8. I'M THE NEW GREEP, I WANT THE NEW SOUND

 I’M THE NEW GREEP, I WANT THE NEW SOUND

An informal discussion of The New Sound by Geordie Greep

Not so recently, I heard The New Sound by Geordie Greep (of Black Midi fame). His debut solo album. When I first heard it in not-so-recent times, almost every aspect beyond the surface level was completely lost on me but two to three weeks ago, I revisited it and my Bongo Season had begun which I kicked off by relistening to every Black Midi album, and The New Sound (yes, I heard the new sound again). I also got heatstroke that day, I distinctly remember listening to Eat Men Eat (rather fitting) lying beneath a ceiling fan with my shirt halfway unbuttoned, I didn’t even have the energy to unbutton it all the way down. According to last.fm I heard the album 30 times in full since then (29 to be exact not counting my first listen). You can verify if you want. Where’s my last.fm? You ask. I’m not telling you.

I don’t want to write a huge lyrical deep dive on the album or anything like that. Some people have done a far better job at that. I just want to talk about the album in a somewhat casual manner. Now, if you will indulge me, I am more than eager to begin.

LAYER 1: EVERYONE KNOWS MY NAME

Enough about my experience with the album, let’s talk about Geordie Greep! The album is actually about him or rather it’s about the speaker who we’ll call Bongo because there’s a song called Bongo Season the album. That and the speaker is self-absorbed (but we’ll get to that). I believe there’s also a Black Midi song on Hellfire with a character named Bongo about his PTSD from the war. Now, you may be thinking, “Why would there be a song called Through A War in which someone with PTSD glorifies their time in the war?” That is a great question, strawman (or straw-woman) and my answer lies in Terra. The song Terra details Bongo’s misery and suffering but also glorifies it. He wears his anguish like a badge of pride and uses it to inflate himself to hot air balloon proportions so I’m calling the speaker Bongo. 

What? You disagree? You have some sort of evidence to refute my arguments? Guess what? I don’t care, this is a one-sided relationship, reader. This album is too. It is a one-sided relationship in which Bongo falls in love with a prostitute and I hope I remembered to italicize the word ‘love’ because I’m really hesitant to use that word to describe their relationship. The writing on this album is hyperbolic and that’s to tell us that Bongo is NOT a very reliable narrator. 

LAYER 2: BONGO SEASON, SWEEPING THE GLOBE

The very first song on the album shows us just how unreliable of a narrator he is. The ways he describes himself are exaggerated to extreme proportions. I thought maybe that the first song, Blues was him describing his budding feelings for this prostitute. It’s very praising of her but at the same time, there’s a layer of condescension to it. He loves her but he doesn’t want to accept it. Until he said “You’ve got a bigger dick than any man who’s ever lived” and that’s when I realized he’s talking about himself. Geordie Greep is NOT Denzel Curry with his transgender choppas (I’m actually listening to Denzel right now). 

Wait, if Bongo is not praising this prostitute while he struggles to come to terms with his feelings for her… does that mean he’s struggling to come to terms with his self-image and deflecting his insecurities through high self-praise? Yes, actually. It’s also supposed to be funny and absurd. You’re meant to listen to what Bongo thinks of himself and laugh because some men do have similar mindsets and portray themselves as bigger than life itself and we rarely think about how dumb it is for them to act that way. It’s actually perfect that Holy, Holy, and Blues were released as singles so we could already be familiar with Bongo not only that but Terra wasn’t a single so we perceive Bongo how he wants to be perceived essentially before the full story is revealed.

LAYER 3: THE NEW SOUND

When the actual album dropped, all these extra dimensions were added to Bongo, he was still a self-absorbed loser but he was an oddly relatable, self-absorbed loser. The kind of character that nobody wants to admit they relate to… but I’ll be mature and I’ll admit that there are a few aspects of Bongo that I find relatable, I wrote an entire (now scrapped) story loosely based on the album. I’m just kidding! I find no relatability in this character and I never wrote a story based on this album but I can see how others can relate to the themes of loneliness and longing and not knowing what to do with such feelings some people turn to writing or other forms of art as an outlet, I can’t tell you how many books dealing in extreme loneliness I’ve read and some people like Bongo turn to prostitution. Like I said, I’ve read books that deal with this like Catcher in the Rye. I actually envision a Holden Caufield figure as Bongo. 

Of course, I am above the rest of you who have experienced feelings of yearning as expressed in The New Sound and art similar to it. I listened to this album 30 times because it sounds great and has amazing production and not because I connect to it on an emotional level! I do actually want to talk about how it sounds. I know the rich lyrics are usually the topic of discussion for this album but the sonic elements deserve some credit too. There’s a lot of inspiration from Brazilian music, African music, and… Mario Kart? Yes, really… Mario Kart or actually Japanese Jazz fusion music but it sounds funny if I say it’s inspired by Mario Kart. I think The Race Is About To Begin by Black Midi is actually inspired by Mario Kart music and I don’t mean it’s inspired by Japanese fusion this time.

My sister pointed out that Mr. Greep’s vocals sounded like Lin Manuel Miranda and I hate to admit it but I can hear the musical theatre comparisons too. The whole album does tie into this idea of camp, something being over the top and let’s just put it plainly; ridiculous. The theatric elements must be intentional. I believe that every aspect of this album is intentional. So then why the Brazillian, African, and Japanese elements? The answer is that I think Greep just likes that sort of music. Professor Skye explains the whole thing much better in his movie-length review of The New Sound. He also claims that the title track is the most important song on the album and that’s an interesting perspective but personally, I’d disagree.

