“Well it’s over, but it keeps on happening”
We are not going to insult you by telling you what is happening right now in the world and in your lives. Within the band, everyone feels in their own way a phenomenon of acceleration or compression of time: a merry-go-round that accelerates faster and faster until all its occupants are expelled, an arrow that will inexorably reach its target without deviating from its trajectory, a spy movie countdown ticking the minutes to the final explosion.
Between denial, joke and seriousness, we had never seemed to hear so many reflections on the end of the world, people talking so openly about suicide, health or meteorological apocalypse, a big destructive comet or a redemptive nuclear missile to end it all "quickly once and for all", not to mention the resignations, separations, depressions, addictions, existential crisis that seem to be becoming the standards of this new normal.
It took less than 6 months between the writing and the release on June 13 of our previous track "By The Sea". A real feat for us who usually take years to release our songs. Neither perfectionism nor humbug, like most amateur bands we face human, logistical and financial problems preventing us from releasing as many songs as we would like, added to that a pressure from our peers which forced us to respond to certain "ideals" in terms of sound quality. If we had to sum up our situation almost without irony, we were wasting months trying to find solutions to give the illusion of having spent 10,000 euros to make an instrument or voice sound correctly with less than a 100 euros budget. The result was rarely up to our expectations, and the nervous breakdowns in the process made it not worth it. What was the point of releasing a song written at 26 in a totally different context at 33, and having wasted 18 months for the drums or guitar to sound “a little better”?
Our big reassessment at the beginning of 2022, which pushes us to release one song per month, is closely linked to this double reflection: does it still make sense not to write about the present time, about our daily troubles and anxieties? Wasn't it better to partly sacrifice the form, and take the risk of releasing something "less good" to make it more temporally relevant?
“Gray State” was born on April 23, 2022 around 10:30 p.m. No one remembers precisely what happened in the world, nor what they were doing that day. None of us remember the songs we listened to, nor how tired we were. Less than 10 days later, still in the middle of recording "By The Sea", we were finalizing “Gray State” in rehearsal to be able to record it in the wake of the following weeks. 81 days between a bad gibberish and a streaming release.
Finished a few hours before the deadline, the video is our response – between amazement and amusement – to the improbability of the past three months. A kind of "worst of" of these last 81 days of war, disease, cynicism and slap in the face. Our video of April 13 "Trap & Reward" having been limited without reason by YouTube, it was decided at the last minute to censor as many images as possible and to put an "uncensored" version on other platforms much less concerned by the moral integrity, sensitivity and intelligence of their visitors (link to
Odysee.com below in the comments). The worst being that YouTube may still censor our video in the coming days (thus ending the existence of our channel which has already suffered a warning)
We would like to thank our friend Natalia Jaime-Cortez, visual artist and more, for allowing us to use some parts of her works exhibited at Rue Française last May for the cover of our single as well as in the video (seen at 0:27). A few weeks before the exhibition, she told us about the difficulty to convey in a photograph the feelings of the public, friends or professionals towards her work. It is always difficult to identify, between excitement, hypocrisy, empathy and incomprehension. She talked about the place of art, the importance of the material, the doubts that often overwhelmed her. For the cover, we focused on a few centimeters of a much larger piece of paper, to bring our own point of view there: the eye of judgment. We of course invite you to take an interest in the work of this artist, hoping that our little “sampling” work will not be a betrayal of the initial message.
[END OF THE FIRST PART – FOLLOW UP TO COME IN A FEW DAYS]
released July 13, 2022
Cover by Natalia Jaime-Cortez (
nataliajaimecortez.wordpress.com )
Music & lyrics by Staircase Paradox
Amélie : synth, piano, vocals, production
Billy : vocals, guitars, trumpets, production
Pauline : vocals, claps, synthbass, production
Mix & mastering by Iséo Furudoï (@Gashasound)
Video:
YouTube (CENSORED Version) link :
youtu.be/3SVTo9PNGqY
Odysee (Uncensored version) link :
odysee.com/@staircaseparadox:a/GrayState:6d
