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Where do you start your letters song


[PDF] Where Do You Start Your Letters?

1 Where Do You Start Your Letters? Where do you start your letters? At the top! Where do you start your letters? At the ...

Where Do You Start Your Letters? Where do you start your letters? At the top! Where do you start your letters? At the top! If you want to start a letter, then you better, better, better, remember to start it at the top! Is this the top, top, top? No it’s the bottom! Is this the top, top, top? No it’s the middle! Is this the top, top, top? Yes, it’s the top, top, top! Where do you start your letters? At the top!

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© Handwriting Without Tears®

Alphabet Song A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S, T U V W X, Y and Z

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There’s a Dog in the School There’s a dog in the school Oh, no! What are we going to do? As long as there are dogs in the school They’ll have to learn the alphabet too! Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff A B C D E F G Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, H I J K Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, L M N O P Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, Q R S T U V Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff! W X Y Z Now I said my A B Cs, Next time won’t you ruff with me!

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Crayon Song Pick up a crayon, Pick up a crayon, This is easy to do Pick up a crayon, Pick up a crayon, I just tell my fingers what to do My thumb is bent, Pointer points to the tip, Tall Man uses his side I tuck my last two fingers in and take them for a ride Now I’m holding it just right, But not too tight, Every finger knows what to do And now I have a big surprise, A big surprise for you Let’s drop it and do it again!

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Magic C Make a Magic C I’ll show you how Start at the top Go this way now Stop at the bottom Look and see That Magic C looks good to me Make a circle I’ll show you how Start with a C Go this way now Keep on going Please don’t stop It’s a circle when you get to the top! Great job

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www. hwtears.com

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Hello Song Little kids can wave bye, bye But only big kids know How to stand perfectly still And say, “Hello”

I’m a big kid and I know To use my right hand when I say hello To put my right hand for you to take We meet each other and we shake Shake, shake, So

Give ‘em your right hand Look ‘em in the eye Put a smile on your face Then you say, “Hi” Repeat 1X

Give ‘em your right hand Look ‘em in the eye Put a smile on your face Then you say, “Hi” Repeat 3X

“It’s nice to meet you How do you do?” They’ll be so happy To be meeting you Greetings are a way to say “I hope you have a wonderful day” Hello Song Give ‘em your right hand Look ‘em in the eye Put a smile on your face Then you say, “Hi” Repeat 1X

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Mat Man

Tune: The Bear Went Over the Mountain

Mat Man has

1 head, 1 head, 1 head

Mat Man has

2 eyes,

2 eyes

2 eyes

see

Mat Man has

1 nose, 1 nose, 1 nose

1 nose

smell

Mat Man has

1 mouth, 1 mouth, 1 mouth

1 mouth

eat

Mat Man has Mat Man has Mat Man has

2 ears, 2 ears, 2 ears 1 body, 1 body, 1 body 2 arms, 2 arms, 2 arms

2 ears 1 body To hold what is inside* 2 arms So that he can*

hear heart, lungs, stomach reach

Mat Man has

2 hands, 2 hands, 2 hands

2 hands

clap

Mat Man has

2 legs,

2 legs,

2 legs

2 legs

stand

Mat Man has

2 feet,

2 feet,

2 feet

2 feet

walk

2 eyes,

Mat Man has

1 head

So that he can*

think

*Wait for children to respond. Your children may call out other responses (i.e. feet = run) than listed. Add extra verses when you add new accessories.

B LACK

Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Count On Me You count with me 2 I’ll count with you 2 I have two big lines 2 Let’s count 1, 2 2 2

hips legs knees ankles feet to tap together

Now here’s the part I like the best

Now let’s count fingers Let’s count toes

I have 2 eyebrows Now that was fun 2 eyes 2’s all done 2 ears 2 cheeks Now let’s do the # 1 2 lips to smack together 1 head 1 forehead 2 shoulders 1 nose 2 elbows 1 mouth 2 arms 1 chin 2 wrists 1 neck 2 hands to clap together 1 chest

Fingers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 fingers Toes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 toes I’ll stop counting right there I’m not counting teeth or hair

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Five Finger Play 1 finger points 2 fingers walk 3 fingers stand up and talk, talk, talk 4 fingers count; 1, 2, 3, 4 Oh look! I’ve got one more, 5 fingers 5 fingers up 5 fingers down 5 fingers go round and round 5 fingers here 5 fingers there 10 fingers to wash my hair

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www. hwtears.com

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Toe Song You can’t see them But everybody knows In my shoes, I have 10 toes 5 toes here and 5 toes there Toes are hiding everywhere Toes in socks and toes in shoes Wiggle, wiggle, tippy, tippy toes At the beach 10 toes come out They’re so happy They could shout 5 toes here and 5 toes there Toes are playing everywhere No more socks and no more shoes Wiggle, wiggle, tippy, tippy toes Wiggle, wiggle, tippy, tippy toes Wiggle, wiggle, tippy, tippy toes

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Bird Legs Quack, quack, peep, peep, Cock a doodle do When we count the legs on birds We always count 1 2 Birds that fl y, birds that fl oat, birds that talk to you, When we count the legs on birds We always count 1 2 Red birds, black birds, pink birds too When we count the legs on birds We always count 1 2 Birds that glide, birds that dive, birds that perch on you When we count the legs on birds We always count 1 2

