I was going to wait until the 15th anniversary of American Analog Set’s final album, “Set Free”, to write this essay. Then life.
So then I was going to wait until the 20th anniversary, but then I got impatient. So here you are and you’re welcome.
I discovered the album 12 years after its release. American Analog Set wasn’t on my listening radar, but the band itself was. I’m certain it was simply in the immediate background of all the other “post rock” “content” I was listening to at the time of its release, in 2005.
Like many people in the streaming era, I found one of their songs from some sort of algorithm. A quick aside, I don’t harbor the same animosities about the word ‘algorithm’ like other people seem to. It’s a crude approach, yes. So is randomly buying LPs hoping that at least one of them will become your new favorite album, only to be functionally broke throughout the entire duration of your 20’s.
Set Free is one of my favorite albums. But unlike the rest of my favorite albums, even those which are relatively new additions (past few years), Set Free can only be my favorite album when it’s listened to in a different song order than how it was released.
In the original song ordering, I don’t understand the album. Kind of sentence a normal which uses like words but they’re order out of all. It’s a bit jarring but with a little work everything ends up making sense. Even Pitchfork failed to see the magic eye painting embedded in this album.
I have always wanted to write this short essay, but I had an irrational fear that when like this:
As a recording artist myself, I should never appear to question someone else’s original vision.
If the band ever sees this essay (which I doubt would ever occur), they will be offended.
I still harbor both of those fears. But I’m here to tell you that advertising my reordering of this album is worth the trouble, should it ever come. And I also think it’s worth it in terms of the album itself. I want more people to listen to it, I want more people to love it.
Here’s the new, suggested ordering:
She’s Half
First of Four
Immaculate Heart 1
Immaculate Heart 2
Born On the Cusp
The Green Green Grass
Sharp Briar
Cool Kids Keep
(Theme From) Everything Ends
Jr
Play Hurt
Fuck This… I’m Leaving
Let’s get poetic…
1. She’s Half
Starting with She’s Half is the key that unlocks this album. It’s the only track on the album which is in 6/4 time, which doesn’t mean anything in a vacuum, but for this album, it’s the perfect amuse bouche. It’s also one of the few tracks which has very minimal drumming with drums-proper (the guitar strumming otherwise serves as the main rhythmic element).
Additionally, it’s the warmup, the sound check, the one where the band members arrive and start playing their instruments at different stages of the tune.
The quiet, plaintive tone galvanizes the ear for more grit and a welcome comeback of some sort of beat with a kick drum and a snare. It perhaps demands it.
The lighting guy arrives, the curtain draws, the lights dim, the audience saunters inward.
2. First of Four
And the band walks in from off stage and we’re off.
The oft-mentioned motorik, krautrock beat that crops up in AAS’s catalog drives us into the daylight, and juices the nerves simultaneously with both calm and contentment. A simmering excitement with a pinch of anxiety.
The continual give and take of the guitar lines, licks, and affectations ornaments the ear as the brushed snare grounds the listener a few inches above the floor, almost there.
3. Immaculate Heart 1
We now become grounded by the beat. The groove is in control, worn-through and cut deep like the etched channel of ‘Billie Jean’ on my used copy of Thriller found at a garage sale 20 years ago (I think it *must* have been on one of those fancy, linear tracking turntables from the 80’s that could repeat a single track, and did it so for perhaps several years on repeat).
The raw materials of the album shine in Immaculate Heart 1. The acoustic guitar and brushed snare, the electric piano and slippery bass. Everything works in accordance with everything else, except for the floor, still hovering within a hair’s breadth.
4. Immaculate Heart 2
Now we’ve landed. The groove here is so tight, marked by the snap of the cracking snare. Milky vibes coat the arrangement while the guitar bites back.
I’m a sucker for instruments playing the same melodic lines together, especially when a bass element is involved. Immaculate Heart 2’s lyrics are hallucinated by the arrangement. There’s definitely a conversation occurring, we’re just not privy to its content, as if it’s happening deep in the collective subconscious.
