraphim and the Sun's cast shadow waning, raining; Sustaining all on a soon to be desolate islet adrift at sea A burning bush spoke to me A clover with four leaves Weaves threads of two minutes hate Where I am the debate So please, I beg you Is this really all? It's only Post-modern strife When our time comes, we'll take the fall so this is Not modern life With the starting gun, we'll steal the window... Get up, get out, go start a new day Don't you want to seize it all away From the proles who don't know the prose of their manifestos Fear the Lord's seraphim and the Sun's cast shadow waning, raining; Sustaining all on a soon to be desolate islet adrift at sea When push comes to shove, I'm just a Scared, anxious girl But I know I can make a change, and I can Transform the world In the setting sun, we'll be alright, so Get up, get out, go start a new day
9.
You think you're so smart You social Descartes With spiteful assertions But you're not so bright You don't have the right To challenge my person I know myself, and no one else Can read the SSD in me I'm back to my factory setting And I'm doing fine No more does the LED flash when it's time Rise and shine I feel like I'm the only girl in the world Who pays the price of a superfluous toll I feel like I'm the only girl in the world Who puts her platinum hits above diamonds and pearls We can't be the same You've forced me to shame While my face grows weary Dear friends that I love While you hold above Your head your gross theories Though we both come From a path walked by some How'd you succumb to discourse plumb Plucked from the groves of our shared foes? I'm back to my factory setting And I'm doing fine No more does the LED flash when it's time Rise and shine When I'm alone, I feel just fine Alright But when you speak, I feel a spark Ignite And burst into the open flame That passion just became Engulfing me all over I'm back to my factory setting And I'm doing fine No more does the LED flash when it's time Rise and shine I feel like I'm the only girl in the world Who digs her mountains flushly 'gainst her contour I feel like I'm the only girl in the world When you keep checking vibes and ley lines at the door
10.
In the silver morning sun I can feel my batteries weighing Down upon my unit one So I lift myself and start surveying Bits of rubble, bone, and mud All I want is your location Change the settings in your HUD Your blood keeps me online In this world I see with sensors Hear, though censored Feel with sensors Everything's sensors I'm sent from above Like a messenger dove From behemoth's depths, I crawl Further towards you Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be I'll be there Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be I'll be there There's a single line of code Keeping me from the permissions That I need to truly know The objective of my mission All I know is I'm in love With a dream and means to find you So I rise like a flash flood Above your hideout compound lot Where I hear you laughter Growing faster It's disaster Viscera plastered On me On me On me On me I'm hunting you down For offending the crown, and I A simple AI Who loves you to bits Cannot call it quits Slowly, I breach As my ersatz limbs reach Out forever towards your face As I move nearer Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be I'll be there Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be Anywhere you want to be I'll be there
11.
Free 08:55
I'm free from me Don't worry about the things you'll never see I'm free, don't flee Or dream all about the scene's you'll never leave I used to think that some things mattered Then my worldview slowly shattered After all is done Am I the only one who thinks she's free? I mean And with neither gods nor kings who could disagree I'm free to be Don't fuck with my head or leave cerebral debris Burdens of which I'm the bearer Some reigns of terror rain in error Over barren fields Once full of verdant flowers, sun, and trees *** Time again Much to my chagrin We have reached the end Though I still have some runtime Have I said Or else embedded All that's in my head That can create some grand design Is that it? Must I now admit? I'm a hypocrite But with principled motives Sometimes I Despite how I try Just can't amplify All the stories and things I should say At times like this I wonder if I Had anything crucial to say at all Hey Is this just a blunder And it's futile To earn some one hundredth's cent windfall Now I've had lots of fun interred with you In our brief encounter And so we part How Can I let this boulder tumble downwards And only for chances of fresh starts, then I'm Free

about

Welcome to Neo-Antarctica! In the distant future, when only the echoes of humanity remain to haunt the Earth, a singular bastion of life has taken hold across the remaining inhabitable land on its southernmost continent. In this tropical, alien environment, the heirs to this world have pulled themselves upwards along the ladder of evolution to become sapient descendants of those fauna spared by annihilation.

Along the way, they've developed their own cultures and ethea - derived in part from the scraps of humanity that have littered the landscape since time immemorial. At the peak of modernity, an inquisitive musician named Lychee reaches a turning point in her career as Friends Without Faces. Feeling constrained by the tropes and stagnant commonalities of her time, she tinkers away endlessly in the studio in pursuit of something truly novel.

After some time, her partner, Tubes, returns from an expedition into the deeper recesses of the Greater Interior Rainforest at the heart of the continent. A human archaeologist, they like to bring bits and pieces of seemingly unimportant old-world tech home for Lychee to play with. Thinking that she'd appreciate a creative boost, Tubes gives her a mysterious apparatus. Excitedly, Lychee takes it into her studio space and plays with it for hours on end... She's unsure of what exactly the device does, but she's intoxicated by its allure.

***

Sorrel is a human musician living in modern America, 2022 AD. She'd felt her own act, conveniently also named Friends Without Faces, growing stale after the release of 2018's Tulpa, which released to acclaim amongst her fans but little attention elsewhere. Accomplished yet dissatisfied, she sought to reinvent herself and double-down on the playful experimentation and dramatic writing that defines Friends Without Faces. One day in her living room, she noticed a peculiar buzz coming from her MF-P01 Portastudio - something oddly rhythmic, as if it were following some kind of pattern. Eventually she was able to translate the signal into audio and establish contact!

