Xroneld by Paragraph 51

“Xroneld” is a chronicle of Paragraph 51 work undertaken between, approximately, 2006 to 2012. This album features music from that period in various stages of completion – some finished, some not, and others that were polished up to a finished-ish state in 2020. As you might expect, the quality varies, but the album serves as an accurate chronicle of the period. This collection, “eld”, is defined by the amount of time these tracks have languished in their unheard state on old hard drives. All tracks except Harm include voice in one form or another which is, generally speaking, uncommon in my work as Paragraph 51.

[01] Harm
Prior to 2020 the last time I worked on this track was 14th May 2006 which means it was created after “Contingent” was recorded but before it was mixed. It was recorded into Nuendo on a shitbox PC in my bedroom and there was difficulty in creating and finding the effects, plugins, and sounds that I wanted. In contrast, “Contingent” was created using a professional ProTools setup at the University of Tasmania School Of Fine Arts while I was studying there. For an ersatz delay effect, most tracks within this piece have been duplicated twice (as is highlighted by the panning cough right at the beginning). The original session file could not be opened so I had to recreate it in Reaper based on a low-quality MP3 render from 2006.

The following two tracks were both last altered on 14th September 2011 and both feature budget keyboard sounds. The “Contingent” album was completed circa 2007 so it seems that very little Paragraph 51 work was done between then and this track. In that time I mostly worked a shitty job, played in a folk rock band (Kreigan Hill), and did a lot of heavy drinking.

[02] A Day With Little Good In It
This song has three sections that are, more or less, unrelated. The first section features three tracks of narrated text messages from my phone. In a surprising coincidence, the final words of all three tracks are “I love you”. The second section features angsty lyrics from an abandoned hip-hop concept album that was about a deranged guy who discovers that solipsism is “true” but it’s actually his girlfriend (not him) who is the only conscious entity in the universe and his own thoughts are actually just a “mirage consciousness” reflected from her mind. I’m not certain, but I think the concept was inspired by DJ Signify’s “Sleep No More” album combined with a psychotic and psychedelic angle. The third section is an ominous noise passage that features the sounds of coins, beer bottles, and đàn gáo (a Vietnamese instrument I bought in Ho Chi Minh, very similar to the Chinese erhu, which I can in no way play properly).

[03] Child, Why Are You Here Still?
Similarly to the previous track, this one is also comprised of three sections: an intro, a second section with lyrics, and a lengthy noise passage as the third and final section that includes an irrelevant conversation with my friend Dan played backwards. The subject matter here deals with petty, negative thought patterns and how they might prevent mental maturation if left untreated (if I remember correctly).

[04] Rut
This was a fun experiment in creating a black metal track. It was last altered on 3rd April 2017 but I know it was created many years before that, circa 2009 maybe. I had no access to any proper percussion at this time so I used a box of rusty nails instead. The terrible lyrics were written much earlier in 2002.

[05-08] Atom I-IV
These tracks, last altered in October 2011 and known collectively as the “Atom EP”, are from the same period but deal with very different subject matter. Specifically, it features narrated excerpts from an informative booklet titled “Nuclear Weapons: Their Effects And Your Protection”. This short publication (approximately 40 pages) was published by the Australian Department of Defence and the National Disasters Organisation in the mid-80s and was, I presume, widely distributed to households across the country. I am uncertain what prompted the distribution of such a booklet (being only a toddler at the time) but, as a member of a generation that rarely even considers war on Australian soil, I found the book’s pragmatism both disturbing and fascinating and that’s why I sought to include it in a musical project. This EP always felt lopsided and incomplete to me but it is included here partly because of the many, many hours I put into it.

Here be the myriad music recording projects of Kier Stevens and those gracious souls that work with him. He likes to compose instrumental music, improvise experimental music, play steel guitar, write blues songs and ballads, and his name rhymes with beer.

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