Capitalist Essentialism, Logic and Shrooms
First Song of the Year (or not?), a new Flush, and preparing for more Music that Nobody Asked For
My intentions first:
I think this will be a one off update post about three things, but part one might turn into its own series similar to what happened with “Slumlords” when I traced its evolution over a few posts and eventually released it into the world, but for reasons that may be evident this song may not go that way.
As a reminder, here’s where I make music:
Here’s a song that got written this morning:
He saw us in the garden unashamed and dancing naked
Convinced us all that 9-5 is how a man can make it
And so 12000 years ago we learned to pay the price
We weren’t cast out of Eden, we signed away the rights
Inhuman nature unoriginal sin
Tell us that the way things are is how it’s always been
Hard to make a profit if the kingdom lies within
Inhuman nature unoriginal sin
There’s two wolves there inside you but neither pays the check
Double Windsor knot a silken noose around your neck
Talking about bootstraps like the grind is all that matters
But you don’t have to climb up if your daddy owns the ladder
Inhuman nature unoriginal sin
Tell us that the way things are is how it’s always been
Pretend that the deck’s not stacked to get the house to win
Inhuman nature unoriginal sin
We’re born in debt to heaven, So we’ll work until we die
Grace might be amazing, But the interest rates are high
Sanctify your soul to get a quarterly return
Hand up not a handout, a contract that you earn
Inhuman nature unoriginal sin
Generations that repeat the same mistakes again
Too beat down to hope that something different could begin
Inhuman nature unoriginal sin
So baked into reality we wear it like a skin
But if you listen closely words are drifting on the wind
“Behold the lilies toil not and neither do they spin”
Inhuman nature, unoriginal sin
Inhuman nature unoriginal sin
Inhuman nature, unoriginal sin
This came about because I was thinking of the idea of Capitalist Essentialism, which is the notion that our economic system is a logical progression of a particular idea of Human Nature, and broadly that Capitalism is inevitable/the only realistic and adult option. I see these ideas held by a lot of Nondenominational Evangelicals (also known as Undercover Baptists) whose ideas about sin and depravity (thanks, Calvin) make them treat Capitalism almost as a parallel religion or an obligation of their worldview.
I think that idea gets across.
The problem is, this feels like the sister of the song I just wrote, “Slumlords In The Promised Land.”
witness the verse meter:
“Slumlords”
Stamp it with an eagle, wrap it in the stars and stripes,
But buying bigger guns isn’t the same as being right
“Inhuman”:
We’re born in debt to heaven, So we’ll work until we die
Grace might be amazing, But the interest rates are high
If I write a melody it’s going to be hard to find something that’s not redundant.
Both end the choruses with a similar tagline that’s an inversion of religious language.
Right now they sound like different versions of the same song in my head, which isn’t great. It means I’m stuck in the same I-IV-V-VI/pentatonic near hymn meter rhyme scheme writing similar takes on similar topics. There’s nothing wrong with consistency and style, but I fear I may be too close.
So this may be a scenario where one section or line evolves into something else entirely, or the verses go to a different chorus or the choruses go to a story songs.
The song may get stripped for its parts.
But despite its vague destiny, I like it, and it was fun to create. Making this little that may never see the light of day was its own reward.
Part 2:
As for fatherhood, that’s another story entirely.
The young I’m raising at the moment are of the fruiting body variety, currently existing as hyphal knots and pins in an environment with confusing humidity and fresh air exchange.
This tub gave one incredible flush before that I found at least two full days too late, and got too wet as I tried to regulate the humidity to induce more yield. See below:
As a reminder, my little space is decorated with art I inherited from my grandfather originally made by a friend of his father, the illustrator Boris Artybasheff. Among the anti-fascist satirical swastikas I mentioned before is this little guy:
I considered having a t-shirt made of him but, as the women of my family point out to every generation of the men, not everyone will understand the nuance or message of the art. They’d have us hide it away.
Part 3:
I cleaned up the space as shown above and have been at work over the week not on a song, but rather a template in Logic for my 2026 output. To date I’ve arranged every song as an individual unit, and adapted the instruments, effects, mixing schemes and mastering chains to each song. That was a lot of unnecessary extra work that helped the songs stick out as individual, but also made them lack a cohesive field.
This week in Logic Pro I tweaked digital instruments, effects paths, amp emulators, microphone signal processing (using an SM58 on a Traynor YCV80Q and Behringer C-2’s on the baritone-8), which Logic allows me to save as a template and reload for each song. I tweaked the mastering chain, which had been at least a little more standardized over the last few releases, and I think the overall drum sound that I’ve achieved is the best of anything I’ll have made.
I’ll arrange for this album as if I have a band with a drummer who plays a five piece kit with a bubinga snare and is versatile enough to dabble in the varied areas of Y’allternative influences, from Neo-soul to punk to Roots brushes, a bassist with a Fender Jazz through a tube head and Ampeg 8x10, a stereo capture of the baritone acoustic (me), and at least two electric guitar players who layer in Vox, Marshal, and Traynor tones in a combination of single coil and humbucker configurations.
I’m not generally an Apple fanboy, but Logic has really been a gift that keeps giving. While I’d recommend someone new to the pursuit of home production stay with GarageBand until they’ve utterly exhausted all its features, Logic is robust and heavily feature laden, at least to my novice user perception.
I don’t know how many songs I’ll release this year or how they’ll be packaged. Ideally I’d like to figure out a promotion scheme that generates enough listens to sustain a little buzz, but as described on here before there’s precious little about that we can control in 2026.
Thanks for reading, subscribe if you’d like to keep hearing more.
-AO