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www. hwtears.com

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Animal Legs We are counting legs How many will there be? Abi picks a horse Let’s look and see 2 legs in the front, 2 legs in the back The horse has 4 legs I know that! But only 1 tail Neighhhhh

We are counting legs How many will there be? Meagan picks a lamb Let’s look and see 2 legs in the front, 2 legs in the back The lamb has 4 legs I know that! But only 1 tail Baaaa

We are counting legs How many will there be? Charlie picks a cow Let’s look and see 2 legs in the front, 2 legs in the back The cow has 4 legs I know that! But only 1 tail Mooooo

We are counting legs How many will there be? Patrick picks a pig Let’s look and see 2 legs in the front, 2 legs in the back The pig has 4 legs I know that! But only 1 tail Ooink, ooink, And it’s a curly little tail!

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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The Ant, the Bug, and the Bee The ant, the bug, and the bee Are not like you and me They walk on the wall But they never fall The ant, the bug, and the bee Six little legs walk up Six little legs walk down Six little legs get tucked in When they fl y around The ant, the bug, and the bee Are not like you and me They walk on the wall But they never fall The ant, the bug, and the bee Six little legs in the air Six little legs on the tree Six little legs go everywhere But not on me!

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Spiders Love to Party Spiders love to party They love to celebrate And when those spiders party They shimmy and they shake Chorus: With 8 legs for dancing They sure can cut a rug With 8 legs for dancing They do the jitterbug Some spiders do the tango And some do “do–si–do” And some just take those 8 legs And kick ‘em to and fro Chorus So if you see a spider Just take a second glance See if that old spider Is going to a dance Chorus And when the dancing’s over It’s time to go to bed They waltz home on 8 legs And tuck them in a web Chorus (Repeat 1X) That’s right. ..yeah!

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Ten Fingers I have ten little fingers and they all belong to me I can make them do things, Just you wait and see I can wiggle them high, And wiggle them low I can push them on the floor, And stretch them just so They can make little Os, If I touch them together They can even make a cup, To catch rain in rainy weather I can stretch them out wide, Or close them real tight I might just fold them quietly, When I sleep at night

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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My Teacher Draws My teacher draws Some shapes for me What’s this shape? Let’s look and see It’s a circle The circle gets eyes, nose, mouth, pointy ears, and whiskers too Now what can this circle do? It can be a kitty cat! My teacher draws Some shapes for me What’s this shape? Let’s look and see It’s a square The square gets windowpanes, windowsill, and curtains too! Now what can this square do? It can be a window! My teacher draws Some shapes for me What’s this shape? Let’s look and see It’s a triangle The triangle gets squirting fi re, rocks, and lava too! Now what can this triangle do? It can be a volcano

B LACK

Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Puffy Fluffy I’m a cloud up in the sky, Puffy and fluffy and floating by When I’m full of water, I rain Down on the mountains, Down on the plains Rain for the grass, Rain for the trees Rain for the rivers and the big blue seas I’m a cloud up in the sky, Puffy and fluffy and floating by When I’m full of water I rain Down on the mountains, Down on the plains Water for the bathtub, Water for the sink Water for washing and water to drink I’m a cloud up in the sky, Puffy and fluffy and floating by When I’m full of water, I rain Down on the mountains, Down on the plains I’m a cloud up in the sky, Look up at me I’m floating by

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Tap, Tap, Tap Tap, tap, tap big lines, Tap big lines together. Repeat 1X Tap a little louder now, Tap along with me. Tap a little softer now, Tap along with me. Tap, tap, tap big lines, Tap them on the fl oor Repeat 1X Play your big lines like a drum, Play along with me Play your big lines like a drum, Play along with me Touch, touch, touch big lines, Touch them to your toes Touch, touch, touch big lines, Touch them to your nose Touch them on your shoulders now, Don’t forget your head Touch them right down to your knees and everybody sneeze…ACHOO! Move, move, move big lines, Move them in the air Move, move, move big lines, Move them under your chair Move your big lines to the front, Move them to the back Move your big lines to the side, Now put them in your lap Tap, tap, tap big lines, Tap them at the top Tap, tap, tap big lines, Tap ‘til I say STOP 11 taps, STOP; Repeat 3X Now let’s try it faster! 11 taps, STOP; Repeat 3X

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Skip to My Lou Lost my partner what’ll I do? Repeat 2X Skip to my Lou my darling… Skip, skip, skip to my Lou, Repeat 2X Skip to my Lou my darling…FREEZE

Flies in the buttermilk shoo fl y shoo, Repeat 2X Gallop to my Lou my darling Gallop, gallop to my Lou, Repeat 2X Gallop to my Lou my darling…FREEZE

Flies in the buttermilk shoo fl y shoo, Repeat 2X Hop to my Lou my darling Hop, hop, hop to my Lou, Repeat 2X Hop to my Lou my darling…FREEZE

You swing me and I’ll swing you, Repeat 2X Tip toe my Lou my darling Tip toe, tip toe my Lou, Repeat 2X Tip toe, My Lou my darling…. FREEZE

