Cosmic Knockout Issa Ibrahim 2007 music CD- Limited Edition, limited quantities collector’s item UPC 888174253176
Soundtrack to a long-dreamed-about but many-times-aborted multi-media extravaganza that is ultimately too unwieldily to launch...but the music is here for you! Recorded in Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.
“IF ALL THESE THINGS ARE TRUE” is the beginning of the end set to music. This over-modulated freak pop opus was the first proper song I ever wrote, sitting in a cell in Rikers Island in winter 1991, a year after my first major psychotic break and the tragic and untimely death of my dear mother Audrey and just after receiving the Insanity Plea. Composed with no guitar and an ambitious melody that I hoped I’d remember, I imagined it as a catchy but creepy confessional new wave song over a funky rhythm section. The song was finally recorded in bedroom 10-60 in Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in 2006.
When crafting the track and settling on a pseudo-funk back beat, I remembered the James Brown meets XTC vibe, employed it and hoped it worked. The outro vocals conjure a demented mid 60s Beach Boys/Hollies ditty as heard through a cauliflower ear. All in all, it conveys the horror I experienced and the madness I was imagining. Many thanks to Jay Shine for his tasty electric guitar bursts dropped in from the great beyond.
“THE SAVIOR” written with psychosis in full blow while decompensating from my meds, it still amazes me that I was cogent enough to be able to compose this song and have it hold together as well as it does. The content is wacky and controversial and a clear-eyed peek into my thought process during a breakdown, complete with devious doctors, non-compliance, and messianic delusions of grandeur. With interior beliefs like these things will not go well. This acoustic version is my second attempt at the song. An earlier recorded version was dense with audio information that my production skills at the time weren’t used to harnessing. This stripped-down folk/blues reading works best.
“I DO” is a short, simple, and effective song. The simplicity betrays the complex and convoluted thoughts, images and delusions that was its inspiration.
“SIX DAYS OF MIDNIGHT” was recorded in the same late evening session as “I Do” and continues the spare arrangement while displaying a gravid and tense mood. Not for the squeamish.
“IT’S SUPERSTAR!” is me having my Peter Frampton/stadium rock moment. It’s an uplift from the doom and gloom, announcing the arrival of a hero and the thrill discovering it is you! I re-recorded the cheering crowd noise several times, using several sources, never fully satisfied. Listening now I still feel I probably could find a better sample, but I let it go.
“SAVE THE CHILDREN” was a departure for me because the backing track is almost entirely a preset, sort of ersatz electro-funk, with good friend and fellow deluded messiah Phil Velasquez adding electric guitar embellishments. I used backward recording, usually of me saying any and everything inappropriate in multiple “possessed” voices, as examples of the zombies in my midst, both on the ward and in the story, paintings, and songs. And I’m always amused by Leroy’s declaration, “Damn right!”, which is a nod to Isaac Hayes and his classic theme from “Shaft”.
“I’VE SEEN THE LIGHT” was recorded in the same session as “Save The Children”, where I experimented and again relied on a preset rhythm track, this one kind of smooth soul. It suits the mock-gospel feel I wanted for the song, and I recall this coming together very quickly, since I was creating a melody to an already established bass pattern. For a long time, I settled on a version where I sang the lead and backing vocals, but since this was a song meant for a woman, I enlisted the talents of outpatient Dawn Reed to deliver it. You can almost hear my original track, like a guide vocal, occasionally ducking in and out of Dawn’s performance, probably when I believed she was not quite hitting the note. There's an endearing vulnerability to her performance. I’m very proud of the three-part harmony in the background, giving the song an almost Gladys Knight and the Pips-like quality.
“THE DEVIL INCARNATE” was written in 1995, imagining if Satan had a signature tune. The song was also a meditation on my inappropriate sexual relationship with my elderly therapist, the ward social worker. The bloom was coming off the rose and I as disenchanted but only allowed to express it artistically, in paintings or, in this case, in song. Due to how the administration covered up their employee’s transgression and viewed my culpability in the affair, I had become for them, as I had for estranged my family, the devil incarnate. As I was going through various psychotic breaks due to medication decompensation and non-compliance, my status as haunted pariah took hold of my psyche. So much so that I believed in this asylum where I was trapped, I was surrounded by evil and hunted by the devil himself. This recurring delusion made my song even more poignant and prophetic. Thanks to Monica Tarver for her reading of The Inpatient’s Bill of Rights and Claire Adams and Belladonna for their inspired (if borrowed) sex play.
