| Self-Ish | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | August 23, 2016 | |||
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| Genre | ||||
| Length | 33:28 | |||
| Label | Say-10 Records | |||
| Producer | Kevin Antreassian | |||
| Will Wood and the Tapeworms chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Self-Ish | ||||
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Self-Ish (stylized as SELF-iSH) is the second studio album by American rock band Will Wood and the Tapeworms. It was independently released on August 23, 2016, and later received distribution through Say-10.
Prior to release, Will Wood described Self-Ish to be "about identity, ego and lack thereof". [5] He aimed for boldness and a lack of subtlety to strengthen his own honesty on the album. [2] During the creative process, Wood was unmedicated and new to therapy, which resulted in frenetic writing sessions and intense emotional experiences. [6]
On July 8, 2016, "Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity: Tulpamancer's Prosopagnosia / Pareidolia (As Direct Result of Trauma to Fusiform Gyrus)" was released as the lead single of Self-Ish. Alongside it was a music video co-directed by Will Wood and Adam Nawrot, featuring the band performing nude in a monochromatic room. [7] "Dr. Sunshine Is Dead" released on July 28 as the second single, [8] followed by "2012" as the third and final single on August 9. The latter had a music video published the same day, directed by Wood with Jesse Lazarus and Maddie Schwartz. It presents the band performing in an evidence room and a party, intermittenly cutting to Wood with body paint and various pieces of oversaturated or desaturated footage. [9]
Self-Ish was released as Will Wood and the Tapeworms' second album on August 23, 2016. [8] [10] On May 26, 2017, a music video was released for "Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!". Recorded in one shot and directed by Mark Jaworski, it features the band performing in a busy and cluttered room through a fisheye lens. [11] This was followed years later by a music video for "Dr. Sunshine Is Dead", released on September 30, 2019. It shows the Tapeworms performing on a psychedelic background while Wood shaves his head, eats waffles in a patient gown, wears body paint, and digs a hole in the ground in a thunderstorm. [12] On December 25, 2020, Self-Ish was remastered and re-released.
Self-Ish contains the title tracks "Self-" and "-Ish", piano ballads that open and close the eight-song album, respectively. The first full-band track on the album is "2012", [13] a funk-oriented track with lyrics about spirituality, psychedelics, where Wood describes how "the whole year's a blur." Its composition revolves around saxophone, piano, and kazoo, while the song's lyrics are sung at a fast pace. Tony Shrum of New Noise Magazine labeled it as "sarcastically-cheery drug-addled babbling", [9] while Bob Makin of My Central Jersey referred to it as a "jazzy acid trip". [13] In an interview with the latter, Wood stated that the year marked Quetzalcoatl's return and a tabula rasa of existential nihilism. [2]
"Cotard's Solution (Anatta, Dukkha, Anicca)" was described by Makin as a "zany, cirque de l’enfer revelry", likening it to Danny Elfman. [13] "Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity: Tulpamancer's Prosopagnosia / Pareidolia (As Direct Result of Trauma to Fusiform Gyrus)" is fourth on Self-Ish. [7] It was later included in "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2024 summer playlist. [14] "The Song with Five Names a.k.a. Soapbox Tao a.k.a. Checkmate Atheists! a.k.a. Neospace Government (A.K.A. You Can Never Know)" follows as a "'50s-spirited, gospel-inspired" song, featuring Alex Nauth of Foxy Shazam. [13]
Dianne Miranda of Gauntlet included "Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!" in a playlist of songs intended to put the listener in a state of numbness, [15] while Makin called it an "insane funeral march". [13] "Dr. Sunshine Is Dead" is a progressive rock song with latin inspiration. It focuses on dramatic instrumentation with saxophone, guitar, additionally including trumpet by Alex Nauth. [8] Shrum related it to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and detailed it as a mix of My Chemical Romance and the Mars Volta, [16] while Shawn Macomber of Fangoria described the track as a "gleefully deranged sonic ambience", comparing it to Gogol Bordello, Mr. Bungle, and Tom Waits. [17]
All tracks are written by Will Wood.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Self-" | 2:35 |
| 2. | "2012" | 4:04 |
| 3. | "Cotard's Solution (Anatta, Dukkha, Anicca)" | 5:05 |
| 4. | "Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity: Tulpamancer's Prosopagnosia / Pareidolia (As Direct Result of Trauma to Fusiform Gyrus)" | 3:43 |
| 5. | "The Song with Five Names a.k.a. Soapbox Tao a.k.a. Checkmate Atheists! a.k.a. Neospace Government (A.K.A. You Can Never Know)" | 4:27 |
| 6. | "Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!" | 5:51 |
| 7. | "Dr. Sunshine Is Dead" | 5:24 |
| 8. | "-Ish" | 2:15 |
| Total length: | 33:28 | |
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. [1]
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