You swing me and I’ll swing you, Repeat 2X Tip toe my Lou my darling Tip toe, tip toe, My Lou, Repeat 2X Tip toe, My Lou my darling….FREEZE

You swing me and I’ll swing you, Repeat 2X Tip toe my Lou my darling Jump, jump, jump to my Lou, Repeat 2X Jump to my Lou my darling…..FREEZE

Lost my partner what’ll I do? Repeat 2X March to my Lou my darling March, march, march to my Lou, Repeat 2X March to my Lou my darling…FREEZE

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Down on Grandpa’s Farm Down on Grandpa’s farm there is a big brown cow The cow, it goes a lot like this (moo) The cow, it goes a lot like this (moo) We’re on our way, we’re on our way, On our way to Grandpa’s farm Repeat 1X Oh down on Grandpa’s farm there is a little white chicken Repeat 1X The chicken, it goes a lot like this (cluck, cluck) Repeat 1X We’re on our way, we’re on our way, On our way to Grandpa’s farm Repeat 1X Oh down on Grandpa’s farm there is a little spotted goat Repeat 1X The goat, it goes a lot like this (naaah, naaah) Repeat 1X We’re on our way, we’re on our way, On our way to Grandpa’s farm Repeat 1X Oh down on Grandpa’s farm there is an old banjo. Repeat 1X The banjo, it goes a lot like this (plucka, plucka, plucka) Repeat 1X We’re on our way, we’re on our way, On our way to Grandpa’s farm Repeat 3X

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Peanut Butter and Jelly Chorus: Peanut, peanut butter.......………………...And jelly Peanut, peanut butter.......………………...And jelly Now fi rst you take the peanuts and you grind them, you grind them Put one first on top of the other and grind back and forth. Repeat 1X, Chorus And then you take the grapes and you squish them, and you squish them Squish pretend grapes between your fingers. Repeat 1X, Chorus And then you take the bread and you spread, and you spread Hold one hand out flat like bread and spread with the other hand. Repeat 1X, Chorus And then you take the pieces and you put them together Clap your hands together. Repeat 1X, Chorus And then you take your lunch and you munch, and you munch Take a big bite out of the sandwich! Repeat 1X, Chorus Mm,mm,mm,mm,mm,mm,mm,mm,mm Repeat 1X, Chorus 2X

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Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Handwriting Without Tears 8001 MacArthur Blvd Cabin John, MD 20818 301-263-2700 www.hwtears.com

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Rain Song It’s raining, it’s pouring Puddles in the street I’ve got my raincoat Boots for my feet I’m going outside Playing with Sam We’ll find a puddle and We’ll make a dam It’s raining, it’s pouring Let’s get a boat It’s raining, it’s pouring Little sticks will fl oat It’s raining, it’s pouring Such a happy day I love when it rains And we go out to play

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Wood Pieces Pokey Do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around That’s what it’s all about You make the big line walk You make the big line talk—hello hello You make the big line walk Then you move it up and down You do the Hokey Pokey—put the big line down That’s what it’s all about You put the little line in front You put the little line in back You put the little line in front And then you give a little tap—tap tap You do the Hokey Pokey—put the little line down That’s what it’s all about You put the big curve up You put the big curve down You put the big curve up And you turn yourself around You do the Hokey Pokey—put the big curve down That’s what it’s all about You make the little curve wait You make the little curve skate You make the little curve wait And then you skate it all around You do the Hokey Pokey—put the little curve down That’s what it’s all about You put the little line in You take the little line out You put the little line in And then you give a little shout—yippee! You do the Hokey Pokey—put the little line down That’s what it’s all about B LACK

Triple Disc 11827 Main St. Fredericksburg, VA 22408 (800) 414-7564 www.tripledisc.com [email protected]

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Mrs. Loftin / Supporting Your Child's: Literacy

  • Welcome To Kindergarten!
  • Welcome to K - Beginning the Year Right!
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  • Texts for Young Readers
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    • HWT #1: Frog Jump Captials
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Tricky Words & High Frequency Words

Developmental Reading At Home

  • Article suggesting ways to support your child's reading at home

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  • Tips on supporting your child's reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills

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  • An article desribing how you can build your child's literacy skills with the newspaper

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  • An article desribing how you can build your child's literacy skills at the grocery store

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  • Handout explaining segmenting words and tips to practice and grow at home

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Developmental Writing At Home

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  • A note explaining and encouraging inventive spelling in Kindergarten (spelling words as they sounds)

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  • Tips to help your child grow as a writer

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Handwriting At Home

  • Lyrics to our song, "Where do you start you letters?"

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  • Cues to help your child form numbers correctly (Handwriting Without Tears)

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  • The language used to form lowercase letters (Handwriting Without Tears)

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  • The language used to form upper case leters (Handwriting Without Tears) 

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  • Understand what is normal and concerning with handwriting development 

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Lyrics Adam Leo Smith

How annoying is the lack of thoughts.

