shadowdog
by tirestires
listen (mp3):
after sex under parents
minutes in and chill meme // mature butthole prolapses inside-out // my basement scene #1
breaking apart baby monitor/potential recording device // my basement scene #2
unclogging roof drain on her // bare rests
valerian tea // underage on message board // mom tags herself viewing me in ultrasound // a vacation, apart
hiding seek at family reunion // drowning after sand burial // a vacation
breast feeding home movie // head indents ceiling, again // 50th mom birthday
wedding dress rehearsal after bachelor party/baby shower // morning nausea
carrying topical cream back home // elder crossing guard with fas
kissing after late party // awaiting torrent finish // sharing old haircut incites new haircut
(mirror) upload of ancient condom opening vlog // looking glasses reflecting off each other // my basement scene #3
pink eye // far from residential areas with phone and charger and eye drops and no purse and no pockets
pvr pregnant teens // before abstract tech support schedule // dad turns 50
sharing one-bed room // hotel bolts down all fixtures other than clock // a vacation
mommymommymommymommy // i text while driving communications between parents
girl next-door break-up nudes // international date site // my basement scene #4
shedding fur lit by dvd home menu snow // my basement scene #5
new suburb before streetlights // post-millennium/post-mom-move
holiday in house with kids // pre-millennium/pre-mom-move // not summer
fursona request thread // home phoning cell before deleting first nudes // my basement scene #6
pollen like snow // not summer
Sri Panwa Phuket Luxury Pool Villa Hotel
shadowdog is a stream of consciousness-style first-person narrative which begins somewhere in the subject’s early childhood (perhaps around their first interactions/experiences with technology) and ends somewhere in their later adulthood. (in the album this is not chronologically in order.)
i consider it a brilliant and relentless portrait of a net-saturated world and how the cycle of abuse can manifest in it - particularly on the idea that paraphilias can originate from childhood trauma and exposure to shocking things, and that moral corruption can be caused/exacerbated by being extremely online from childhood - as well as generally the social and psychological impacts of the internet on children and adolescent development, and ultimately humanity/society at large.
some review excerpts i like
Most of the music that gets branded with the “post-internet” label often has an ironic or detached edge to it, yet still presents this idealistic image of the internet as a way to facilitate [a change] from the banalities of everyday life. tirestires’ Shadowdog ignores even the suggestion of putting up that sort of facade at all, instead presenting a bleaker view of the concept; overstimulating yet ultimately mind-numbing, an outlet to fulfill every perversion no matter how overly-specific or morally dubious, full of incoherent sludge not even comprehensible to the minds who engineered it. Whereas the sort of thing that gets labeled “hyperpop” presents an alternate reality where one is free from embarrassment, tirestires provides the reality check, showing the world how deep the abyss truly is.
~ verai
The lyrics of this one are buried deep under layers and layers of vocal effects, strange cadences, and the overwhelming surge of sound that are the instrumental tracks, but if you dig into them and find out what’s being sung then it uncovers a poisoned, trauma-scarred heart that wears the blindingly high-contrast production and surreal summery melodies around it as armour to protect itself with. … the longer the album goes on the more it becomes clear that our main character’s brain is fried from growing up online with easy and instantaneous access to the worst possible things available. Sexual innuendos bleed into how they process the ‘real world’, life around them becomes an obstacle in the way of them being able to get off, and the most horrifying experiences dance on the edges of their consciousness, casually dropping lines that I can’t quote in this review because in and out of context they’re just…traumatic in itself.
Discovering that the artist and I are the same age made everything make so much more sense as well. This isn’t just an isolated thing or an unfortunate but rare start in life - I’d argue that everyone who grew up online through the 2000s had roughly the same kind of experience, given that the web was more of a wild west as compared to the increasingly corporate and homogeneous creature it is now. Growing up online and being isolated offline is an incredibly risky combination, and it almost always comes at the cost of having how you see the world become warped in one way or another far beyond how it would ‘naturally’ develop because of seeing things that you’re far too young to process.
Buried under layers of dissonance and syncopation are beautiful melodies demented into a decidedly cryptic feel to the album. If you pay careful attention to the instruments, it is not difficult to recognize the obvious sounds of a folk band. Yet from this relatively “natural” sound tirestires adds breaks, glitching, and completely synthetic sounds to create a whole different beast never explored in the world of indietronica or glitch pop. The music is corrupted, like a glitched computer file. … Shockingly graphic imagery of sex straddles mundane, even comical descriptions of routine and innocence. In “unclogging roof drain on her // bare rests”, a vague scene of the morning after a one night stand is coupled with a retelling of quite literally unclogging a roof drain. The online world and the real one merge into each other. … His interactions with his parents seem removed from himself, lacking in description and emotion. Yet his time alone, searching for sex online to fill his void is given with meticulous detail.