As Footprints, by Joseph Mancuso

As Footprints

by Joseph Mancuso

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1.	Eponym 01:33	buy track
2.	Certainties 03:05	buy track
3.	Don't Come Here 02:38	buy track
4.	Part 1 Of 0 (left behind) 05:13	buy track
5.	Forget Jazz 01:08	buy track
6.	The Sea 02:56	buy track
7.	Part 2 Of 0 (letters unsent) 08:45	buy track
8.	A Largely Fictional Tale 07:34	buy track
9.	To Fall 01:11	buy track
10.	Part 3 Of 0 (noise) 14:00	buy track
11.	Austen Passage 01:53	buy track
12.	A Warrior 01:05	buy track
13.	Part 4 Of 0 (waiting still) 05:25	buy track
14.	As Footprints 04:27	buy track

about

This album is my first fully spoken-word recording, and was, by nearly any reasonable metric, a rather long time in the making.

Recording for this album took place during the winter of 2017-2018, wrapping up in the month of February (also during which the album cover was photographed). It was a joyous time of much standing in a blanket-lined closet in front of a wire coathanger covered in nylon stockings while waiting for loud vehicles to finish passing by. ... and editing. ... lots of editing.

The idea for this album was first conceived perhaps a decade or more before, in the later years of my semi-professional musical endeavors, as i reflected on various things i'd written over time that had never found an outlet in music or elsewhere. In more recent years, i was re-inspired by a few enjoyable spoken-word recordings that, while very different in content and (to some degree) production, definitely influenced this project.

Obviously unrushed realization aside, it is in the material from which this album was composed that its full history lay. The oldest piece on the record was already just shy of 20 years old when it was recorded, and -- aside from parts of the retrospective title track -- none were written after December 2014, nor deliberately for the album. The process of searching for, reviewing, and selecting the writings shared here was a journey in and of itself. They are a mix of scattered poetry, metaphoric prose, travel journals, and undirected philosophical wanderings whose common threads are perhaps best discovered and woven in by the listener, who forever is, in my view, the true manifester of any such art. Perhaps their only common preceding trait is an emphasis on descriptive writing as opposed to impelling narrative; they feel more like images than story, more light strolls through slowly moving paintings than gripping rides along twisting and unfolding plotlines.

Whatever they turn out to be, however, these works are most of all mere marks left behind by a passage, a small selection of the humble by-products of a modest-but-charmed voyage through half a lifetime or so. In the end, i defer to the closing message of the album, humbly hoping that those who choose to explore this recording might find some small fragment of value somewhere therein.

credits

released April 11, 2020

Mastered by Josh Wiechmann and Eric Wojahn at Solid Sound, Ann Arbor, MI.

Invaluable production consultation and highly selective clutch editing wizardry by Jeff Elbel at The Happy Club, Wheaton, IL.

All other production, composition, photography and graphics by Joseph Mancuso.

Sincere thanks to my beloved friends and family, who forever fill my life with the fantastic wanderings of mind, body, and spirit that inspired this album, and who, for reasons i cannot possibly fathom, are still after all these years somehow willing to listen to yet more of me talking.

... and to the one beyond the horizon, whom i never could and never can repay for countless gifts of beauty, imagination, and love, one of the brightest angels in which i will always believe. You know who you are.

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about

Joseph Mancuso Pennsylvania

Versatile composer-performer Joseph Mancuso touched many projects in his 15+ years in Southeast Michigan's independent scene, including as founder/frontman of North (northmusic1.bandcamp.com). Now, after "real life" forced him to reinvent his perspective on music, he blends his previous styles with highly experimental approaches that encourage both artists and listeners to broaden their horizons. ... more

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