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not a debut album

by anxiety superstar

supported by
Nick Demers
Nick Demers thumbnail
Nick Demers I wish I was this prolific, damn. a firehose of good ideas, emotions crystallized out of fleeting moments as they arise; the immediacy of this is fascinating and beautiful. well done! Favorite track: chef eats fingers, forgets how to kiss, cannot love (3/1).
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1.
If Kids Health Canada tells us to fall down a well, well we are jumping. "Measure half a teaspoon of salt" Is that breathing or boiling? We could be sleeping, but Amanda's bed sucks. And we could be dreaming but really of what? I hear rain like a pepper shaker spitting on a student's folder. I feel an imminent twitching from the inside of another's shoulder. And in the morning, the contact makes you blink. Eyes are salty — totally only yours.
2.
I saw you took your twitter private. Is everything okay? Could catch some sales at the market, figure out a meal for us and make it. I saw you took your twitter private — is everything okay? If you just need some quiet, shoot a text and I'll vacate. I saw you took your twitter private. Is everything okay? We could take some food to the living room and stream something stupid as long as everyone's away I saw you took your twitter private — is everything okay? If you need anything you can name, you can ask. And if four or five years from now we don't see or think of each other but we're both okay, that's okay.
3.
I'm gonna take a lunch and not eat just to walk as many steps as I can, dodge the freedom trail and never wait for anything. My headphones cover my ears and don't play anything at all. Don't try to talk to me — I'll improvise a rhythmic nodding. North doesn't exist! There's no sun and there is spinning! These streets don't lead anywhere and that's fine for returning. Now I push the traffic button, hear the 'wait,' and keep on walking. Do pedestrian things, and don't dare think of anything. You're not paid any extra for processing or given time for regenerating. So do pedestrian things. A thruway's always closed near State Street. A green scaffold blankets my work building. I'm not hiding; I'm just leaving, and being more myself. Doing pedestrian things and not daring to Think of anything with a capital T. Anything but working. Walk all the way to the seaport — you don't even have to look at the sea! You can breathe little a salt as a treat.
4.
Had my kitchen rearranged so I can't find anything. Allegedly it's clean. It's definitely confusing. I don't know what to bring to this potluck, and I'm the only person going. "Watch how hot sauce is made," I definitely couldn't. "Pick a recipe," you know I wouldn't. All opportunities you overcook them or underseason. People cut themselves most on dull knives forcing the thing to seem right. I think I'm a dull knife.
5.
I'm trying not to sleep much because my dreams have been getting weird. I mean life's been weird, of course. I thought I saw someone on the train who couldn't be there and at least I knew they couldn't be real. I don't have anything to say. Don't worry, I don't. What even is there but a widening gap between specific plans and where I am, who I am with and how I get there? I don't have anything to say. Don't worry, I don't have anything. Amanda dreams of water and McKinley dreams of trees. I dream I go to the wrong job, get yelled at, and deserve everything. Amanda dreams of water and clothes and McKinley dreams of trees and fire and I go out to the wrong job and can't get right anything.
6.
Okay — weatherproof, black + flat – give me something stompy, front-laced and sturdy enough to crush leaves and puddles. Whatever as needed. Obstacles, any + all. Useful is the fashion. Let me feel super intense. Let me feel powerful ! Let me stomp !!! Obstacles, any + all, whatever as needed. Useful is the fashion. Useful !!!! Flats, grant me solidity and ceasefire this yearning.
7.
Writing 'cause I won't see you later — the boy eats a pizza slice the size of his face. It's messy! It's messy, the wait at State. Pigeons scatter in droves but also not very far at all. Gotta tap into that energy! That smol pigeon energy! You left wings behind! I know there's nothing new in this construct. You already saw it, like watching a rerun, but we can still be awestruck. We can still be awestruck when you left wings behind! I hung them on the wall.
8.
[don't commit to this bit] Fucked Jude Law in a dream — high on flu, shivering on a boat charity fundraising party thing. Fell into some blue deep; screamed and sneezed. Cut the fruit. Rip the piece. You know you need to bring something. Hands are cold; water's red. Skin will float; eat the rest.
9.
Send me to a supermarket to buy coffee for your house. I don't know what any of these words mean. You let your phone die again, so I have to guess how your roommates like caffeine. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. Y'all need pourover to get up. My sister's dog needs Klonopin. It's just hard to live — it's a given. But the more you let me in, the more I want to be let in. The feedback loop's insidious, and i love it. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. I've never had coffee. I've never smoked weed. I'm afraid of painkillers. I'm afraid of liking anything. I didn't even drink until my mid-twenties but I wasn't better at anything. I wasn't even a person I liked being. I couldn't change the feedback loops I craved and still crave. We are all addicted to drugs. We are all addicted to drugs. Right now I am buying some for your roommates, and I will leave them by the sink. And I will drive home to my suburb. I will have access to basic needs and feel like I'm missing something and be saving up being happy for the next time that you're with me, and I will work, oh I will work! to make it soon.
