From two messages posted by a friend of mine on Twitter, I posited that Existential Eureka Moments in the Seismic Context Shift would make a good fake title for a Guided By Voices album. I’ve since grown an attachment to the phrase and will use it on something for Eponymous 4 instead.
Is it hazardous to have a title before an actual idea?
From Acadia to Zenith, another title I’ve vowed to turn into an Eponymous 4 project, sounds great, but now I have to contemplate what kind of work would be suitable for it. Perhaps I’m putting the cart before the proverbial horse.
Existential Eureka Moments in the Seismic Context Shift almost sounds like a greatest hits collection, though.
As of this writing, I’m juggling these ideas for future Eponymous 4 endeavors:
- A collaboration with my friend Double-A, code named Eponymous 4 × Sharazad, where she writes lyrics and I write music to them. Three lyrics have been done so far. Gotta follow-up to see any more are in the works.
- A second string quartet, perhaps even a third. I want to gauge how far I’ve gotten as a writer in the 20-some odd years since my first quartet.
- From Acadia to Zenith, most likely the follow-up to 「健忘症」, making it the second album of entirely newly-written material.
- Existential Eureka Moments in the Seismic Context Shift is a project of an undetermined nature, although the more I think about it, the more it feels archival.
At some point I’m going to have to stop fantasizing and get to work.
[UPDATE, 3/5/2008, 2:45 pm] I’ve always wanted to write a piece for the instrumentation of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (clarinet, cello, keyboard, electric guitar, bass, drums), and I’ve always thought Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand had the vague feel of a long-form classical piece. Since Existential Eureka Moments in the Seismic Context Shift strikes me as a fake Guided By Voices album title, I figure that’s my starting point for such a piece.
Now the question is whether I can pull something like this off.