"It begins at the end, but what that means is relative.
Let's go around again..."

Much like Majora's Mask, this EP is not only a side-story - to borrow the Japanese word, a "gaiden" - it's a self-contained loop. Its purpose is more thematic than it is plot-driven. It's a bottle episode narrative, a little vignette off to the side, that serves to further flesh out the grand plan, illuminate the big picture.

Mostly I got the idea from smoking a lot of weed and watching Loki Season 2 - Tom Hiddleston is just electric, honestly...

"Vandal Hearts" is the first song on the record and the last on it to be written. It's an ode to feeling your feelings, even if they're unpleasant things you think you shouldn't like bitterness or resentment - it's an exhumation of past instances of holding your tongue when maybe you shouldn't have, and not keeping your emotions at arm's length. The initial riff and structure were written in late 2022, with the lyrics being finalized a few minutes before the vocal take in the spring of 2023.

"Opine" dates back to the summer of 2016 where the initial riff and the phrase "I Dreamt You Caught A Long Wind Home" were coined. It was originally written on an electric oil-can ukulele that I had to abandon in Newfoundland on my way to Europe that Fall. I later finished the song in 2018 after I moved to Montreal, and it's very simply about being separated by distance from someone you love. Having vivid dreams about being reunited, only to wake up and find you're still in a sort of aimless purgatory of waiting.

"Time's Altar" was also written upon moving back to Montreal in 2018 and started off as a completely improvised track set to the backing beat of playing a pocketful of change with a lot of reverb, looped on a BOSS vocal pedal. What came out of that was the phrase, "I'd find a way to alter time," which stuck with me and became the crux of the song. A few months later, while just absentmindedly jamming on guitar, I just kind of fell into playing what would become the main riff of this song, and it all just weirdly locked into place.

Overall, I think of the record as a repeating cycle of mistakes, a journey of self exploration that's kind of cobbled together after the fact.

Insight in hindsight.

A lot of this record is an examination of time travel from the lens of manic regret and self-interest, it's not "if you could change time, would you?" it's "if you could change time... SHOULD you?"

I think a lot of time travel narratives miss touching on the inherent selfishness inherent in the act of time travel, and I thought it was really interesting to dig into that from an angle of desperation - you absolutely NEED to find a way to fix something, universe be damned. It's interesting how in science fiction media, the answer is always "don't make this mistake in the first place," instead of growing, learning, and changing from this mistake.

It's the ultimate easy way out.

However, in the end, sometimes the only way to truly fix something is to get through it.

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Vandal Hearts
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The evening's coming strong, just stringing us along, with excavators flying through this rubble, screaming, "I gave it up, I gave it up, I tried..."

The evening's ringing on, with fortune's faded psalms creaking, like a newborn wailing, I've been sailing, drowning, failing all this loathsome life.

I slept beneath that haunted garden, seething praying far too long.

I've strung up ivy, bent and broken, fortune's fading for too long, I'd wait for the evening running on, still stringing us along, the excavators flying through that rubble, screaming, "You gave it up, you gave it up... I tried."

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Opine
---

I dreamt you caught a long wind home, wrapped up in pine and honeycomb.

I know you searched the whole world high, now roll the die.

I dreamt you caught a long wind home, wrapped up in pine and honeycomb.

I dreamt you searched the whole world dry, and I'd squander lies.

Try to run but it runs farther, I packed up and headed off alone.

Try to run it but it runs farther, I packed up and headed back east again on my own.

I dreamt you caught a long wind home, wrapped up in pine and honeycomb.

You know I drank that whole world dry.

But I... I...

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Time's Altar
---

Well Autumn leaves, just like you would.
You're a flock of feathers, an open wound.

The seas are pounding, and you're hounding me.
I'm delirious, but, delicately.

And each little offer of time grew softer and died.

Swore I'd find a way to alter time.

Speak to me.
Speak through me.
It's Boolean, baby, and I'm already yours.

Swore I'd find a way to the altar of time.

Find a way.