Posted on: April 21, 2011 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Breaking up is hard to do, especially for androids. New Jersey’s Botanical Bullets first mp3, “Fantastic Romantic,” off their upcoming We Bleed Fluorescent, takes the idea of a tragic love song and moves it into a different realm. Not only do you get the android’s voice, sung by Jacob Conover, but you get the sound of him glitching, malfunctioning and finally dying. Jay Shah explains the inspiration for the song, “I got the idea about this song from watching Blade Runner. The song is about an android who kills himself due to a broken heart. He does not understand why his love interest (a human) left him and he seems to be stuck in a mode of not letting it go. Sort of how computers become obsolete when their purpose dies.” “Fantastic Romantic” is available now: http://glgpub.com/file_download/136/Botanical-Bullets-Fantastic-Romantic.mp3

Like all of the songs on We Bleed Fluorescent, “Fantastic Romantic” is full of ingeniously layered synths, brought together to create something fresh and new. “We sampled an old soul song and gave it a whole new life by adding layers of synth and reverb,” says Shah. “You will hear a glitch on the vocal in the first verse which was done to sort of emulate a malfunctioning robot. The second half of the song is layered with synths which go slightly loud to extremely loud and noisy to make it sound like a robot dying.”

No sound remains untouched on We Bleed Fluorescent. “I am inspired by finding ways in which to manipulate sounds such as taking a toy synthesizer and running it into a fuzz and reverb pedal to create a giant wall of ambient abrasive sound,” says Shah. “I want to explore what sounds can be when they are manipulated.” And explore he does; from the crunchy handclaps on “Fantastic Romantic” to the culture clash of sounds on “You Times Two”, there’s a plethora of sonic landscapes to tromp around in.

Having a studio and the production expertise to do this kind of exploring is key to Botanical Bullets’ sound. “We work out of Jay’s studio. I think we work there best,” says Conover. “Because we are developing our sound and it’s more intimate there and cost effective since we both have the technical know-how to record ourselves and do our own mixes.”

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