10.
Sunrise came and went and everything was miserable. I took a stupid photo of the sun. It's not beautiful; I'm not beautiful. It is strong; I'm not. It's not beautiful; I'm not beautiful. It is strong; I'm not. It is strong. I'm not. But Jesus fucking Christ, how we both can glare. I took a selfie series at the cemetery by the KFC. It started as a joke and got increasingly sad. I vibed with this tombstone from the 1800s, leaned against it, thought about how nothing else was here back then. It's not beautiful; I'm not beautiful. It is strong; I'm not. It's not beautiful; I'm not beautiful, but it is strong; I'm not. It is strong. I'm not. You can get a Ph.D in anything. Just sell away your twenties and thirties. A heat death is coming, but don't worry: something else is gonna take you way early. Eat Arby's.
11.
The grim reaper always kills humans with the weight of their pasts, but I heard he smothers humans now with the weight of their past plastic shopping bags. I hope we get assigned to the same circle of hell. I want to wear leggings. I want to sleep like shit on your bunk bed again.
12.
You're bored at work. Can you stare out a window and drive yourself away from there? ****'s out — no one will care. I leave my body all the time!! Then, I'm not anywhere. Yeah you're right, it's a waste, but you got up today on a Thursday and traveled there. It's not nothing.
13.
im sick of nature and dont want to write about it i dragged my body three miles and didnt see anything nothing passed by me or acknowledged me at all nothing no point in moving what the fuck am i supposed to feel what squirrel should i connect to softer earth is just dirt easily pushed i squeezed my hand into my pocket as hard I as could for as long as I could and read old signs sharing dead lost cats can't touch the river's water let alone drink it im not gonna sing about the forest or care about the birds no moon no sky try to convince me
14.
I got up to refill my waterbottle to have something to do, tried to make the most of every knee-bend. I'm gonna look back at this version of my life and probably see it differently, use alternate labeling, be perceptive in ways that I'm currently blind. I don't make the rules or follow them all the time. My shoes are wearing out and I'm getting ready to toss them. Something about my posture eats the fronts. Maybe I lean forward more than the average biped mover. Maybe I get exhausted thinking something about hope. I tried to talk about my life at my catch-up dinner with James but struggled to find conflict.
15.
16.
I didn't ever think of that; sorry about any pain that sprang from the gap. "Raise your hand if you've been an idiot." We all raise our hands. A suit, no suit of armor. Slippers don't stop slips. I didn't ever think of that. Sorry about any pain that sprang from the gap. "Raise your hand if you've been an idiot." We all raise our hands.
17.
It's a 7-minute drive or a 90-minute walk. You know the one I coupled with. I couldn't sit in my skin, and I couldn't escape it. I was a dry-felt approximation of human. I need science fiction. I need escapism, so sing out a rhythm. Something different. Sing anything and make me listen. You have my permission. So when everything started getting hit by rain, it felt correct. It felt correct, the getting pelted.
18.
Car sick + throat sick + sick sick, exhausted, and overwhelmed by focusing on sound. We agree Kanye’s gospel album both goes and is weirdly paternal. So crack the window + breathe + be to yourself what you are to me. Crack the window + breathe + be to yourself what you are to me, what you are to me. And sans a waterbottle, I’ll improvise + scrounge. I take an empty seltz + rinse it out, pour the water out of the can + refill the can with water. "We’re all water!" right? Watch the green chess + lean + I’ll try to do for you what you do to me. Or play the green chess and lean + I'll try to be for you what you are to me. Kanye cares a lot. like too much about the thing in the way that’s real and also kinda offputting. There is a comparison to be made [I’m not making].
19.
Imagine talking and never wanting to stop. March me to the shower, keep the field recorders on. This is not over. Can't be washed off. I'll clean out your storage unit with your stink in my cloths. So schedule the last hurrahs that mimic first hurrahs, but don't count the hurrahs. Don't make them quantitative. Put off the last hurrahs. Block them with more hurrahs, and stack up all the hurrahs — climb them, look down, don't shake. There is an internet and i'm gonna fucking use it! A daydream in my head — I won't fucking lose it though it shifts, as it must. Invite me to your funeral, come back from the dead. Call it a last hurrah that spins off more hurrahs, even angry hurrahs that let us argue drag-out like we care. Fuck these last hurrahs. I ordered more hurrahs, rush-shipped the hurrahs to flats in two countries so deal. I don't know what they look like; their quality will improve over time in the way you fucker fucked up my life.
20.
Turn your wrist to grab my hand! I don't think i'll want it back, even if the spacing's bad and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Tagalong but no goodbye[s], fit me somewhere in your life. 'Cause all the spots we occupy well they work, they work, they work! I always want to help you out even when i don't know how. You can select any route — let's walk and walk and walk! My sister helps at the pet shelter, walks as many dogs as possible. But every time the shift wraps up: the pull — again, again, again again, again, again again, again, again again, again, again. Again, again, again!!

