Released May 2, 2025

Written, produced and performed by Jay Gironimi

Liner Notes

A buddy of mine, Bentley, went to film school. Every couple of weeks he’d give me three days notice to score something he shot for class. I talked a lot of shit about the time frame, but I never said no. I loved the challenge, something I can only admit years later, after one of us passed. I think he’d understand. 

He once told me I wrote “compelling instrumental music”, which I took as an insult to my singing (which, honestly was not very good at the time), but he probably meant it as a compliment. So here’s an album of instrumental music, too late for him to hear it, but maybe just under the wire for you to hear it. 

Some of these are songs written many years ago for those student films, now re-arranged and re-recorded to sound less like something some scrawny bastard made on Dell home computer. Some of these are new songs. At least one was written after watching the Miami Vice pilot. They work best at night, but don’t let me tell you how to live your damn life.

Speaking of life, it kinda got in the way of the release of this one. It’s not entirely accurate to say my life fell apart at the end of April, but some large pieces of it definitely hit the ground. Ultimately, after an easter dinner at Smokey Bones, a $70 parking lot wedding and a whole lot of moving, I was able to come out in better shape. But goddamn if the birthing wasn’t painful.

As such, the promotion of this album sort of fell by the wayside as me and my longtime fiancee/now wife scrambled to find a new place to live. Which is fine, I guess because I didn’t really have any great ideas to promote it anyway, even if I am very proud of it. 

Track by Track

“Awash in Technicolor Blood” – This was written for the album that became Coven, but I could never figure out how to add lyrics to it. I actually wrote this on an iPad using GarageBand then replaced some of the synths with actual guitars, which seemed like a clever idea, but it was really hard to get guitar sounds I liked better than the synth.

“On a 3am Drive” – My wife and I like to watch old tv shows, so after going through both Baywatch (tremendous television) and Baywatch Nights (tremendously bad television), we started searching for another vintage mid-grade show to lull us off to sleep. We watched the pilot episode of Miami Vice, but it was too good, so we moved on. However, there’s a nighttime drive set to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” that might be the coolest thing to ever air on network television. I wrote this directly after seeing that.

BTW, we ended up watching all of Knight Rider. I did not write any songs about Knight Rider.

“There’s Something Hiding in the Darkness” – This song was the result of me doing some late night improvising using that delay bed that runs through the song. My original plan was to learn how to play the lead melody on violin, but my violin playing could be deemed a war crime, so I just broke out the volume pedal and tried to do my most violin-like guitar playing. Real proud of the lead at the end of this, which includes a subtle nod to my favorite guitar player Gregor Mackintosh of Paradise Lost.

“Whispering, Then Screaming” – This one was written for one of my buddy’s student films. He handed me a silent film about a dude falling in love with a mannequin head and I had no fucking idea what to do with that. I eventually landed on a heartbeat motif that would speed up as the relationship fell apart. The film was very short, so a lot of the distorted stuff at the end here is completely new.

“The Old Gods Must Die for the New Gods to Be Born” – This was also written for the album that became Coven, back when the concept was still “urban apocalypse” and not witches. Honestly, it probably would have made that album if I didn’t decide that Coven needed exactly 13 songs, because I really like this one. That little octave pedal part in the chorus was a real bastard to play cleanly, to the point where at least one of the repeats is fucked up on here, but I thought it was more fun to leave it rather than stitch together something more accurate.

“With Neon in the Distance” – In the process of trying to use my phone in a more constructive way, I wrote the delayed melody to this on one of the GarageBand synths, probably while on the can. But when it came time to make it official, I played it on guitar. It’s a lot of fun to play guitar with a bunch of delay on it, because you hit one note and it makes a whole lot of noise. Shut all the effects off here and the sound of the intro sounds like a kid trying to plink out their first little melody, but kick those pedals on and you get a glorious mess of sound.

“We’re Quietly Circling the Drain” – I bought a fancy looping pedal for an excellent price once, then had to sell it when I needed some cash. I figured I could just use a cheaper pedal or maybe even my iPad when I finally got time to knuckle down and become a looping street performer or whatever. Anyway, I wrote entirely one looped song and this is it.

“As the Electrical Secrets of Heaven are Revealed” – This was written specifically for this album, because I had to replace a song that didn’t really fit the vibe. Since a lot of these songs involve using traditional instruments in place of synths, this one is all synth. I think of it as a score for a Frankenstein creation scene that probably doesn’t exist, but feel free to pop it over a few to see if it fits. Hell, film your own and score it with this if you’d like. I can’t stop you.

“To Be Nothing More Than This” – This is from another short film and probably the best piece I wrote for one. Whereas the previous film was about a guy falling in love with a head, this one was about a girl falling in love with a blanket. There’s not much joy in my heart, especially back when I wrote this, so all I could do was turn it into a real downer. 

People seemed to really like it though, to the point where someone in the faculty at SVA asked my buddy if he could get another song like that for an official college video he was making. I tried to write one, but he said they hated it and he just used this instead. That other song became “Watchmaker” on Under Dead Stars.

“A Single Smoke Stained Bulb on a Broken Dimmer Switch” – This is my attempt to write Twin Peaks music. Not necessarily music that sound like Twin Peaks but music that could be on Twin Peaks. I have a hard time playing restrained music, so it’s a fun challenge. The noises at the end are supposed to be the sounds and music coming from different rooms and cars and what not. Originally it was all supposed to mesh together as one song, but it sounded a little too cute if I really hit that on the nose. The talking it from one of my favorite things I’ve ever made: McDonaldland Wrestling, a fever dream of a wrestling show I spun up right at the beginning of the pandemic. Something about fast food mascots having theme music kills me.

By the way, if you read all the song titles together, it makes a little piece: “Awash in technicolor blood on a 3am drive, there’s something hiding in the darkness, whispering, then screaming ‘the old gods must die for the new gods to be born’. With neon in the distance, we’re quietly circling the drain as the electrical secrets of heaven are revealed to be nothing more than this: a single smoke stained bulb on a broken dimmer switch.”

Previous Release: A Beginner’s Guide to All Hallow’s Evil (compilation)