Track By Tracks: Witnesses - The Holy Water (2022)

1. Borgo Pass:

The story of this little EP starts here. Back in I think November of 2021 I got invited to appear on a compilation being put out by Euphoriadic Records–a small tape label. This sounded like a lot of fun already, but the compilation also had a theme–monsters. I certainly didn’t have a monster song ready, so I thought about it a bit. And in the course of doing so I decided I didn’t want to make an obvious stylistic sequel to The Collapse. It’d be more fun to take this opportunity to experiment. And so that’s what happened–with the song at mostly 35BPM, having more prominents keys, and of course the female vocal. And since it needed a complement, I wrote Cloistered in Purfleet a bit after. Lyrically, I gravitated to Dracula, but I wasn’t sure what else I could say there exactly. So I decided to take the Lucy Westenra character and reimagine her. It’s hard for me to remember terribly specific details about how she is in Stoker or any film, beyond the obvious that is, but I decided to turn her into this folk hero–who specifically preys on the rich and well-to-do. And you can interpret the words however you want, that’s the beauty of it.

2. Cloistered in Purfleet:

This one is a little faster, maybe 50BPM! I wanted the heavy guitars to not come in right away on this one, so there is this mellow almost verse. I love the last riff in this song. The drums have this rest in the middle, and those are three-part vocal harmonies. Lots of guitar harmonies buried intentionally in the mix. Lyrically here we have Mina Harker herself, and I wanted to make her anything but innocent. That is, what if she is in control? What if in the story she had kept Dracula trapped at Carfax Abbey, and not of his own will? Make again what you want of this.

3. The Ballad of Lucy and Mina:

Not much to say here other than I love a nice, short, nylon-string piece. The guitar I use here is a Godin. It’s got a thin body and requires the piezo. I love this guitar–the sound is unique to me, and sounds great verbed out with some saturation. And it’s super fun to play. But now I’m talking about other things. The punchline here is that I wanted a short outro, and I love any excuse to play my Godin.