A Constant Cough Self-Titled EP
Victoria Carpenter and I have, on and off since roughly 2011, performed together under the name A Constant Cough. Despite this long time frame, if you look at our Bandcamp page we have just three releases, one being a recording of a live performance, the next being a single, and the most recent an EP we debuted last month. This is a project that has started and stopped innumerable times throughout the last decade as we have each gone through various changes in our lives – the most recent of these stops, obviously, being the COVID-19 pandemic.
While recorded and conceptualized long before the pandemic, I think it serves this time of quarantine and isolation well. Prior to officially releasing it, we sent out the rough mixes to several friends for feedback, and one of the most common responses was some variation of the following: “I sat down in contemplation while listening without distraction, it held my attention throughout, and it felt as though it was intended to be the accompaniment for a short film” (in that a natural narrative arc emerged throughout that also stimulated ideas for visuals).
The idea of creating a piece of music that cuts through the noise enough for others to feel compelled to do nothing other than sit and listen to it is about the highest praise I can imagine receiving. Thank you again to everyone who was willing to do that, and for your thoughtful responses. In that same spirit of thoughtfulness and attention – and in favor of remaining artistically active during a time when musicians are not out and about rehearsing and playing gigs – I wanted to write a bit about the record from the perspective of the relationship between Viki and I.
The manner in which this record unfolded was as important as the music that resulted, and rehearsals happened in the following way: we would meet every Wednesday morning possible for a couple hours, spend roughly the first hour talking, and the second hour rehearsing. We would talk about whatever was consuming our thoughts, music-related or otherwise. Topics ran the gamut; during the time this record was conceptualized Viki was dealing with the grief of losing her father, I sometimes had suicidal psychotherapy clients I was especially worried about and would be distracted, we’d both gone through friendship relationships that have morphed and shifted, and we both got engaged to our significant others.
In regards to these conversations; I cannot even begin to describe the helpfulness of receiving validation, a gentle challenge or re-frame to especially emotionally-dysregulated sentiments, or deep listening from someone I care about immediately followed by playing intimate, cathartic music together. It seemed to prime me for being in the headspace necessary to play the nature of music that we do, in which give-and-take, and a sharing of being the focal point plays out over the course of the record. Without necessarily planning it this way, I think that we have created a record that mirrored the dynamic of those conversations that informed it.
I, for most of my life, have been afraid of offending people, and doing or saying things that would lead someone to conflict with me. This tendency finds a parallel in my playing where – for those who were in bands with me in the past know well – I have for years bucked the trend of lead guitarists whose amps are always too loud by not being nearly loud enough, and being afraid to take up space.
Viki has expressed a similar sentiment, and identifies as someone who is also a people-pleaser in recovery. Neither of us are particularly inclined toward the spotlight, and are more than willing to allow others to take credit or praise rather than claiming it as our own. And yet, we found a way for us to each take center stage at different points throughout the record, and express a range of our sensibilities and talents. Over the past several years, when tasked with writing descriptions of our music, we have chosen to call these songs duets for that very reason.
Thinking back over the last decade, I realize that Viki has continually created an encouraging, safe space in which my most academic, psychedelic, low and high brow thinking and playing is welcomed. Feeling comfortable enough to talk about whatever needed to be discussed – regardless of how half-baked or unpolished an idea – translated into a similar context for playing music. Nowhere else have I felt as able to get out of my own head and feel into what I wanted to express through the instrument, without worry of playing wrong notes, or introducing an idea that was only ten percent developed.
The record opens with the song Tirepile, which I think stands as the best example of this music as a duet. Unlike most of the rest of the record, Viki’s guitar is not featured, and her vocals are the initial showcase with spare, repetitive chord swells underneath. I then have the chance to take an Eddie Hazel Maggot Brain inspired wah solo unaccompanied by anything but the reverb of the room, and the song reaches a climax with Viki switching from singing lyrics to vocalizations – guitar and voice intertwining with each, coaxing the other along to a peak before ambient noise engulfs all like a wave to carry us on to the next track.
So, too, goes the push/pull dynamic through the next several songs, culminating in yet another vocalization and lead guitar apex during the last third of the song Alaska. Again, I come back to this notion of relationship, in which intuitively and nonverbally communicating the dynamics of songs like these is something that can only come from years of building trust within a friendship. Chord-wise, these are simple songs – often only alternating between two chords for several minutes at a time – and yet they are simultaneously some of the most difficult to get right of any that I’ve learned due to the vulnerability and focus that each requires of us.
The record concludes with the track Drive, which is a departure from the rest in that it takes a more formal pop structure than the preceding songs. The lyrics detail the tendency that many of us have to – rather than address our problems head-on – aim to change our environment, and take up life in a new place instead. Interesting to consider the subject matter in light of a pandemic, in which physically we cannot escape our environments and go elsewhere. The lyrics “the world feels different than before” feel especially resonant in the present. Does it ever.
Despite not writing any of the lyrics myself, this record has more of me in it than any other music I’ve been a part of creating, which I’m sure has much to do with how intimidating sharing it with the world feels. Thanks to everyone who was a part of this record’s life throughout the years, and to Viki for always helping me to remember that the product of the music created is secondary to the relationships kept. The record is self-titled A Constant Cough, and is streaming everywhere. Let’s all hope for a physical release when we can gather together again, and please enjoy the digital version in the meantime.
-Danny Shaheen (Lead Guitar)
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