The fact that you start to get angry, that your heart presses on your ribs, your body is seized by groaning weakness, your eyes get wet. The fact that you can only growl to yourself and feel incredible rage, unable to vent it. So you write, write whatever you have to, an endless stream of words, repeating over and over again, standing still (annoying), but still you want, you want, damn it, you want to live for real so badly!

And now, somewhere under my chest, I began to tremble. Soon this trembling will develop into convulsions, and the fingers will rush over the keys more slowly, but will not lose their vigor. You remember all the thoughts of the day to write them down in anger, because you know that when this feeling subsides, this flat feeling of sober anger, you will again look at the floor and reproach yourself for

WHAT YOU ARE WORSE THAN OTHERS.

Because the Internet destroys self-esteem, if you look at yourself critically. Because (my) perception (irritating, damn, infuriating, exploding) of my own words does not harmonize with me in any way, I do not have my own dancing rhythm, all that remains is to set myself up until the moment when I “successfully” sit in front of the monitor and scribble messages into the void, turning into the sea in the hope that these very words will be needed by someone, otherwise it does not make sense at all. The fact that thoughts will go on constantly, as long as you are either adequately (italics) in love, or ironically angry.

How annoying it is that nothing happens in life.

So many bright moments are missed due to laziness and unwillingness, so many that, realizing this, not a lump, but several garbage trucks with tons of woolen balls roll up to the throat just to choke you with accusations and claims to the mirror. This endless selfish pursuit of pleasure, this cruel desire to be no worse than the rest, this desire to embody one's feelings in letters and poems, this dream of experience.

BUT EVERYTHING IS CUT OFF WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE BEAUTY OF OTHERS

people. Other people are always more beautiful, more talented. Stable and demonic. The trembling in the body has subsided, and now my back just hurts. The eyes are dry, but the forehead is still hot.

3/3/16 How annoying is the lack of thoughts.

The fact that you begin to get angry, that the heart presses on the ribs, the body covers a moaning weakness, the eyes get wet. The fact that you can only growl to yourself and feel incredible fury, unable to remove it. Therefore, you write, write what you have, a boundless stream of words, you repeat over and over again, you stand on the spot (annoying), but you still want, you want, hell, so much you want to live for real !

And already somewhere under the breast began to tremble. Soon this tremor will develop into cramps, and fingers will be carried along the keys more slowly, but they will not lose their pressure. You remember all the thoughts of the day to write them down in anger, because you know: when this feeling falls, this flat sensation of sober anger, you will again look at the floor and reproach yourself for what you are saying,

THAT YOU ARE WORSE OF OTHERS.

Because the Internet is ruining self-esteem, if you look critically at yourself. Because (my) perception (annoying, damn, enrages, explodes) my own words does not harmonize with me, I do not have my own dancing rhythm, all that remains is to tune myself up to the moment when I "sit well" in front of the monitor and scribble messages into emptiness, conversion to the sea in the hope that these very words will be needed by someone, otherwise it does not make sense at all. The fact that thoughts and will go on continuously, while you are either adequately (italics) in love, or ironically angry.

How annoying is that nothing happens in life.

So many bright moments are overlooked because of laziness and unwillingness, so much that, realizing this, no longer lumps up to the throat, but several garbage trucks with tons of woolen balls to simply strangle you with accusations and claims to the mirror. This endless selfish pursuit of pleasure, this cruel desire to be no worse than the others, is the desire to embody your feelings in letters and poems, this dream of experience.

BUT ALL BREAKS WHEN LOOKING AT BEAUTY OF OTHERS

of people. Other people are always prettier, more talented. Steady and demonic. The trembling in the body disappeared, and now it just hurts my back. His eyes were dry, but his forehead was hot.

