Key
2023
Candor is the first release by Key, which contains mainly lyrical pieces; a departure from previous albums under the Perpetual Emotion Machine moniker which were mostly focused on electronic instrumental works, and where lyrical and vocal content was a secondary consideration.
For Candor, I have collected many unfinished pieces from past years, some delving back to the early 1990s, and brought them forward to showcase songwriting and lyrics. It is an area of my work that I have not focused on as I had mistakenly believed this these things were not my forte. I have corrected my thinking on this and consciously moved to develop for this project.
In some ways, Candor is a rethinking of a previous project concept, which was a Perpetual Emotion Machine album called The Worry Box. This album was first conceived in 2014 after a series of life-altering events which caused a surge of creativity resulting in several works of poetry and prose, some of which eventually morphed into song concepts. These are represented on the album by Outside, Not Alone, and If.
Some tracks have been repurposed from other areas of my work, such as the beginning and end tracks of the album, Futility / Fertility, and the ambitious vocal rendition of Kaleigh’s Song from 2007, now entitled Potes Dormire.
Some tracks, like 100 and Every Second Counts are based on very old songs of mine, written even before I had a method of recording them. And still others are completely new compositions, such as Showing Me.
Linked together in sequence, Candor is a raw retelling of the last 10 years of a life: the losses endured, the lessons learned, and most importantly, how I came to still be standing here.