Nascence and Child
designation: Opus 1 No. 1
Release Date: 10.30.2007
TRACK LIST
Click on a track for details.
Album Cover: "Beginning" - A.L. Ashbaugh
1. "Tear It Down" - Carpentron
2. "Don't Start" - Nick P
3. "First & Last Love" - Gene 'Noizepunk' Pritsker
4. "If At Last" - Joshua Wentz
5. "Resign Yourself" - Wendy Waves
6. "Prevails, Despite Diminishing Resources" - Lea+Enrôl Yon
7. "The Tay River Pearl" - Sheri Bauer-Mayorga
8. "Begin Again" - Maddy and Nancy
Listen to The Sample Suite!
When you buy this album, you get a CD, the cover art parallelogram, and a code to download the digital single MP3s for free.
ALBUM THEME
The theme of this album is "beginnings": the dawn, the pioneers, the flash of a newborn star. It is the point of origin, the genesis of some thing yet unknown. It is the first step down that shadowed path, into that hitherto undiscovered land. It is all of these things. Or it is none of them. What it is had been left up to these Very Us Artists. And now it is up to you—how you interpret these creations. The calm has broken, and the storm is upon us. Nascence and Child has emerged.
This is square one, where it all begins, that place to which we can never return...not truly, not ever quite the same. What lies herein explores the concept of beginnings, innocent, insular or singular. The Very Us Artists has cracked open the board and laid out the pieces. Roll the dice or draw a card. The next move is yours.
THE DETAILS
Album Cover: "Beginning" by A.L. Ashbaugh
"The possibilities seemed endless when it came to creating an image to suit the rather epic theme of "beginnings." I wanted to create an image that would play around with the ideas of the origins of life: the nebulous environment reminiscent of the "Big Bang" and the formation of galaxies and star systems; the female figure, a sort of "spirit of creation", a nurturing entity or perhaps even a muse; the tree sapling representing the potential for growth." —A. L. Ashbaugh
1. "Tear It Down" by Carpentron (click here to sample)
Chris Torgersen: almost everything
John LaSala: mixing and a bit of post-production
"Tear It Down" addresses the need to destroy in order to pave the way for creation. It presents four characters who find themselves caught in frustrating life cycles that they need to dismantle their worlds in order to build their lives differently. By beginning anew, we learn from the mistakes of our past." —Chris Torgersen
Chris thanks John LaSala for help with production and mixing.
2. "Don't Start" by Nick P (click here to sample)
Nick Patron: everything, I tell you! EVERYTHING!!
"The lyrics, quite transparently, tell the story of a relationship that is slowly crumbling, despite mutual affection. The idea was to construct the backing track purely out of music composed during the imagined timeframe of the relationship. This worked rather nicely, utilising material both from digital and four-track analogue days, though I mainly ended up stealing whole hooks, as opposed to using tiny samples and building it up piece-by-piece. It fits in with the theme by virtue of the narrator imagining a fresh, but nerve-racking new start, post-relationship." —Nick Parton
Thanks to Sarah for her patience.
3. "First & Last Love" by Gene 'Noizepunk' Pritsker (click here to sample)
Gene 'Noizepunk' Pritsker: guitars, rap, synth
David Banks: vocals
"The song is about lasting love, how your first love can be the one that lasts forever and be also your last love. On an album that emphasize beginnings, a lasting love can be translated into a lasting project. I wrote the song to propose to my wife. At our wedding we danced to a big band/crooner version of it as our first dance. For me it has worked as a lasting love song and I hope its contribution to this album is as successful as my marriage." —Gene Pritsker
Thanks to my wife Kim. I proposed with this song to her and it worked.
4. "If At Last" by Joshua Wentz (click here to sample)
"This track sheds some new light on one of my earliest pieces, when I was just beginning to compose my own music. The original version was entirely computer generated and outputted via the dreadful MIDI instruments from a Gateway PC, circa 1996!" —Joshua Wentz
Thanks to my college roommates for putting up with a full-size keyboard in our already cramped space. Thankfully, since then I have moved into more auspicious digs.
5. "Resign Yourself" by Wendy Waves (click here to sample)
"*Whew* glad that's over! Can't wait until the next one!" —Wendy Mittelstadt
6. "Prevails, Despite Diminishing Resources" by Lea+Enrôl Yon (click here to sample)
Enrôl: lyrics and vocals
Lea: intrumentation
"As each day begins, I am reminded of how it always will end."—Enrôl Yon
7. "The Tay River Pearl" by Sheri Bauer-Mayorga (click here to sample)
Sheri: music and lyrics
John LaSala: mixing and post-production
"The chaos, bumps, thorns, knots, and grit one encounters while living on the planet seem to be the fuel that propels us into seeing our existence with greater clarity. A revelation or an inspiration is often proceeded by turbulence, a question, a dilemma; anything that gets under the skin. A pearl of nature led me to a new pearl of insight. I met a jewelry maker in Scotland who lived near the Tay River. I was telling her about a walk I took the night before along the Tay. The water was rough and dark; worthy of a stage set for MacBeth. Hearing this, she pulled out a tackle box with her jewelry making tools, poked around, and began to unfold a small piece of velvet. Inside was a pearl she had purchased from a Scottish Travelor ("gypsies" to Yankees). The pearl was cut in half and the luminous outer coating surrounded a tiny, tiny speck of Tay River dirt. I began to imagine the oyster working under the dark waters to extract this annoying speck of earth while producing this precious pearl. Suddenly, I was on a new bit of internal ground myself and something inside said, "aha!" This song was the residue of a moment I think back on often; moments when I'm in the thick of it." —Sheri Bauer-Mayorga
Thanks to John LaSala for patiently guiding me closer to musical life in the modern world and making it look like fun.
8. "Begin Again" by Maddy and Nancy (click here to sample)
Maddy and Nancy Posner: everything
John LaSala: mixing and post-production
"This song was written for the album's theme. It happened to be a perfect fit for us since we have recently made a lot of changes in our lives and in a lot of ways feel as though we're starting over. So our recent life experiences are without a doubt a great source of our inspiration. Sometimes beginnings are a scary place to be, but new experiences are essential to grow and "learn what to hold on to." So thanks to VUA we have already begun again!" —Maddy and Nancy
We would like to thank our mom, the Chrises and their families, our brother Paul and his family, Aunt Audrey, Annabelle, Marta and Ruth, our good friends Kristi, Erin, Maria, Sarah, Aida, Jim and Jena, Ritchie and Silvana, the NJ Twinnies (Joan and Trisha), Maddy's good-natured boss Dave, and the VUA staff (Kate, Chris and John). We're also thankful for the time that we worked with the current members of Blackmore's Night and crew, thanks to all the fans (this also includes previous BN members Tina and Bob)! And of course anyone who has supported us all along. Please feel free to scold us if we did not include your names since we had to keep this brief.