3/3/16

‎Out in the City (Noize MC) on Apple Music

Noize MC comments on the album track by track.
Voyager 1 “I talked in detail about how the lyrics of this song appeared on social networks last year, when the single and video were released. Let me tell you about the music now. The melody of the chorus was born in the summer of 2015 at the dacha, which we then filmed in the near suburbs of Moscow. I sat in the evening on the porch near the house and strummed on an acoustic guitar. The introduction and couplet arpeggio appeared in Belgorod - at the home of my childhood friend Dzhonik Gokov. I played one of dozens of his metal guitars in super low tuning. It was about three years ago. I came up with the bridge in Bali in 2020 (the last holidays of the former world), playing the guitar. I also decided that all these pieces, so different and composed on such dissimilar instruments, should be parts of the same track. At one time, I composed the music for the song “Exhale” in the same way. And I think Voyager 1 is just as cool.”
City exit “Once my children and I were leaving the Oktyabrskaya metro station in the morning. The building with the exit and entrance to the radial station is lined with a kind of concrete honeycombs, and pigeons live in huge flocks in them - a real bird sleeping area. Some of them fly into the lobby from time to time and then flutter back and forth in search of an exit. This contradictory image - birds in the dungeon - suddenly seemed incredibly poignant to me. We discussed it with my sons on the way to school, and on the way back I started writing the lyrics. Musically, it's one of the hardest things I've done. The bass guitar here performs a melodic function to a greater extent - I was inspired by Ivan Chernikov's playing on Dolphin's album Depth of Field. I always liked the way he takes all sorts of sad intervals in a high register. Repeating fragments of the text sound to different parts of the musical form and constantly change roles: the same verses become either a verse, or a bridge, or a chorus. I love this effect. The subway has always inspired me - almost all of my debut album was written while traveling in the subway. I am very glad that my new work, in turn, inspired one of the best contemporary Russian artists Dima Rebus to paint a painting. You can see the process of its creation on the animated cover of the album "Exit to the City" in Apple Music.
Myocardium “This text was inspired by a touching cartoon about a ladybug from the Soyuzmultfilm studio, which we watched with the whole family in quarantine last year. This is a screen version of a wonderful poem by Andrei Usachev. The main character is caught and imprisoned in a matchbox, but she manages to escape. She overcomes obstacle after obstacle, each time finding herself, as it were, in a larger box: first in the closet where the jacket hangs, in the pocket of which her little prison lay, then in the room where this closet stands, and so on. In the finale, she finally returns to her children. Nevertheless, the very last line sounds quite disturbing: “But the cow is looking at the world carefully: what if this is also a big box?” I play the main guitar riff in this song with a drumstick: I hold the chords with my left hand, and I hit the strings with my right hand. Do you hear?
Selma Lagerlöf “The first verse and chorus were born in the spring of 2019. The surrealistic street sketch appeared somehow by itself: I composed the lion's share of this part of the text, just singing to myself under my breath and not writing down the text. But the second half had to be collected literally bit by bit within two years! More than once I thought to score and leave it like this: verse, chorus and that's it. The quatrain about the TV tower was intended for another track. The lines about DPSmen along Minka came in the same way as the entire first part - suddenly, as if they had already been composed in advance, rehearsed and suddenly pounced from around the corner. I was greatly inspired by Georg Simmel's book Big Cities and the Spiritual Life.
Air resistance “Once at a concert before the song “Pool”, I said that I have two types of lyrics: about overcoming and about the impossibility of overcoming. This track, of course, is from the second category, but I still hope for something. Here I used the meter 6/8, which is quite unusual for modern music, in verses (in refrains - 6/4). Due to the constant varied play with rhythm, I tried to create the feeling that the fulcrum is slipping away all the time, as if there is nothing to lean on, and also to convey the feeling of an uncontrollable fall from a great height, emphasizing the meaning of the words. I don't want to write much about the dramaturgy and the concept of the album, but the track continues and develops the main line of the release, connected with the image of the flight, where something went wrong. I hope you enjoy the big picture that I have tried to put together from all these interconnected blocks.”
Twenties “In the spring of this year, preparing for the filming of the video for the song “Vek-Volkodav”, I went to Kostya Mishin’s to dance at his choreographic workshop on Taganka several times a week. It was already quite warm, and after the rehearsals I went home along the Garden Ring on foot. I like to compose while walking - that's how "Exit to the City", "The Hundred Years' War", "Voodoo" and, in fact, "The Twenties" appeared. I have always been interested in the era of the NEP and the Silver Age - a bright, turbulent, dangerous time that formed a mass of incredible works and destinies-catastrophes of their authors. With the entry of a new decade into its own rights, we found ourselves in a situation where the phrase "20s" no longer means by default exactly "1920s". I structured the text in such a way that it was not clear which particular century we are talking about: skyscrapers here are adjacent to taverns, seksots are adjacent to epaulettes, and Bukharin’s “Evil Notes” and Bulgakov’s “Days of the Turbins” are adjacent to policemen and policemen. In a sense, this is a stylization a la romances by Boris Fomin, which are also mentioned here (and were also composed in the 1920s). The starting point for the text was the impression from the chapter of Zoshchenko's story "Before Sunrise", where the author describes a meeting with Yesenin: Mikhail Mikhailovich meets Sergei Alexandrovich on Nevsky, the poet is not feeling well after yesterday, and he persuades Zoshchenko to go to the pub "for a minute". During this very “minute”, the gatherings in the pub turn into Yesenin’s hysterical concert - and this is how my song begins. I composed the guitar part at night after the wedding of Monetochka and Vitya Isaev, when I visited Ilya Kusnirovich. On the couch lay a classical guitar with very old nylon strings, and next to it was a fresh set. There is an unfinished process, an aborted flight, so to speak! Well, I changed the strings for a good man, and while I was tuning the instrument, this romance endless riff appeared. The musicians of the Belgorod Academic Russian Orchestra participated in the recording, and the score was written by Sergei Bondarenko.