about

In the year 2019, the human behind Anxiety Superstar — ****(*) — wrote 130 songs. Here’s what that process looks like:

1) get an idea
2) fumble around
3) play as many versions of the song as possible until it grows legs and can walk
4) record live version(s) on cellphone
5) listen to them incessantly to arrange them for ‘the album’
6) presumably plan ‘the album’
7) never record the album

It’s a regular thing. But nothing’s regular anymore in the time of COVID-19. Inspired by the many many musicians panic-dumping their all odds and ends on a Friday where the Bandcamp gods would forgo their revenue cut, I pulled together some of my favorite quick recordings of tracks that will grace one of 5 (!!!!!) planned Anxiety Superstar LPs in 2020 or thereabouts, mixed them so they [mostly] didn’t sound like I recorded them on the couch straight to a Pixel 3a, and sequenced them into this unit. It’s, well, not a debut album.~

But it is an album, or a project, or a mixtape, or a playlist. It’s joyful (“walkable dogs”) and sad (“a binding, an isaac”) and anxious (“no mouth”) and dryly humorous (“comparative literature”) and hopeful (“something about hope”) and bleak (“god said no”) and in love (“improvised contact solution,” “empty seltz,” “love you,” et. al.). It is, very occasionally, a bit odd (“possibly meant”) and slightly profane (“pomegranate”). And it has a lot of feelings (“hurrahs”), some sharp and unexpected writing (“drugs”), and a secretly deep bag of singalongs (“stompy boots,” “…five years?”) for when we can all be in the same room again.

Stay safe and healthy. Stay in. And learn all these songs now, so you can play them in the car with your homies later.



[~be on the lookout for, in no particular order, G** S*** N*, I* A****, P***g*****, I H**** H*******’*, and L**’* M*** E******* P******* *n* K***.]

credits

released March 23, 2020

thank you thank you thank you:

AJL and MMT for a truly wild, heart-filling, important half-year;
NA and NY and FM for the jamming;
JCI for the leadership and friendship;
LR/EU/JRK&S?/MT/ND/JK/KW/CL/Bummer City Team;
(E)M because duh of course and also you are my UK street team, surprise;
EM/GN/MK/EC for being Friends Who Text Back;
CRM for being Inspiring At Music but also Normal And Good;
GG and AK(?) for being authentically nice and supportive at the gig on 3/7;
anyone who has directly or indirectly supported a show I've played;
MCtheProfessor.GOV;
anyone who knows the most off-brand definition of the word caper;
team Chess Co. in Rockland, where several of these songs were written;
the 6B open mic, rest in piece forever;
the tuning DADEAD for being darkly funny but also resonant;
my employer, don't link this to me hahahahaha;
bernie sanders;
anyone I omitted here, you are legion, and I appreciate you quite a lot.

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