Influences
Underworld, “Banstyle/Sappys Curry” (and loads of their other work around 1996, like “Cherry Pie,” and maybe also “Moaner,” even though I don’t care much for that song)
Faithless, “Salva Mea” (also from 1996)
Deftones, “Change (In the House of Flies)” (not from 1996, but also not far away from 1996)
Baz Luhrmann, “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Suncreen)” (famously not from 1996. Still…)
Story
This one’s self-aware that it’s odd. It’s odd by design.
It didn’t start odd. The eventual “guitar” hook (it’s a Juno-6 run through various Orange amps) was for a song I was making in hopes a particular singer would want to be involved. As I developed the track – intentionally in a dark, trance-ish spot given the intended guest – it kept wanting to be chromatically unusual. In particular, settling on pad chords that kept ascending but only resolving once every 30 seconds set a tense tone that I liked a lot.
The song ended up just staying with me, and at that point I wasn’t sure what it would do. Then midway through, after I’d developed a very ambient breakdown with a hyper lead (maybe this owes something to Tiesto’s/BT’s “Love Comes Again”), I did my usual thing: figure out how to recombine existing parts in new ways. And when I did, it’s where “Banstyle/Sappys Curry” became the template (it’s one of my single favorite templates), with a half-speed thing that reused my guitar sounds for some sludgy, faux-alt-metal good times. It even led to bringing out an old favorite from my guitar-playing days – an E-bow lead! Except it’s not actually one; I used a guitar sound in Pigments and played with some settings to give it that sound like you’ve just changed frets or strings.
Having this three-part twisting epic but wanting vocals on it meant I was leaving a daunting task for any potential vocalist. There’s no melodic room in the first third, it wasn’t even clear that vocals should be there, and who knew what the rest would be for? Enter Rose Alaimo, a wonderful friend and better-known musician who’s done great session work on other electronic songs while primarily being in the alt-rock/power pop area for her own work. I knew she’d be one of the few who even understood how this song made any sense, and she was happy to give it a go. At that point, we hadn’t decided who was writing lyrics or devising a concept or anything like that; she just said she was booked for awhile on that kind of creative input (versus singing something I wrote).
So I wrote what turned into my lyrics – a fauxlosophical musing about the phrase “time heals all wounds” that seemed like it fit the song mood – and didn’t know where to go from there.
Then it happened.
It was a new episode of the John Cena/Nicole Byer-hosted reboot of “Wipeout.” One of the contestants, named Seb, said he’d spend his half of the $25,000 prize money to take Nicole on a date. They had fun with this notion through the episode, but it was obviously a bit silly. But he won the episode! And when he won, he formally asked Nicole, who was standing there as a host/commentator, on a date. He managed to slip in a deep-cut reference to a joke she made the prior season about making potato dinners out of three types of potato products. He shot his shot.
She said yes in a “why not?” kind of way. John looked at her like she was making an “It’s-your-life-but” mistake. She gave Seb her actual email address to set this up.
At the end of the episode, viewers received this update:
“Two weeks later…
Seb cried to a producer that he forgot Nicole’s email.
He could have found love, if only he had found a pen.”
To recap, he was on top of the world. He’d won a super-hard athletic competition, he got $12,500, and he landed his dream date. And he lost his dream date by not paying enough attention in the moment.
Since I’d already written some lyrics referring to jumping in the nearest pool of chaos, and I had been thinking for days on end on the uniqueness of Seb’s achievement-turned-regret, I used the Wipeout pool and Seb’s story to frame coming out of the pool of chaos. Combined with the tone of my first lyrics, that created a feeling of weirdly specific sage advice, like in “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen,” about actually wrapping up any healing you do – making sure you don’t get mostly healed and then undo it by running too fast into your next chapter.
I did a first draft and super-quick demo of the idea for these lyrics and sent it all to Rose. She liked the lyrics without any changes and came back with a super-sincere, k.d. lang vocal that both gave the song emotional depth while also sitting intriguingly with the daftness of the lyrics. You don’t get a slow, slightly country-fied grunge jam using “and/or” very often.
About that last verse: I’m using pool chlorine and the phrase “rub salt in the wound” to advise against becoming Lot’s wife from Genesis (hence the double meaning of testament). Contrary to all the art I saw in Sunday school, Lot’s wife didn’t become a pillar of salt by looking back as she was escaping Sodom. The angel made sure Lot’s family got where they were meaning to go. Then she looked back after she was safe, and then she became a pillar of salt. She was a body at physical rest, and her desire to look back (with fondness, seemingly) at her past was an emotional rest as well. And according to inertia, a body at rest stays at rest. So the “rest of your inertia” refers to that meaning of rest as well as meaning the remainder of that inertia.
Like I said, odd by design.
Lyrics
(My part)
Time heals all wounds
But entropy increases over time
One of those must be wrong,
Unless the way to move on is to plunge headlong into the nearest pool of chaos
(Rose’s part)
When you emerge
And life would give you lemonade
Dry your hands to prevent
All that came and then went
From ruining your chance to take the glass and drink it in, all in
Let the tears for your past –
However many there are –
Fall all the way to the ground,
Then, before you run around,
Maybe check for splash damage and/or puddles and/or attentive lifeguards
Water wets all wounds
And chlorine’s half a salt to rub it in
Watch your sodium
So that you don’t become
A pillar testament to drowning in the rest of your inertia
Some press about it
““Nearest Pool of Chaos” provides a longer, deeper experience, beginning with neoclassical synth arrangements before switching to strong acid electronic sounds. Despite its powerful form, the song has an ethereal character, showing Isleib’s particular attention to layers and musical cohesion.” – Skylight.gr
“Nearest Pool Of Chaos is a slowly revolving string whirlpool in search of Wiseblood’s ferocity, reconfigured for 2025’s dystopian nightmare of chaos happening before our disbelieving eyes. Then it shifts into a gauzed passage for Brandon to lead us through this chaos, hopefully towards a calm space, even as the gun reports can be heard timpanically, trying to create a new more Dune like existence.” – Whisperin and Hollerin
“Seeing Rose Alaimo guesting, the track is a source of tenebrific light and cold wave dissonance but at the same time a moment of obscure beauty with rays of electronic warmth veining its esoteric enterprise and mercurial drama and for us the album’s finest moment.” – Ringmaster Review
Final song: The Emotion Right in Front of Me
restlessmosaic.com 