11 songs written, performed and produced by Issa Ibrahim. Limited quantities.
Soundtrack to a long-dreamed-about but many-times-aborted multi-media extravaganza that is ultimately too unwieldily to launch...but the music is here for you! Recorded in Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.
“IF ALL THESE THINGS ARE TRUE” is the beginning of the end set to music. This over-modulated freak pop opus was the first proper song I ever wrote, sitting in a cell in Rikers Island in winter 1991, a year after my first major psychotic break and the tragic and untimely death of my dear mother Audrey and just after receiving the Insanity Plea. Composed with no guitar and an ambitious melody that I hoped I’d remember, I imagined it as a catchy but creepy confessional new wave song over a funky rhythm section. The song was finally recorded in bedroom 10-60 in Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in 2006.
When crafting the track and settling on a pseudo-funk back beat, I remembered the James Brown meets XTC vibe, employed it and hoped it worked. The outro vocals conjure a demented mid 60s Beach Boys/Hollies ditty as heard through a cauliflower ear. All in all, it conveys the horror I experienced and the madness I was imagining. Many thanks to Jay Shine for his tasty electric guitar bursts dropped in from the great beyond.
“THE SAVIOR” written with psychosis in full blow while decompensating from my meds, it still amazes me that I was cogent enough to be able to compose this song and have it hold together as well as it does. The content is wacky and controversial and a clear-eyed peek into my thought process during a breakdown, complete with devious doctors, non-compliance, and messianic delusions of grandeur. With interior beliefs like these things will not go well. This acoustic version is my second attempt at the song. An earlier recorded version was dense with audio information that my production skills at the time weren’t used to harnessing. This stripped-down folk/blues reading works best.
“I DO” is a short, simple, and effective song. The simplicity betrays the complex and convoluted thoughts, images and delusions that was its inspiration.
“SIX DAYS OF MIDNIGHT” was recorded in the same late evening session as “I Do” and continues the spare arrangement while displaying a gravid and tense mood. Not for the squeamish.
“IT’S SUPERSTAR!” is me having my Peter Frampton/stadium rock moment. It’s an uplift from the doom and gloom, announcing the arrival of a hero and the thrill discovering it is you! I re-recorded the cheering crowd noise several times, using several sources, never fully satisfied. Listening now I still feel I probably could find a better sample, but I let it go.
“SAVE THE CHILDREN” was a departure for me because the backing track is almost entirely a preset, sort of ersatz electro-funk, with good friend and fellow deluded messiah Phil Velasquez adding electric guitar embellishments. I used backward recording, usually of me saying any and everything inappropriate in multiple “possessed” voices, as examples of the zombies in my midst, both on the ward and in the story, paintings, and songs. And I’m always amused by Leroy’s declaration, “Damn right!”, which is a nod to Isaac Hayes and his classic theme from “Shaft”.
“I’VE SEEN THE LIGHT” was recorded in the same session as “Save The Children”, where I experimented and again relied on a preset rhythm track, this one kind of smooth soul. It suits the mock-gospel feel I wanted for the song, and I recall this coming together very quickly, since I was creating a melody to an already established bass pattern. For a long time, I settled on a version where I sang the lead and backing vocals, but since this was a song meant for a woman, I enlisted the talents of outpatient Dawn Reed to deliver it. You can almost hear my original track, like a guide vocal, occasionally ducking in and out of Dawn’s performance, probably when I believed she was not quite hitting the note. There's an endearing vulnerability to her performance. I’m very proud of the three-part harmony in the background, giving the song an almost Gladys Knight and the Pips-like quality.
“THE DEVIL INCARNATE” was written in 1995, imagining if Satan had a signature tune. The song was also a meditation on my inappropriate sexual relationship with my elderly therapist, the ward social worker. The bloom was coming off the rose and I as disenchanted but only allowed to express it artistically, in paintings or, in this case, in song. Due to how the administration covered up their employee’s transgression and viewed my culpability in the affair, I had become for them, as I had for estranged my family, the devil incarnate. As I was going through various psychotic breaks due to medication decompensation and non-compliance, my status as haunted pariah took hold of my psyche. So much so that I believed in this asylum where I was trapped, I was surrounded by evil and hunted by the devil himself. This recurring delusion made my song even more poignant and prophetic. Thanks to Monica Tarver for her reading of The Inpatient’s Bill of Rights and Claire Adams and Belladonna for their inspired (if borrowed) sex play.
