Psychological Photographs by Pumpkin Friend

Psychological Photographs is the tenth installment in my “retro” series. 

Recorded on a Tascam 424 circa 1999/2000 during my college years, this collection consists of dark, agonized ballads, “horror songs,” sound collages, spoken word, and one Sam Cooke cover. 

This and the previous installment in my retro collection ("College") are my personal favorites from the whole set. The final mixdowns come from a 110-minute cassette tape (pics included with College) which I faithfully and painstakingly transferred to CD-R/AIFF files (along with all the other stuff in this retro series) while home for Christmas in 2004.

College, which came out in June 2023 is side 1 of the tape and this is side 2. Originally, I named the tape “Passageways” because there was such a disparate array of music in the collection that to me it represented the exciting possibility to go down however many myriad paths my whimsy took me—I still hold true to this today with songs, sound collages, spoken-word pieces, improvisations, etc.

I clearly remember completing this tape. It felt momentous and I celebrated by inviting two of my closest friends at the time over to hear it. They were artists as well. We all lay on the floor of my basement and listened to the whole thing. Then, like most of my old recordings, I hardly played it for anyone else aside from a random track here and there over the years (until I met my wife).

I felt proud of the tape and like I had accomplished something. But it was also a time of flux and upheaval. I had just dropped out of college for music. The very weekend after I informed my professor that I would not be returning to the program I met a girl online which began a whole new part of my life, leading to me moving to Portland, Oregon in a little over a year’s time. Many of these recordings are from those college years, some of them were even recorded in my off-campus college apartment and/or for projects for my professor whom I mostly butted heads with the whole time I was there. 

I see this collection as the end/culmination of a certain era/theme in my music. Heading forward things would be somewhat different…

A few details about the songs:

Paranormal Activity and Night Sea were recorded on the same night. It was one of the last nights in my off-campus college apartment. My roommate had already left, flying back to his home in Germany. Because his room was empty it seemed like a good idea to set some equipment up in there and do some recording. I don’t even know how some of those sounds in Paranormal Activity got in there—I swear I didn’t make all of them.

Night Sea takes its name from one of my favorite Nintendo games, Little Nemo: The Dream Master. The game was based on an old comic. “Night Sea” is stage 4 which has hermit crabs, though other than that the song has nothing to do with the game.

The final/title track, “Psychological Photographs,” is my all-time favorite. It was intended as a composition project for my professor (sort of). He said it felt like I was saying “Fuck You” to him and I kind of was, I guess. It was a complex relationship the details of which are too much to go into here. I see the 14:57 track as a series of photographs (different sections) that showcase my mental world at the time.

Sounds & Words. Outsider, bedroom, experimental, folk, indie, spoken word.

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