THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Revered rock institution Titus Andronicus have released Basement Brainstorm, a compilation album of essential rarities intended to illuminate the painstaking creative process which resulted in last year’s acclaimed studio album The Will To Live. The album is available now digitally (just in time for Bandcamp Friday) and on the first ever officially sanctioned Titus Andronicus audio cassette tape, via the long-dormant vanity imprint Titus Andronicus Records.
The surprise release is accompanied by a music video for I Can Not Be Satisfied (Patrick’s Version), directed by stalwart Titus Andronicus collaborator Ray Concepcion, which takes a light-hearted look back at the maddening isolation of the peak-pandemic era. Watch singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles “shelter in place” at the rock band’s subterranean rehearsal space, while trying his hand at foreign instruments such as drums and keyboards.
Rock scholars will take great interest in the demo version of Bridge and Tunnel which the band recorded on Leap Day 2020, not realizing that it would be their last session for more than a year. Sequestered from his comrades, Stickles had to make use of his idle hands, producing a series of elaborate demos on which he played all the instruments (these are notated Patrick’s Version) and facilitated his own audio engineering.
What began as a begrudging concession to a new reality blossomed into an outpouring of creativity and prolificity, which spilled over into the eventual rock band studio sessions, the surplus output of which makes up the B-side of Basement Brainstorm. The joy of the reunited rock band finally jamming together once again will be immediately evident on fanciful flights such as Afternoon Boogie and Summer of ‘69.
“When you have a rock band like Titus Andronicus at yr disposal, you’d be a fool not to use them,” Stickles explains, “but the global crisis forced us all to make concessions and compromises. Being exiled from the stage gave me an abundance of time which was both a burden and a luxury, for I had never dug so deep and whittled away so diligently on any previous creative endeavor. I hope I never have to again.”
Not unlike the studio album to which it is a worthy and welcome addendum, Basement Brainstorm comes packaged in gorgeous artwork by esteemed illustrator Nicole Rifkin, depicting the humble and cozy underground lair where Stickles toiled in hopes of finding The Will To Live. Included as a bonus track is a performance of the fifth scene of the first act of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, recorded after-hours in the studio when a discussion of Bob Dylan’s quarantine hit Murder Most Foul inspired Stickles to reprise his high school theater role of the ghost of King Hamlet, with bassist R.J. Gordon portraying the melancholy dane.”
