Other Things by Ariel My Friend

released December 8, 2024

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒍𝒆𝒔
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒍𝒆𝒔
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒍𝒆𝒔
1. How do you make a wet frying pan dry faster, using only water?
(Answer is hidden in the song More & More Extreme)

2. How do you collect more than the maximum capacity of cocoa powder in a teaspoon?
(Answer is hidden in the song Sufjan Stevens)

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𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 7 𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘶𝘮?

§§§

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒐
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒐
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒐
OMG. It's here. The moment I've all been waiting for.
I'm finally releasing my lovely, lovely album Other Things; an art-rock-psychedelic-pop-symphonic-indietronica beast of a passion project that has slowly come into being over the past 9 years or so. I love it with the entirety of my heart + some veins around it.
I feel like it truly represents the AMF of our era, encompassing most of my best melodies, sounds, words and ideas from the past decade. My friend Lee once described my musical genre as “Ariel's-soul music”, and I think this album is the epitome of that.

I've even learned to live with the fact that it's a very long album. 79:33 minutes. A lot of info. I used to dislike this fact; it was not my intention to create something “immense” and difficult to process, this is simply how it came out, but at some point I realized, like, the bible is also long, right? And this is a bible for me in a way. It's a representation of my being, and I need more than 40 minutes to explain my self (separation intended).

Back in ~2014 I had the notion of creating a totally screwy album, in a way that every song would be made so that it's completely free to go wherever it wants. Specifically mixing-wise: to be free to do unconventional stuff like extreme panning, abrupt pauses, and any crazy editing idea that comes to mind - and all the while having pretty, pretty melodies within those songs. I guess this is when the general concept of the album was born.

During the process of making the album, what I had in the back of my mind, and what I was somehow stirring towards, was basically an album which I would enjoy every part of, from beginning to end. Parts that I don't sincerely love would be pointless. I guess that's also why it took so long to complete, there was no rush to come up with stuff, and I wouldn't want to force myself to do so. This is how parts that are not sincere would be created, and this is not what I'd wish for this album (and for my music in general).

The story of the album's title and cover art is a bit funny. While every song on this album is meticulously engineered to the tiniest of details, the title and cover art were both born out of plain spontaneous circumstance.
It started with the cover art. Sometime in 2017, my friend Dodo and I were pondering over the Monty Hall problem. While doing so, I opened the Microsoft Paint program on the computer and drew these 3 doors, to half-jokingly visualize the problem for fun. I found a liking in the drawing and saved it on the computer.
During that time, I created a temporary album on Bandcamp, to upload random things I finish to, later to be sorted into different albums. Since it was just an oddball collection of songs, which appeared next to my 3 finished albums released at that time, I appropriately named it ‘Other Things’. Over the years, it gathered the following songs:
Unicorn Statuettes (April 4, 2017)
Picture on My Wall (December 24, 2017)
Loneliness (March 18, 2018)
Our Sorry Love Story (May 16, 2018)
It's the 50's Again (January 13, 2017)
Paranois\d (January 6, 2017)
Spelling Bee (October 10, 2017)
Penguin (December 14, 2018)
The Transgender Tailor Who Died in Saudi Custody (April 4, 2019)
Safe Confusion Sea (June 8, 2019)
Bad Times Sex (November 28, 2019)
Chauvinist Bastard (February 25, 2020)
The Rest You Need (March 19, 2020)

When I had to choose a cover art for this temporary collection of songs, the first folder that opened was the same folder that contained my MS Paint drawing of the doors - I would guess it was “My Documents” - and so it was chosen. Eventually, despite being picked arbitrarily, both the name and cover art stuck, and were kept for the eventual album.

𝘼𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙡 𝙈𝙮 𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙 - composition, lyrics, vocals, electronic & acoustic drums, electric & acoustic bass, electric & acoustic guitar, percussion, banjo, recording, sampling, production, cover art, riddles.
𝙇𝙤𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙠𝙚 𝙉𝙞𝙟𝙥𝙚𝙡𝙨 - additional vocals on More & More Extreme, How to Safely Hang Something Heavy from the Ceiling and That Ceren Song.
𝙍𝙚𝙮𝙍𝙚𝙮 - additional vocals on Bad Times Sex and opera vocals on That Ceren Song.
𝙈𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩 (𝙈𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝘾𝙝𝙞𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙮𝙤-𝙉𝙩𝙪𝙗𝙞) - gospel vocals on That Ceren Song.
𝙂𝙖ë𝙡𝙡𝙚 - gospel vocals on That Ceren Song.
𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙜 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙜'𝙨 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙮𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙎𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚, 𝙄𝙣𝙘. - handyman voice on How to Safely Hang Something Heavy from the Ceiling.
𝙊𝙙𝙞𝙣 𝙂𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙙𝙞 𝙆𝙞𝙥𝙣𝙞𝙨 - childish voice sample on More & More Extreme and That Ceren Song.
𝙍𝙤𝙚𝙮 𝙊𝙙𝙞𝙣 - childish voice sample on More & More Extreme and That Ceren Song.

Mastered by 𝙅𝙤𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙩 & 𝙅𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣 𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞 at 𝙅𝙤𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙩 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜, New York.


𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼
𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼
𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼
𝘾𝙝𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙚 (& 𝘾𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙥𝙝 𝙈ü𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧), for being the perfect place for rehearsing and recording music.

𝘿𝙤𝙙𝙤 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙙, for getting me through the most dreadful times when my computer broke down (2023), for recording Odin's samples for me (2023), for helping me record percussive hits (2016), and for supporting me through the process with opinions on my mixes.
sadglad.bandcamp.com

𝙈𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙚𝙡 𝙂𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧, for recording Roey's samples for me, and supporting me through the process with opinions on my mixes.
michaelgl.bandcamp.com

𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙮 𝙇𝙚𝙤𝙣, for supporting me through the process with opinions on my mixes.
soundcloud.com/niyaabniaz

𝙈𝙖𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙏𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙯𝙨𝙘𝙝, for letting and helping me record the piano parts for My Apathy Glue and Monkey's Depressed at his studio.
abouttocollide.bandcamp.com

𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙤𝙜 𝙁𝙖𝙧, for letting and helping me record his modular synthesizer for Monkey's Depressed at his place.
morog-far.bandcamp.com

𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙜 from 𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙜'𝙨 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙮𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙎𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚, 𝙄𝙣𝙘., for letting me use the recording of our phone call in How to Safely Hang Something Heavy from the Ceiling.
www.dougshandymanserviceinc.com