"LIVE YOUR BEST FACTORY LIFE is about tensions that persist:
physical frictions, muscles trying, and the body that continues to labor to survive.
Surviving – “living” – is obviously not without effort.
It’s a very present, physical and emotional state of being, that, even as it may externally appear somewhat static or passive, there are so many active complications and complexities happening internally, and all of this invisible labor of various stresses, anxieties, and pain, are not at all seen from the outside.
Throughout this album, volume becomes a physical and nuanced medium to slowly and sculpturally carve out affective spaces for contemplation, unease, and desire.
Over the course of three tracks, textures are gradually nudged into other spatial extremes.
Soft becomes shrill and prickly,
initial dampness becomes a long, lingering mutedness,
smooth flurries become subtly uneasy,
and a sudden overwhelming becomes warm and droning.
“imagining entering (but will leave you to it)” is a kind of limbo, a holding of time to consider new perspectives and unknowns, and to contemplate new decisions and formulate new questions. This limbo is a straining space for independent, quietly rigorous reflection.
“the structures that are set in place” is a steadily growing and shifting feedback loop in the mind. This is the “this is the way it is” situation in which one is presented with the sole task of surviving in an unsustainable environment. It is eerily smooth, unnoticeable / familiar (yet somewhat sinister), and quietly crushing / quietly violent. One wouldn’t even know.
“braiding and unbraiding repeatedly day after day” is a call for some amount of hope, derived from who knows where: real or delusional emotional connection? (and does it matter?)
In moving from present to tomorrow, to new present and new tomorrow, time feels perpetually heavy and light. I think this kind of movement, day after day, is expressive of a desire to heal, another invisible task that can only happen over time. To desire to heal is to resist the structures that are set in place. With healing, I want to ultimately feel and believe – one day – that in every moment there is both life and death.
Please play this album at full volume, with good speakers, in a nice room."
– CP
credits
released April 11, 2018
Composed, recorded, and mixed by Caroline Park in Vancouver, BC
Mastered by Jason Lescalleet at Glistening Labs USA
supported by 23 fans who also own “Live Your Best Factory Life”
So soothing! So ominous. A warning siren for someone, but not you. This is a drone I can return to endlessly, knowing that it will calm me and give me some focus. Mister Meows
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