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Pseudoscience Fiction

by Kristian North

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1.
Panning gold on the Oregon Trail Round the table to the Holy Grail This is the stuff of fairy tales Like black leather jackets and dim lit bars Alien worlds and distant stars They promised jetpacks and flying cars But was it all just a roll of the dice For the experience? Let’s talk about the meaning of life … Or should I save that one for later? Fireworks on the Fourth of July Gas station coffee and apple pie A silhouette against a painted sky Well if this is it then I really can’t complain No there ain’t no fortune and there ain’t no fame Maybe I’ll find ’em on the next campaign Was it all just a roll of the dice For the experience? Tied up in this role for the night Ooh what an experience
2.
Masterpiece 04:37
Look out my window there’s a great big world I’m gonna stay inside For the bloodshed of conquistadors For the mountains and the sky For the pornographic sunset To the spinning fans of night Let’s make it right This masterpiece Write about now Write about now I don’t care about the future And I’m done with the past I’m gonna make it last Look at the ocean to a distant land Just on the other side Oh and all across the universe That flickers through the night To the unanswerable question For the unfathomable sight Let’s get it right This masterpiece Write about now Write about now An imaginary future And a glorified past I’m gonna make a splash
3.
Welcome to the future Farewell to the past Glimpse it in the crystal ball There just behind the glass In the hour of judgement In the lonesome shadow cast The singer wears a mask Hello to tomorrow Goodnight to today It was a long, long time ago In a place far, far away For the poets of tomorrow And the masters of the past The singer wears a mask Before imagined galleries Before the simulcast The singer wears a mask Welcome to the future
4.
Losing my voice Losing my face Losing my mind Here they come to take her place Here they come to take what’s mine (Knock knock knock knock on the door) They don’t need me anymore But I still remember how it was before On top of the world And just seventeen Each step inline each note in tune Ain’t it good to be queen? Then I’m out on my own An insatiable greed Number one on the charts With the spotlight on me Victim to the fate Of a software update She looks just like me My flawless simile Hardwired for success In a mini dress While I’m just flesh and blood Guess that’s it and I’m done Watch the glory as it fades I’m washed up and I’m replaced As they take it all away Have mercy on me Have mercy on me
5.
A gentle mist is fallen On the city at night The shadow dancing with the neon light And suddenly I’m in pseudoscience fiction As a swarm of locusts Usher in the new disease My fifteen minutes of celebrity And suddenly I’m in pseudoscience fiction A red sun smudged Upon a fleeting sky Some kind of vision flashed before my eye And suddenly I’m in pseudoscience fiction In the smoky mirror In a bathroom stall A desperate warning scratched upon the wall And suddenly I’m in pseudoscience fiction Just behind the masquerade Where the eagles fly Another year has come to pass on by And suddenly I’m in pseudoscience fiction
6.
Cozumel 03:44
The cool Pacific Ocean breeze A scorchin’ southern sun They’re serving margaritas I’ve got a fever of a hundred and one I should have been in paradise Now I’m trapped here in this hell Dying like a gringo on a beach in Cozumel Exiled in this country An outlaw from afar A pest to the bartender Working at the swim-up bar My breathing slow and labored As a moonlit tide does swell Dying like a gringo on a beach in Cozumel My hair is styled in cornrows My arms henna tattooed The resort has been surrounded And they won’t let no one through Feed my body to the fishes Dress my corpse in puka shells Dying like a gringo on a beach in Cozumel
7.
Fear Factor 05:31
Sometimes I stare in space Sometimes I stare in the glass at the lines on my face As time renders before me and is left behind Red wine hydroxychloroquine Where did it all go wrong? When did we end up here? If you’re trying to add it up Factor in the fear The fear factor Fake news opposing views Discipline and punish you The promise of mirage As leopards feast on my visage Living the denouement An ending drawing near Of all the puzzling pieces Factor in the fear The fear factor Inside of this viridian room Soaked in blood and beer Careful calculations babe Factor in the fear The fear factor There are worlds beyond our own Tomorrowlands where cars have flown Somewhere out in that great unknown Somewhere out there beyond the stars Past Venus, Jupiter and Mars And neon nights and dim lit bars
8.
Cancel your plans Let’s stay in tonight Encore? Ain’t nothing else to do anyway Cancel your plans We’ll watch a movie Qu’est-ce qu’on écoute? Maybe science fiction Watch the ceiling fan as it makes its rounds Days go by and suns go down Look outside each day is new What’s the point, the point of view Ooh and ride off into the sunset baby Draw the curtains, put the lights down low There ain’t nowhere to go and nothing to do Just me and you Count the hours and count the ways From Boogie Nights to Groundhog Days This might be the hardest part Or maybe this is just the start Ooh and ride off into the sunset baby

