Art is hard. If anyone knows this, it’s the man who coined this blunt adage over 20 years ago while manically rifling through the nightmare that is appeasing mass audiences in addition to whatever A&R or label you may have accumulated following a recent period of crossover success. As Cursive’s Tim Kasher has come to realize much later in his career, though, art can also be fairly easy. Even if a lingering sense of perfectionism may overshadow a purposefully brief album-writing period.
Inspired by a quote from Elvis Costello, Kasher spent last Memorial Day weekend challenging himself to pen a dozen songs for his Patreon followers which he would spend the next several months perfecting the arrangements for and, eventually, recording. The result echoes that of the Dogme 95 manifesto, which only preceded Kasher’s own manifestos by a few years: The emotional center of a work of art is what’s most important, while everything else just serves to frame it. The songs on Sponges of Experience—made available to hear this Memorial Day weekend—barely need any elucidation so long as the listener is already familiar with Kasher’s solo work, or even his stint with The Good Life. I guess it would be weird if you subscribed to his Patreon and you weren’t familiar with that stuff, though.
Out today under the moniker Tim Kasher’s Home Phone in appreciation of his subscribers to his Patreon of that name, you can stream the full record below and order it via Born Losers Records here. Additionally, Kasher took the time to break down each song with a bit of (sometimes harsh) feedback for himself a year after the tracks were written. Read on for his words.
1. “The Dying Animal”
Didn’t take much consideration to decide to open with this track; it has a more upbeat feel, which I thought would be a nice intro to an album that also gets rather downbeat at times. This is a rather eclectic record. I didn’t really have time to consider things like tone when shaping these songs—who needs it! I used an Omnichord for the percussion; the Omnichord is kind of a glorified musical toy. Very cool though. It has an electronic “harp” on it, and is essentially an electronic harpsichord gizmo. Fun stuff. I’m bringing it out on tour and using it on some oldies, as well.
2. “At Death’s Red Door”
This song touches on some loved ones since passed away, as well as my own brushes with mortality. This song is really straightforward, which is one of its strengths. This is one of the myriad aspects of writing I learned through this challenge: Simple doesn’t equal “bad”! And yes, I know, this is painfully obvious to most of the world. I have a bit of a hangup about whether a song is “interesting” enough or not, which usually devolves into me overcomplicating songs just to meet my whims. It’s really unnecessary, yet even upon writing this I know I still have this glitch in my head. More reason why I quite enjoyed this writing challenge: Just let songs be. Keep it simple, stoop!
3. “You Left the Party”
This song is an odd duck. It’s a story told over three verses by a shaky, unreliable narrator. At points you may want to root for him, but eventually you realize he’s just a petty, bitter drunk obsessing over an old relationship. (I’d like to take this moment to remind listeners that these characters are not always me—this character is most definitely not me! He’s a bit of a shit, really—sexist, misogynist.) Songs like this were revealing for me during this writing process, how I was able to craft these vague short stories so quickly. A story such as this was truly stream-of-consciousness. I was just hanging on while the writing kept taking different turns until I started recognizing the narrator as “unreliable,” and so I started leaning into that. It’s kind of funny if you don’t mind listening to a dick blow off steam for a few minutes.
4. “What Is Anything”
This turned out to be one of my faves on the record. It’s quite simple, pretty, and a bit sad. It stays focused (not so easy when trying to speed through an entire album over a weekend!) on film-set anxieties, a topic I’d never written about before. I kinda like this crossover of songs written about filmmaking—only natural to do some filmmaking on songwriting! One of these days, I guess. Check out the video we made for this song; it’s all just a behind-the-scenes piece from an Evil Island video I played a role in.
5. “Real Love”
The first song written for the weekend challenge! And it turned out rather well; it certainly energized me for the oncoming weekend of writing work. And it’s kind of a lot of lyrics? I was continually surprised how long these songs tended to get, considering I had so much I had to write. Like, didn’t I realize the process could’ve gone a lot smoother, been a lot easier, had I just kept songs to two verses and a chorus? But that’s the thing about this record: I honestly pushed myself to write fully, completely. I wouldn’t let myself off the hook on most of these songs—as in, I wouldn’t stop writing a song until I could honestly say to myself, “Yes, it is finished.” But I had to be honest! Them’s the rules! So, yeah, it surprised me that some of these songs have longer run times and three or four verses when, again, two verses is absolutely sufficient.
This song is quite the pop song—even the sentiment is pop. it reminds me of something I would’ve written…shit, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it feels like a song by The Good Life. Maybe a sibling to “Lovers Need Lawyers,” just as far as the bouncy writing is concerned.