LAYER 4: AS IF WALTZ.. NO, TERRA… NO, MOTORBIKE… NO, MAGICIAN

I actually can’t decide what the most important song on the album is. I can see As If Waltz as the most important one. It sonically depicts that performative aspect of Bongo because it does NOT sound like a waltz but eventually the music strips away and it becomes a waltz. That represents Bongo’s conflicting feelings; he wants to do more than just have sex with her but he only ever feels that way when he’s having sex with her. In the lyrics, he expresses this desire to get to know her like a husband would know his wife. He wants to be used to her and he wants to be vulnerable with her but, again, he only feels this way when he’s having sex with her.

You could argue that The Magician is the most important song on the album too. It’s a 12-minute-long song that acts as the album’s climax and it’s the most vulnerable that Bongo becomes. I almost don’t even want to reveal anything about it. The Magician is genuinely one of the greatest songs ever made. This is where Bongo reveals his true thoughts about the prostitute, it’s not her that he was in love with but the sensation, the break from the misery, and the way she made him feel more masculine. He confronts all his delusions and there’s a big reveal in this song which gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. 

However, Bongo Season could also be seen as the most important track on the album. I know it is an interlude but… this is getting ridiculous. My favourite song on the album is Motorbike and it isn’t the most important song on the album but I like it the most. If you wish to make an argument for Bongo Season, write your own review. Motorbike is the start of an excellent three-track run, it’s the first crack in the facade that Bongo has constructed. Bongo struggles to cope with his commitment to this woman and he has the instinct to run away. I think I like it because that’s always my instinct, when I get too close, I want to withdraw or escape altogether. The vocal performance is done by Seth Evans and initially, I didn’t like it but his voice gives this song a very dramatic yet grounded air. 

LAYER 5: THE SAILOR

Let me be completely honest with you. I have never found an album more relatable than The New Sound. Some aspects I just can’t relate to, I’m a goody-two-shoes, and I’ve never hired a prostitute. There are other aspects that I relate to, however. In this segment, I’m going to talk about those without being sarcastic or coating it in various layers of irony or being a pompous ass. I will be as vulnerable as I possibly can. 

If you read the title, wondering who The Sailor is, it’s the main character of my scrapped short story. Sailor is a pompous man who used to work on a ship under a vile captain who exacted violence on his crew and overworked them. When Sailor got to land, he started working a miserable job in an art gallery and during that time, at his lowest point, he fell in love with a woman. That’s the brief rundown, I never worked on a ship nor did I experience horrible acts of violence aboard the ship I never worked on but I did go to an art school. And it was miserable.

When setting up my work for the exhibition, I’d have to clock in for 5 hours almost every day. I stopped taking care of myself. I had breaks in which I’d explore town and narrate my life as if I were in a novel because that was my way of coping then. It still makes my chest bubble to think about this but I remember needing to do some inking so I went to the stationery store during my break. I bought what I needed to and a new employee was helping me. She had a trainee badge and everything.

Hopeless delusions, sleep deprivation, and the necessity for something good in my life; all led me to believe that she was in love with me. Every day I visited her in the store, buying useless stationery and art supplies. Whatever I could find for cheap. There’s something truly wonderful about being wanted by someone like that even if it’s just delusion. After that whole ordeal, I heard the album again and it moved me so profoundly. I had no idea how these feelings I had connected to The New Sound.

I can’t even say that this incident was too long ago, it was 3 months ago. I am still talking to her but not in the Bongo fashion. I put her on a pedestal at the time, she wasn’t merely a woman I was interested in, she was someone I needed, a recurring actress in my dreams and fantasies, she saved my life, and she gave that word ‘life’ meaning, she made me happy, she was my other half, I wanted to see her every day. I was in love with her. She had this air of mystique, I wrote her into my stories, she was Sailor’s lover but her character was always a blank canvas as I knew only her name.

When I saw myself in Bongo, I knew something had to change. I did still have feelings for her… I do still have feelings for her but she’s a person. She never saved my life, She didn’t give my life meaning, she won’t fix me, she is not my other half, I am not in love with her, she is not choosing to be mysterious, all I needed to do was tear down the wall I’d built in her name and get to know her as a person which is what I am doing now. No more tricks no more delusions. I cleared the smoke and broke all the mirrors. I am not a Magician, I am not Sailor, I am me. What’s funny is, after my bongo season, I went back to the store for Christmas shopping and I realized she was shorter than I remembered, possibly because I’d taken her down from the high pedestal I’d originally placed her on and it’s never been easier to get to know her now that we’re on equal footing, now that I see her as just another person that I happen to be interested in.

EPILOGUE:

Where’s my pompous writer persona? Where’s the 50 layers of irony? I will never be that vulnerable ever again! Yuck! I’m kidding, I want to start writing more vulnerably in future and I have good news for you all! Except for that one strawman reader I made up who thinks the character, Sailor, I made up is terrible because I’m writing a completely different story with him. I’m incredibly proud of myself! Let’s all pat me on the back and clap for me, please! I hope you enjoyed reading this. Do you want to hear a funny anecdote I have about the woman I met? Remember when I said “I knew only her name” I didn’t even know her name at the time because the company spelled her name wrong on her nametag. That’s messed up. I am still talking to her and you know actually getting to know her as a person like I’ve said 20 times so people do think I’m still doing my bongo season thing. She’s cool though! The best piece of dating advice I can give is to just live in the present moment, don’t get swept up in any fantasies or delusion, just be present. The reality of my situation is better than anything my delusional brain could come up with. Anyway, what’s happening next week? I will probably be discussing a certain indie game making the rounds to milk its popularity for engagement… I mean because I’m genuinely passionate about the indie game scene. Really though, I do love this game and I can’t wait to talk about it. I was meant to discuss it this week but it needs more time to stew so I’ll let my brain do that and hopefully it’ll be out next week. Until then… terra terra, reader!