Century wolfhound “After the 20s, as you know, the 30s come. And this song is about them. It was written for the project of my friend Roma Liberov “Save my speech forever”, dedicated to the 130th anniversary of Mandelstam. The text of the track is a poem by Osip Emilievich “For the thundering valor of the coming centuries…”, written in 1931 and becoming a kind of harbinger of imminent troubles and trials prepared for the poet by the then power and era. Musically, I pursued the goal of crossing viscous bass trip-hop with dry drums in the spirit of Massive Attack, shamanic-ethnic tunes, Russian song tradition and Neil Young's soundtrack to the movie Dead Man. It seems to have worked out. We made the main part of the track with DJ Stufford in my kitchen, and the final verse and coda - on tour in Izhevsk, in his hotel room. The vocals were recorded at Monetochka's house with Vitya. We then lived in neighboring entrances and constantly went to each other either to visit or on business. For the album version of the track, I dubbed the electric guitar parts on acoustic so that all the strings touched were read brighter. He also borrowed his recorder from his younger son Misha and replayed a live sample on it, previously played on a synthesizer with a similar sound. You can listen to the original version on the wonderful Save My Speech Forever compilation.
Hundred Years War “England and France fought each other from 1337 to 1453. That is, the so-called Hundred Years War, contrary to the name, went on for 116 years. The symbol of French victory is Joan of Arc, also known as the Maid of Orleans, burned at the stake by the British. These historical facts became the starting point for the imagery of the text. The rest hardly needs any explanation. As for the music, it was waiting in the wings for quite a long time: the band and I wrote an instrumental in 2014 for a joint track with Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit, but he never sent us his verse, although he really liked the demo. Later, I completed the English text for the part that we left for Fred's desk. The song was called "Someone2Blame". But the Hundred Years War is much cooler, so I don't regret anything."
Voodoo “I remember how, at the age of 12, I got stuck on the video“ Spring ”of Vopley Vidoplyasov on TV. I was blown away by how cool singing in the [Ukrainian] language sounds. I grew up in Belgorod, on the border with Ukraine. We have people hacking, shocking and saying “chee” instead of “or”. The nearest metropolis was not Moscow or St. Petersburg, but Kharkov. This city was then definitely the hip-hop capital of its country. We received information about extreme sports, graffiti, rap, breakdance and alternative guitar music from the Kyiv magazine "X3M". Our b-boys constantly went to perform at Ukrainian contests, and rappers dreamed of getting into the lineup of the cult Kharkiv fest "In Da House". TNMK, Tartak, V.U.Z.V., Green Gray - all this is the soundtrack of my childhood, along with Oak Gaai and Bricks. I have long dreamed of one day writing and singing a song in Ukrainian. Finally I succeeded! I composed the chorus on tour in Mariupol (thanks to the Pornofilmy band for lending guitars to record the demo), the first verse was on a hike in Altai, and the second was walking around the Neskuchny Garden in headphones. I have a good passive knowledge of the language, I read fluently, but I can hardly speak: I constantly mow with cases and stresses, pour in Russianisms, straying into surzhik. Therefore, in order to avoid "bimbi in the vagina", I almost never do this. Of course, I would not have coped without feedback from my Ukrainian friends: to Sergius, especially to you, I thank you for my incomprehensible Moscow response!
Instinct “This song also had an English-language prototype and was called“ Zombie Box ”, and I came up with the melody for the chorus already in 2009 and, in general, at first I was going to give it to Sasha Ivanov from“ NAIV ”for his solo project“ Radio Chacha ”, on the first album of which we then just worked together. The chorus I suddenly came up with, falling asleep in bed this summer. He suddenly came by itself, almost immediately entirely. The next day, while loading the dishwasher, I composed the first verse. My wife often teases me that I spend a lot of time with dishes. So I compose songs there, nothing surprising! I recorded the first demo in the basement, in the closet, among the boxes and containers. It seems to be the heaviest song on the album! I hope this track will help someone look at themselves from the outside and take a step towards a new self. ”
Transhumanism 2.0 (feat. White Punk) “Danya (White Punk) sent me this instrumental in a cart, I pressed play and was stunned. The chorus was ready in 15 minutes after the first listening, a day later I was already recording the finishing vocals in the studio. For Danya's Sirius 2.0 album, we made a version with completely different lyrics and his own verse, but on my release, this is a harder version. I have never hidden my unbridled passion for Pelevin. And of course, this crap track was composed under the strong influence of a whole series of his works, one way or another addressing the topic of the influence of electronic technologies on human consciousness, ethics and morality: "Transhumanism Inc.", "iPhuck 10", "Love for Three Zuckerbrins" and "S.N.U.F.F." The main theme of the instrumental is a sampled duduk, passed through a guitar distortion. White Punk is a genius sound producer."
