Chimæras by BABEL

I recently found this "forgotten" album on a CDr in the studio archives. I put forgotten in quotes because I hadn't forgotten its existence, but its location was a mystery and, apparently, I didn't have much of a memory of the actual music.

I remembered being proud of it at the time and my friend Stephen saying it was the best thing I'd done but for some reason I got cold feet about releasing it. Which is somewhat curious because Stephen was right, compared to some of the half-assed experiments I was flooding the local section at record store with, it’s far and away the best thing I produced during that period—late 2005 or sometime in 2006.

Listening to it now, I'm floored. It is exactly what I wanted BABEL to be then and exactly what I tried to do with the project years later. It seems I had a flash of inspiration and then in a self-sabotaging fugue state, I buried this album and any memory of the recently acquired composition and production techniques. I'm glad I kept a CDr. I have a vague recollection of feeling shy about sharing music I thought might be seen as overly pretentious by my local indie-rock peers, and simultaneously that serious composers wouldn't take me seriously and I'd be laughed out of the club. I felt at the time I had no right to dip a toe in these hallowed waters. Which is complete hogwash, but it’s the best theory I have right now.

1999-2017. Percussive ambience, electro-acoustics, and extended technique guitar drones by Jakob Rehlinger.