11 songs written, performed and produced by Issa Ibrahim. Limited quantities.
Soundtrack to a long-dreamed-about but many-times-aborted multi-media extravaganza that is ultimately too unwieldily to launch...but the music is here for you! Recorded in Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.
“IF ALL THESE THINGS ARE TRUE” is the beginning of the end set to music. This over-modulated freak pop opus was the first proper song I ever wrote, sitting in a cell in Rikers Island in winter 1991, a year after my first major psychotic break and the tragic and untimely death of my dear mother Audrey and just after receiving the Insanity Plea. Composed with no guitar and an ambitious melody that I hoped I’d remember, I imagined it as a catchy but creepy confessional new wave song over a funky rhythm section. The song was finally recorded in bedroom 10-60 in Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in 2006.
When crafting the track and settling on a pseudo-funk back beat, I remembered the James Brown meets XTC vibe, employed it and hoped it worked. The outro vocals conjure a demented mid 60s Beach Boys/Hollies ditty as heard through a cauliflower ear. All in all, it conveys the horror I experienced and the madness I was imagining. Many thanks to Jay Shine for his tasty electric guitar bursts dropped in from the great beyond.
“THE SAVIOR” written with psychosis in full blow while decompensating from my meds, it still amazes me that I was cogent enough to be able to compose this song and have it hold together as well as it does. The content is wacky and controversial and a clear-eyed peek into my thought process during a breakdown, complete with devious doctors, non-compliance, and messianic delusions of grandeur. With interior beliefs like these things will not go well. This acoustic version is my second attempt at the song. An earlier recorded version was dense with audio information that my production skills at the time weren’t used to harnessing. This stripped-down folk/blues reading works best.
“I DO” is a short, simple, and effective song. The simplicity betrays the complex and convoluted thoughts, images and delusions that was its inspiration.
“SIX DAYS OF MIDNIGHT” was recorded in the same late evening session as “I Do” and continues the spare arrangement while displaying a gravid and tense mood. Not for the squeamish.
“IT’S SUPERSTAR!” is me having my Peter Frampton/stadium rock moment. It’s an uplift from the doom and gloom, announcing the arrival of a hero and the thrill discovering it is you! I re-recorded the cheering crowd noise several times, using several sources, never fully satisfied. Listening now I still feel I probably could find a better sample, but I let it go.
“SAVE THE CHILDREN” was a departure for me because the backing track is almost entirely a preset, sort of ersatz electro-funk, with good friend and fellow deluded messiah Phil Velasquez adding electric guitar embellishments. I used backward recording, usually of me saying any and everything inappropriate in multiple “possessed” voices, as examples of the zombies in my midst, both on the ward and in the story, paintings, and songs. And I’m always amused by Leroy’s declaration, “Damn right!”, which is a nod to Isaac Hayes and his classic theme from “Shaft”.
“I’VE SEEN THE LIGHT” was recorded in the same session as “Save The Children”, where I experimented and again relied on a preset rhythm track, this one kind of smooth soul. It suits the mock-gospel feel I wanted for the song, and I recall this coming together very quickly, since I was creating a melody to an already established bass pattern. For a long time, I settled on a version where I sang the lead and backing vocals, but since this was a song meant for a woman, I enlisted the talents of outpatient Dawn Reed to deliver it. You can almost hear my original track, like a guide vocal, occasionally ducking in and out of Dawn’s performance, probably when I believed she was not quite hitting the note. There's an endearing vulnerability to her performance. I’m very proud of the three-part harmony in the background, giving the song an almost Gladys Knight and the Pips-like quality.
“THE DEVIL INCARNATE” was written in 1995, imagining if Satan had a signature tune. The song was also a meditation on my inappropriate sexual relationship with my elderly therapist, the ward social worker. The bloom was coming off the rose and I as disenchanted but only allowed to express it artistically, in paintings or, in this case, in song. Due to how the administration covered up their employee’s transgression and viewed my culpability in the affair, I had become for them, as I had for estranged my family, the devil incarnate. As I was going through various psychotic breaks due to medication decompensation and non-compliance, my status as haunted pariah took hold of my psyche. So much so that I believed in this asylum where I was trapped, I was surrounded by evil and hunted by the devil himself. This recurring delusion made my song even more poignant and prophetic. Thanks to Monica Tarver for her reading of The Inpatient’s Bill of Rights and Claire Adams and Belladonna for their inspired (if borrowed) sex play.
11 songs written, performed and produced by Issa Ibrahim. Limited quantities.