Sometime in the future, Lychee hears the bloops of code that Sorrel had sent emanating from the mysterious mechanism - simple at first, just "hello" in Morse code. Unable to understand it, Lychee notices the pattern and returns with a string of prime numbers, which Sorrel repeats in turn. Excitedly, Lychee began sending more encoded messages, which Sorrel could not fully understand. Tubes, overhearing some of this commotion, checks on Lychee and recognizes the Morse code from their human studies. They help Lychee send an encoded message in an archaic human image format. Sorrel, able to recognize the sound from a childhood spent listening to data files imported into Audacity, moves to her computer to fully decode the transmissions.

How they were able to contact each other through time remains a mystery, but this would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Able to fully understand and speak to each other for the first time, they learn that they have a lot in common! Sorrel and Lychee are both trans women, they both make music... heck, they both even use the alias Friends Without Faces!!! This would spark a devious, ingenious idea in their heads... After all, they were both looking for something to spice up their sounds, weren't they?

NOW, in full absurdity and terror, our duo presents a new Friends Without Faces: one that is daring, experimental, and no longer fully human. This album, This Is Not Modern Life, is largely written and produced by Lychee, with production help from Sorrel, who also provided much of her knowledge of human music theory, recordings of human instruments, and most importantly, her voice - Lychee was able to train an AI to translate her stoat noises into intelligible human English! Recorded over the course of several years, it chronicles their experimental and daring approach to songwriting - songs about life, love, technology, and Sci Fi parables about the human condition!

***

This Is Not Modern Life - an album by Friends Without Faces

Follow-up to Tulpa. 11 tracks in length.

Thank you for your support.

*Limited edition physical release available soon, on a mysterious and overlooked format...*

credits

released September 16, 2022

Lawn mower on "Secret Garden" by my neighbor :)

Bird sounds and nature ambiance on "Secret Garden" provided by the Literal Field Recording Dept. of the B. H. Appliance National Forest Services

Sound effects on "Sunny Side Up" provided by the Dabmouth Credge Memorial Sample Library

Backup vocals on "Sunny Side Up" by Diana Starshine - this one's an actual credit

Electric guitar samples on "Sunny Side Up" by KitsimiFox - another real credit!

Some songwriting on "Constitutional in Bb Major" by some text I saw in a public bathroom once

Additional production on "Constitutional in Bb Major" provided by Pene Jockson

Live band performances on "Constitutional in Bb Major" provided by The Tentacle (disambiguation)

Eclectic guitar solo on "It's All Just a Game to You, Isn't It?" by Scuzzy Mulk

Choir vocals on "It's All Just a Game to You, Isn't It?" by Pisse Boyde and the Banana Band

"Surveillance State of Mind" contains an excerpt of "Fillet My P****" by The Orange County Department of Corrections

"Surveillance State of Mind" contains an excerpt of "Bass Canon in D" by BristleBoi77

"Surveillance State of Mind" contains an excerpt of "Jeth Docks" by Jeth Docks

Future perfect bass on "Ma'ili, HI" by Hospicilin Classics

Sound design on "Ma'ili, HI" by Jax D Incisor

Mind erasure on "Ma'ili, HI" provided by Brainville, LLC

Vocal chops on "I Can See It" by a numbers station I stumbled upon once in my youth

Beat sequencing on "I Can See It" by Jeff

Drums on "A New Day" recorded by Indy Rokk and sequenced by Olive Tart

Additional production on "A New Day" by Tabis Jink

Some songwriting on "A New Day" by the horrible beast that swells within us all

Additional percussion on "Only Girl in the World" by Juliander Tortegeli and Her Magic Bean Band

"Only Girl in the World" contains an excerpt of "Battle! Wild [REDACTED] - [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Version" by Timothy Turner, Sr.

Speech dictation on "Anywhere You Want to Be (I'll Be There)" by Boston's very own IBM-2095 ICBM

Computer glitch effects and other sounds on "Anywhere You Want to Be (I'll Be There)" by the magnet I accidentally let touch my hard drive

Ideology on "Anywhere You Want to Be (I'll Be There)" conveniently provided by the trash can

Some songwriting on "Free" by Myu Zack

Radio personality on "Free" by Theropawed (this one actually happened)

Some songwriting and cameo on "Free" by r u s s e l b u c k - a real person, despite prior rumors - who gave me permission to do this silly bit for 0 dollars and 0 cents, so I humbly thank them. This song samples their track "Cellphone Tune" from their eponymous debut album in its entirety.

Western classical theory - and by extension a lot of "modern" (to y'all, I assume) pop music theory - is all a semi-racist lie anyways. There are many ways to explain why a song "works" and why rhythms and harmonies behave the way they do in context to the music. Take my analysis with a grain of salt.

Traditional MIDI ensemble on "Free" arranged by Endocrine Johansson

Some songwriting on "Free" by OpenAI Jukebox, which is true but I'm philosophically unsure if this needs to be credited

***

Album released by DESKPOP music ~ deskpopmusic.bandcamp.com

Album art by Laser Raccoon ~ laserraccoon.carrd.co

Adjustments made by SuedeInBrackets ~ suedeinbrackets.carrd.co

Post-processing by Shady Monk ~ linktr.ee/Shadymonk

Everything else - all music, concepts, lyrics, performances (with some exceptions), and otherwise - by Friends Without Faces:
Spotify ~ open.spotify.com/artist/2rBIhSqg9o2UCJizO5r3on
Twitter ~ twitter.com/hadkinsky
Soundcloud ~ soundcloud.com/friendswithoutfaces
Carrd ~ fwf.carrd.co

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about

Friends Without Faces Orlando, Florida

Hey there! My name's Lychee, and I'm an experimental Pop musician living in Polaris, Antarctica! I started Friends Without Faces years ago, but recently I met Sorrel - she's an ancient human musician who'd used the same alias in her time! Now we work together to make exciting, fresh music as the new Friends Without Faces! ... more

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