Appetite for Distraction - by Orange Peel & Higher Res

‘Appetite for Distraction’ is a song I collaborated on with the multi-talented visual artist and musician Jonathan Tighe, who creates music under the name Higher Res, and whom I interviewed in an earlier Demoitis article.

Back in late 2023, we did some sessions messing about with Jon’s Elektron Digitakt II sampler. Jon recorded me playing the guitars and basses, and then he manipulated the sounds, creating samples and loops that he later sculpted into this track. From memory, I was improvising around my song ‘Two Deaths at a Halloween Party’ when he taped these sections.

Later, I cut the vocals using a cheap USB microphone to achieve a suitably lo-fi quality. There are several other similarly fragmented recordings that will see the light of day at some point.

Lyrics:

Sometimes I feel

like I’m almost there.

Then I wake up

find I was dreaming.

Butterfly

flutter by

Now I’m tongue-tied.

Maybe they all know

I’m faking.

I try, I try

Well, I tried, I tried.

Got an appetite for distraction.

Everybody’s looking

for some kind of action.

Maybe that’s the root

of the problem.

Sometimes I feel

like I’ve been here before.

It’s hard to explain clearly.

Avoid the news,

the feeds, the feuds.

Gotta stay optimistic

but it’s not always easy.

It’s not always easy.

—

Thanks for listening.

James

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