5. Born on the Cusp
Waking from the introspection, fresh sunlight hits our eyes, and we float again. The biting guitar bites back, both referencing the past and foreshadowing our “Set it Free” future.
This song was written and played with albatross feathers. The vibes struck with the large, hollow quills, continually drift back into view as the song moves on.
6. The Green Green Grass
Like a family of snakes searching for food, the ostinato melodies and accompanying micro-riffs weave an anxious and unforgiving pattern in the green grass.
The tension and release here is manicured and taut, making it a perfect song for the middle of the album.
7. The Sharp Briar
These drums are immaculate. This album is sonically immaculate. And the sense of timing in the performances on this album almost appear to reveal the personalities belying AAS.
So cool and efficient this tune. So much happens with so little on Set Free, so incredibly spare and full at the same time. The Sharp Briar is the halfway-point reminder of how AAS has mastered their craft.
8. Cool Kids Keep
Adding some width, but keeping the humidity low, Cool Kids Keep starts with fuzz, adding the first new sonic element, now well into the record.
Drums fumble through off kilter and diagonal to the arrangement, splitting the ground like a subduction fault. The listener skates off on the glistening strumming which leads to nowhere.
9. (Theme From) Everything Ends
A break. The clouds lift, and were held together only by four solitary instruments. We hover again, ever so briefly.
The respite ends on time.
10. Jr
Like drinking cough syrup for fun, the incandescent fuzz sets back in. We’re in for some sort of a ride with Jr.
The lights dim, the sky shifts hues. The dirge of day’s end captured on tape.
11. Play Hurt
And as we trudge into the night with the wrong variety of beer, more and more things begin to resemble beds.
We’re barely even trying to change chords now. The light from the fridge pierces the frontal lobe while we look in earnest for something impossible to find at this hour.
Why am I thinking?
12. Fuck This… I’m Leaving
Eyes are closed, the mind begins to unravel. An LED across the room is enough light to fill the blackened room.
At any moment we’ll be gone. Is Fuck This a lullaby? I think so. How did he record his vocal? It’s perfectly isolated and then shrink-wrapped.
AAS knew all along this was a perfect album-ending tune, because that’s a thing. I don’t know if anyone else says it, but it’s definitely a thing.
So, why did AAS land on the original ordering? That question isn’t meant to suggest that it’s necessarily a bad ordering, it just tells a different story. The thing which seems of material discussion here is that 2005 was the beginning of the popular resurgence of vinyl. That’s both good and bad. Good because despite what the techno-purists say, and despite that they have a point about the pristine sound quality of digital and they are largely right, they also miss the point of physical media and what the brain hears and what it chooses not to. With vinyl, the body experiences a multidimensional event: the sound of the record, the kinesthetics involved with the physical engagement of the LP, the artwork in detail, the feel of the physical media. It’s an experience.
I have a bunch of shit-sounding records from 2005–2010. The albums are sadly some of my favorite, but the medium had problems with sound quality and reliability. It’s a well known limitation of vinyl that the inner part of the record has different frequency reproduction than the outer ring. I think that dictates a lot of song orderings in my listening experience, and I wonder if that’s the case here, with Set Free. I have some records that seem to hold up much better within the inner ring. Maybe that’s good mastering trickery, or perhaps manufacturing has improved along with technology.
Placing Jr at the end of side one makes good sense (see above), in both an artistic sensibility and a vinyl mastering sense. Similarly, First of Four can survive intact toward the inner ring of side two since there’s so much space in the mix. If anyone is wondering if I know what I’m talking about at this point, it’s not a bad question. I believe I’ve got this right, but please note that the name of this part of my website is “Bullshit”. I’m not trying to bullshit anyone, but sometimes bullshit happens.
I love this record. I will still love it in the original ordering, but I will probably only listen to it with the updated order. Sadly, while vinyl manufacturing has gotten better with technology, I still can’t order a custom pressing of an album from a chatbot. Someday, someday.