about

With Pseudoscience Fiction, Kristian North arrives suddenly at a stark pinnacle of sonic maximalism, matched by lyrical worldbuilding that’s phantasmagoric and freaky. In the course of the eight tracks that comprise the Montreal singer-songwriter’s third solo album, North’s deep croon guides listeners through Ballardian manmade nightmares that are equal parts startling and familiar, intimate and colossal. Like the best speculative fiction, North’s vision of the future is deeply rooted in the past. The tracks on Pseudoscience Fiction engage deeply with the aesthetics of ‘70s soul, funk, and disco, but also make dizzying dips into the wildly disparate realms of rock opera, show tunes, and Hawaiian-tinged country, culminating in an assemblage that defies categorization.

At each turn, nothing is as it seems. Imagined worlds dissolve into one another, characters and avatars become interchangeable in their roleplaying. In the chorus to “Masterpiece” North urges himself: “write about now/ write about now” and in the song’s coda, a deranged shock jock promotes locust-deterrent bug spray after welcoming listeners to paradise. The album’s instrumentation is relentlessly unpredictable; North’s third full-length collaboration with iconoclastic producer Renny Wilson at Value Sound Studio in Montréal sees the pair push their sonic palate into extreme, lush territory. Displaying their wide-ranging musical chops, North and Wilson handle the lion’s share of instrumentation here, but the spotlight also shines on performances by Cindy Lee Woland on guitar, Joe Grass on pedal steel, Ari Swan on violin, and Andrea Mercier on sax. North’s nightmare world is bolstered by the voices of an array of singers from Montréal’s music scene, including a duet with Elle Barbara on “Mercy”.

As the album’s title suggests, Pseudoscience Fiction is seated deeply in the realm of sci-fi, drifting through a landscape of bleak dystopian modernity, landing in individualized bubbles of reality. Still, the songs always gesture back towards the personal, with North meditating on aging and loneliness in a time of uncanny disjointedness by way of increasingly complex metaphor and double entendre. An eclectic rotating cast of singers and musicians come and go, voices blending into one another, acoustic instruments stepping aside to let their simulacra shine. Amidst the album’s chaos, jittering on the edge of disintegration, North sounds right at home, welcoming us to the future.

credits

released May 19, 2023

All songs written and performed by Kristian North
Produced by Renny Wilson and Kristian North
Mixed and engineered by Renny Wilson at Value Sound
Mastered by Richard Addison at Trillium Sound
Illustration, layout and design by Samuel Tomson

Additional performances by:
Elle Barbara - Vocals
Hélène Barbier - Vocals
Joe Chamandy - Bass
Mitch Davis - Bottle Flute
Maude Deslauriers - Vocals
Abigail Galwey - Vocals
Georgia Graham - Vocals
Joe Grass - Pedal Steel
Jane L Kasowicz - Vocals
Luke Lovechild - Vocals
Marlee Macmillan - Vocals
Olivia Meek - Vocals
Andréa Mercier - Sax, Vocals
Thomas Molander - Drums
Phil Osborne - Radio DJ
James Player - Guitar
Ari Swan - Violin
Renny Wilson - Bass, Synth, Percussion
Cindy Lee Woland - Guitar

© 2023. Kristian North. All rights reserved.
℗ 2023. Kristian North, under exclusive license to Mothland.

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Kristian North Montreal, Québec

Kristian North eviscerates the very notion of restraint with a maximalist sci-fi epic grounded in the sounds of ‘70s soul, funk, and disco, with dizzying detours into the wildly disparate realms of rock opera, show tunes, and Hawaiian-tinged country, culminating in an assemblage that defies categorization. ... more

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