Spider nets “The instrumental was composed by my old friend and colleague Vadik “Shramm” Nekrasov. But not quite by himself - the main riff that sounds in the verses was composed and performed by the neural network using the parameters set by it. This fact also determined the theme of the song: Vadik showed me his sketch and offered to compose a song about artificial intelligence for this beat. I don’t know, perhaps the neural network suggested this idea to him too? Yes, and we personally met for the last time already on February 22, 2020 in Tel Aviv - maybe it’s not Vadik who has been writing to me for a long time? In general, there are many unknowns in this equation, but Mouzon and the idea turned me on half a turn. All percussion parts in verses are filled with palm slaps... on watermelons! We made the track in three days. I then visited friends in St. Petersburg, and recorded the first sketch of the upcoming chorus on a dictaphone right in their front door. This is one of my favorite tracks on the release. I can’t wait until we finally bring him down with the band live at full volume!”
Song of the traitor “Some songs come into being without asking permission or effort. If in “Selma Lagerlof” the first verse and chorus appeared in this way, then this number crawled out of me completely independently and purely reflexively, like a sneeze or vomiting. You just start humming to yourself, and [the songs] get bigger and bigger. There is nowhere to go, it already exists somewhere in advance, long ago composed in its entirety, and you just need to “remember”, and then memorize it, like someone else’s poem at school. Stuffing cannot be scrolled back - such is the track and video sequence. The last verse - a romance sketch in the spirit of Zhanna Bichevskaya - appeared when the album was already, it would seem, completely ready: I ​​recorded a demo of this part in the dressing room on the set of the video "Exit to the City" (I always carry a portable microphone, laptop and sound card).
The businessman who sold the world “David Bowie is one of my favorite artists. In general, I first heard jungle-amens and all sorts of industrial electronic chips in 1997 on his album “Earthling”. Even the passion for the Prodigy group came a little later. It all started with Anton Belyaev's musical project LAB: I had to choose a famous English song for a cover, and I decided to perform "The Man Who Sold the World" in Kurt Cobain's version. I thought it was fun to cover a cover, and I love this track with all my heart since I was 11 years old. To begin with, I reworked the entire musical fabric in the style of classical guitar playing, when the melodic line, harmony and bass movement are “sewn up” into one guitar part. It fascinated me so much that the melody, already long written in the DNA, literally stuck to the subcortex and played in my head on repeat 24/7. The Russian text was not long in coming - I composed it while singing in the bathroom, without writing a single line in the process. To be honest, I did not attach much importance to this, I considered it more like fun for my own, but as soon as I played this version at house parties a couple of times, all my friends and relatives began to persuade me to record it and perform it at concerts. Once my wife and I were visiting Roma Liberov, and he asked me to play it four times in a row. It was not easy to clear the rights - my label spent almost half a year on it. In the process of working on the album, we decided that we should make an even more acoustic version than Nirvana, so here you can hear cajon, double bass, Turkish saz, ukulele, guitalele, cello and, of course, acoustic guitars (with both nylon and metal strings). All the vocals you hear are just the whole second take, they didn't make any more. My wife jokes that it was Roma Liberov who trained me!”
Just like people “It seems to all of us (I won’t hide it and sometimes it seems to me) that if you listen to the new version of this song more closely, you can find a lot of new interesting arrangement finds in it compared to the release two years ago. Here is a sample of the Chinese bamboo xiao flute, which was elegantly scratched by DJ Stufford, and a triphop spy guitar with a “wah” in the third verse, and some subtle changes in the intro. The introduction now sounds in a new way, don't you think?
Nettle bouquet “I actually nailed it once. Thought it would hurt more. It turned out to be quite tolerable. I wrote the chorus in the summer when we were all quarantined due to my re-infection with COVID-19 - also while loading the dishwasher, like "Instinct". I made the first instrumental demo, under which I came up with part of the text, the day before, but it somehow confused me. I realized why when Anya [Noize MC's wife] suddenly teased me when she heard me rehearse that bust (which ended up not being included in the final version). I even had a short verse epigraph ready:
I composed this part, sitting on the sofa, From time to time he shook his stiff brushes, And you said: “Van, I don’t want to offend you, But this is a cross between Agutin and Agatha Christie. Like, February, like a gentleman, took port wine and went home. You didn't mean anything bad But this party, indeed, variety sucks. Look, I remade it for the chorus.
Agutin, by the way, is a very cool musician, and Agatha Christie is the very first band that I really fell in love with, so this rather toxic interlude is the right place here, and not in the most gentle song of the album! Then a couple of months later White Punk came to my studio, put this beat on, and I realized: all that music of mine does not need to be used at all. I composed a new guitar part and chorus melody, completely reworked the verses, and now the song sounds like this. The second verse is a poem from my letter to my wife. I was in Irkutsk in 2017, we were on a long tour, I suffered from jet lag, I couldn’t sleep, I really missed it and wrote it then.”
26.04 “This song was composed during the very first (and toughest) Moscow lockdown, recorded in a closet and first published as a track for the 17th Independent Battle of hip-hop.ru. The theme of the sixth round sounded strange: “Proportion of Vulnerability”. This outlandish, if not tongue-tied, phrase can be heard in the first verse. It seems to me that it looks quite appropriate there. I have long been worried about the topic of the Chernobyl disaster, and I composed this refrain at the end of 2019of the year. The outbreak of the pandemic, of course, became a powerful catalyst for the appearance of the full version of the text. The clip was made by the Belarusian-Canadian director Aleksey Terekhov, known for his revolutionary work for the Lyapis Trubetskoy group, based on photographs of the cult Ukrainian photographer Igor Kostin, kindly provided by his widow Alla. The very same Sergey, to whom I send my regards in the commentary to the song "Vudu", helped to establish contact with her. Curiously, the dictaphone demo of the main riff of this song in my phone is called “Vek-Volkodav”. I tried to put Mandelstam's poems on it in 2014, when Roma Liberov was still working on the film Save My Speech Forever, where my song of the same name from the Hard Reboot album plays in the credits. This music could have sounded there, but fate always knows better.