6. “The Collapse”
This song has become the crown jewel of the album, I’m proud to report. It’s also, perhaps, the best example of what can come out of a writing session such as this: therapy. This song, which is about the first time my lung collapsed when I was in high school, is heavy and incredibly personal for me. And the weird thing? I’d never written about it before. This major, tragic event that altered my life in ways I’m still trying to comprehend, and I had always steered clear of it. I think the distance that time has offered allowed me to finally take a crack at the story. I’m glad I did; I think this song turned out really well and makes the album special—at least to me.
7. “Bygones”
This song opens up side two on the vinyl! It’s an upbeat rock song, which I’m glad to have represented here as not too many of these songs check that box. I think that versions of this style of song have been presented to Cursive over the years, and I suppose some of those songs made the cut (as in, I’ve been writing this song for years now trying to figure out a really strong version of this verbose song-style with a pep in its step). I like the sentiment of “my bygones won’t be bygones”—obviously a play on that weird old adage “let bygones be bygones,” but I do feel this chorus is a bit too pat. I wish it energized me a bit more. I guess I’m saying I prefer the verses. But a decent song overall, no hate! The album title was extracted from these lyrics! So that’s something.
8. “You’re Wigging Me Out”
This was written early in the process, the third song I wrote for the album. I remember at that moment feeling like I was hitting a stride with this song, as it was just perfectly pleasant and catchy and fun to sing. Though I’m not playing this song live, I do consider it to be one of the stronger songs on the album. The song certainly nods to my cat at times, as far as what is “wigging me out,” but the notion only starts there before exploring other ideas—namely how women often feel when men are trying to get all handsy with them.
9. “Reaping Time”
OK, let’s exercise some honesty here: This is one of the songs I would’ve left off the album! When doing the challenge, I was hoping for at least eight songs (10 being ideal) to fill out what could be considered a proper “album.” But I also hoped to overwrite, so I could have some B-sides to play with and have the opportunity to better edit the record. Mostly due to the cheerleading from the Patreon group, who were involved in this process, I decided to release all 12 of the songs I wrote over the weekend as part of one “capsule.” Despite not wanting to put forth lesser works, I agreed that this unique project should be released as-is, a complete record of the project and the process.
That said, this song isn’t so bad at all! Just weaker, in my opinion. But the storytelling is one of the stronger performances on the album, a story of a small town being slowly decimated by a polluting factory. I really don’t know where this story came from; this was another stream-of-consciousness tale that was being sculpted in real time as I was writing it out. But it turned out nicely! It’s the music that I find a tad pedestrian, it doesn’t really excite me. That’s fine, I hope you can enjoy certain aspects of it!
10. “Pillows of Anxiety”
Whoa, this song is such a wingding—it really sticks out like a sore appendage on this record. I was really championing it, though, and really liked how the inclusion of this song helps shape the record. But…the song kind of wore thin on me until eventually I started feeling a little embarrassed of it. I think of it as influenced by The Faint, but a real swing and a miss as far as Faint songs go. So, yeah, this song would’ve ended up being cut as well, but I believe there is a good song in there, it just wasn’t given the opportunity to be fully realized.
But here is the most concrete reason why I didn’t want to put this song on the album: There’s a small story in the song about how the narrator was at a party and flipped off an influencer’s camera with the quip “Influence this.” It’s really fucking stupid…but that was the point! The song is about the anxieties we suffer when laying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling. I wanted to create an example of something really dumb the narrator said at a party that would keep them up at night, riddled with anxiety. Well, flipping off an influencer and saying, “Influence this” was intended to be that stupid line! And it is! Stupid! But my own anxieties started eating away at me, that listeners would assume I thought that was a really cool thing to say, “Influence this!” Anyway, thanks for giving me this opportunity to clear things up.
11. “Lonesome Horseman”
I placed this song second to last in the sequence to try and bolster the end of the album a little. I probably shouldn’t point this out, but the song is reminiscent of “Where Is My Mind?” by the Pixies, enough so that—had I not been in a weekend challenge—I probably would’ve dropped this song before working on it too much. But I liked the song and felt I could make certain efforts to steer it away from that “Where Is My Mind?” feel, and I think I managed to do that. I sure hope I did. But now that I’ve put that thought in your head…ruined? Did I ruin it? Hope not.
12. “Don’t Hang Up”
This song is actually two song ideas that I lumped together—the opening instrumental section was actually written earlier in the weekend. I really liked the piece but was struggling with what to write to it and what direction it should go. So while I was looking at the clock on that final night of the project and recognizing I just might be able to eke out one more song, I revisited that instrumental piece and added what would become the body of “Don’t Hang Up.” So now I had two songs, but they had incredibly similar DNA. I decided to keep the original song to use as an instrumental opener—I played a mandolin lead in place of the original vocal melody that I couldn’t get anywhere with on my first pass of the song—then tacked the actual song of “Don’t Hang Up” onto it. I think it worked great, and I am so proud of this simple, quiet album closer.
