The Subtle Madness

Brought to you by EMP Studios in Fort Worth, TX, The Weekly Mix features @thesubtlemadness & @empstudiostx Lead Producer/Engineer Matt Poole Butler & crew as they work, play, and navigate the nexus of art and industry.

Caught between a dream, it seems I found my faith,

Hesitant yet to celebrate for times all left with a bitter aftertaste

Mustering the strength to live as the man I know I am

I can tell you there will always be those…

Those who oppose for the fuck of it and try to haunt a sacred place

Master your time

Pay them no mind.

On the evenings I become aware of long lost tides…

Of waters stealing progress and the way it reminds,

That I would be remiss to miss my reflecting,

Sacred and resolute in quiet minutes of mourning…

Though somehow I find I’m whole again.

The years Ive served music now love me in kind.

I’d lie if I denied to miss the nights when you laid beside…the sight to behold you that you were,

But I am grateful that you are my friend. I love you because you are my friend.

Thank you for that.

May we never doubt the kindness in each other again…

I truly do see you…

Gifted two years, I know you…

So know I admire you most in this light, dark though this brief moment may be.

For you’ve found your feet, regardless of the reason,

Hello Fellow Human & Friend:

I will definitely check that out. Here is a link to ours as well:

@thesubtlemadness Presents: Meet the Band - drummer Chris Negrete

One moment, you are the voice recalled

When women think themselves et al

And then the motion of a clockwise fall

Serves to change your current state.

When all things have an odiferous sting

Eyes water, legs falter, you failed to bring

A timely end to sourced suffering

There’s nowhere to go from here, my dear.

Make a statement in any room with this framed, colorful glitch-art TSM poster titled "In Memoriam," from the eponymous track off The Subtle Madness album, Zero-Sum. Created by TSM's frontman, this design is printed on high-quality paper, with a partly glossy, partly matte finish. • 10 mil (0.25 mm) thick paper • Paper weight: 260 g/m² • .75” (1.9 cm) thick ayous wood frame • Acrylite front protector • Hanging hardware included • Blank product components in the US sourced from Japan and the US • Blank product components in the EU sourced from Japan and Latvia How to attach hooks on 24″ × 36″ horizontal frames: Place each of the mounting hooks 1 inch (2.5 cm) from frame corners when hanging horizontally.

One link for all things about The Subtle Madness, Zero-Sum (album), videos, socials, pins, and Patient Zero. Took 5 years to make the album because of heavy shit…nothing to do but place blood on wax, hoping that it may keep someone else from feeling like they are alone.

See "This Divide"

Let tides bring what they may,

For waters never lie dormant...

I've lain in sands shallow enough to leave angel wings imprinted

Like molted feathers on a back overburdened.

Woe is he found halved, whether a man or a tribe divided.

I can hear the calling from Source, on repeat...

Pleading for minds, primed and open to receive gifted keys,

Much as mine once was, when I could radio a response

With the light of a blowtorch on a moonless South Texas night,

Invoking a conversation beyond time and borders.

Now, I pine for the faintest glimmer and pray to be

Transmitting on the proper frequency.

Brothers and Sisters, lay down your arms and listen!

If we pledge ourselves to the pursuit of focus,

Our fader locked at unity, our eyes peering beyond matter,

Our petty squables and sordid affairs with currency forgetten,

We just may see the face of God and hear Them,

Singing songs of eternal TRUTH...a concert of energy & vibration,

Then, when witnessed, even for a moment measured in miliseconds,

(time, such as this, being both an illusionary construct of our creation and a limit self-imposed by the mortal minds in attendance),

We may REMEMBER ALL just long enough to reset the rate of our decline,

From torrents that bathe us to cleanse what we've become,

To a tepid drip,

Please see "The Color Down"

The mind is a fickle thing...

Certain images fade like the ailing among us,

Skin, loose and leathered, the air peppered by

Sand-papered rasps of regret, always just before...

The frame fades to black.

Black and never back again.

Someone help me find the real

Far, far, SO fucking far away from

The white-knuckled mannequins,

Bound for escape once their illusions and

legal-tender crumble.

I observe these unoriginal rituals and

Have come to accept my inability to

Pretend to practice mockeries of the Holy Gift;

Shit, I admit to missing the point of it,

However ripe for peacocking as the pages

Before the prolouge may be.

I mean, few survive unscathed by some

Manifestation of Warhol's fifteen,

Particularly,

Those from points of origin, lowest in the caste...

Those just like me.

Yet, I dare opine and you'll find my brethren and I are quick

To identify

And cease inhaling the smoke blown up our ass.

For none of us are better than,

Or deeper still, separate from

Our fellow travelers here.

We may love to claim two where,

The truth is much more singular.

It's here we discover the key to it all...

Frog Song... Written in 2022 while finishing work on Zero-Sum

Years ago, when I lived with Stephanie on her family’s land in La Grange, I walked outside one evening just after sunset and was overtaken by the sound of nature....

The insects buzzing and frogs singing their songs to one another along the pond. I had the urge to record it with my phone, one of those archiac, flip-phone blocks that you may only find in a museum now, thinking it would be perfect to use it as an interlude on an album one day.

My work on Zero-Sum has finally afforded me that opportunity, so last night I imported in into the DAW, mixing it in surround so that it sounds as if the listener is standing in the middle of the pond, the song all around. You can hear the cars on the road in the distance, sounding their own notes as they pass. Finally, the addition of two synthesizers, one proving a backing drum track, synced to tempo, and a pad that emits a sound like swirling wind.