First symptoms “In 2020, somewhere between June and almost October, I listened to only three artists: Nine Inch Nails, Marylin Manson and Depeche Mode (mostly their most industrial album “Ultra”). Then Husky's "Khoshkhonog" and Monetochka's "Arts and Crafts" came out - I exhaled a little. But the received dose of industrial radiation was quite enough for a couple of songs. The first track where you can hear this influence was last year's "The Last Minister", and the second - in fact, "First Symptoms". I was visiting Liza Monetochka and Vitya Isaev, we watched our favorite clips 90's and zero. We stuck to Nine Inch Nails and Manson - and decided that that's it, enough to endure it, we need to compose something like that. Vitek connected his analog synth, on which, as a result, this bass was played with 16 notes with one (but very nimble) finger, and I began to play the bass guitar. We tried to create a classic industrial-rock feeling, when you don’t understand: is it an overdriven guitar or is it a synthesizer? The secret is that it's both at the same time. I can name three specific tracks that inspired this song: Nine Inch Nails "Every Day Is Exactly The Same", Methods of Mayhem "New Skin" and Depeche Mode "No Good". There are a whole bunch of layers here. There are probably more of them in this composition than anywhere else in the album. Even my favorite saz came in handy!”
Absence experience “I composed this music in 2007. The file was called "Utrata.mp3". All these size changes and constant modulations did not really fit with the bulk of the material that I then gave out. For example, about a week later, the famous first verse of the song “From the Window” appeared. I came up with it while sitting in a shared bathroom with an acoustic bass guitar, when the rest of the song was already completely finished. At that time, my mother had already been diagnosed with cancer for a year. I saved up for her a trip to Paris, which she dreamed of, and she stayed with Anya and me in a tiny odnushka at the Airport, intending to fly to France. Mom was in a depressed state, she was very worried about bad tests, and even the upcoming trip did not seem to distract her from these thoughts. Naturally, I was also acutely worried about all this. At the same time, the gloomiest “Kantemirovskaya” appeared, by the way. In general, this instrumental has been waiting in the wings for 14 years. I approached it many times, but all my text sketches were not good enough. In the spring of 2021, I was reading Lev Losev’s “Experience in a Literary Biography,” and I was very hooked by the following passage: “What Tolstoy sneers at as the cowardly selfishness of Ivan Ilyich and his colleagues is philosophically rethought by Brodsky. Brodsky's thought is correct, since one's own death, unlike everything else that happens to a person, cannot be a personal experience. At the mature Brodsky, after 1965 years old, the motif of fear of death disappears from the poems. If for his beloved Stoics philosophy was an exercise in dying, for him poetry was such an exercise. The horror of death has given way to close and even hilarious attention to the richness and diversity of the fleeting life, imaginary excursions into the “world after us”, meditations on the themes of emptiness (absence-presence) and stoicism, sometimes manifested in a daring, almost hooligan form. . These words were the trigger for me. Taking away bread from Ginius, I will also add that John Cage is the author of the "Black Square" of music - the avant-garde work "4'33''", consisting of 4 minutes 33 seconds of silence, and Vasilisk Gnedov is a Russian avant-garde poet who composed "The Poem of the End “which is a blank sheet of paper.”
String “We were introduced to Varya (VERENITSA) by Yura Kwiatkovsky (a theater director, he staged Cops on Fire and my Hiphoper: Orpheus and Eurydice) after the performance of Cabaret Terezin. Soon I visited her performance with the band at a country house party and was simply stunned by what I heard and saw. The idea to make a joint track was not long in coming, and we decided not to wait for the weather by the sea, but simply to take and compose it as soon as possible. Moreover, I was already finishing work on the album - the deadlines were running out, it was necessary to act decisively. I sent Varya the songs that were ready at that time, described the concept of the release in general terms, and the next day I went to visit her with a laptop, a sound card and instruments. Work on the track all the way went as if "from the opposite". By the time I arrived, she had sketched out some text, such a semi-freestyle, under the first bit that came across from the Internet. I liked the flow, and we recorded her vocals just under the metronome in order to build an instrumental part under it. Although usually, of course, the opposite is done. Then I thought up a guitar riff for a long time. Finally came up with. Everything seems to be cool, but something is wrong with him ... Suddenly I realized: it looks too much like a guitar from the track "Oak Gaaya" "Autumn"! Then I tried to “reverse” the sample (reverse is an interesting effect, but completely unpredictable, and an entire musical phrase played backwards almost never sounds sane). We just fell into a slump from what we heard: the inverted guitar suddenly sounded like some kind of ethnic (either wind, or bowed) instrument. Some kind of otherworldly wisdom and mystical riddle could be heard here. It demolished the tower, I wanted to listen in a circle for hours. I tweaked the arrangement a bit and went home, dumbfounded by the experience. I came up with the chorus while brushing my teeth before going to bed that night. And in the morning I suddenly clearly understood what the verses should be about. In terms of flow, rhythm and mannerisms, I was guided by that Varia sketch with which we started working on the track. Moreover, some reference points in it already lay down in meaning on the newly chosen topic of intrauterine development and birth! We had a "ping-pong" on Telegram - a very intense brainstorming session. The first full demo was recorded on the same day. Then I picked up a more comfortable tone and tried to glue in the end a psychedelic downtempo beat written by my classmate and Face2Face bandmate Adik 22vo7.

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