Do Not Bend

Screw it. New plan.

The new album is called Do Not Bend. It’s done. Ready to go. I’ve given it a few good listens in different environments. I wanted to be sure it didn’t need anything else. I have a few leftover ideas that I thought I might shoehorn in but there’s nowhere for them to go. It’s complete. The plan was to release it on March 6th, which is the next Bandcamp Friday but I don’t want to wait three weeks just so I can make a few extra bucks.

So here’s what I’m thinking: Monday is a holiday in North America, so I’ll post the album to Bandcamp on Tuesday (February 17). Between then and March 6th, maybe I can prepare a few other things like So Much Forever (the second Bike For Three! album) and an instrumental version of Vertex. On Tuesday, I’ll also post all the lyrics for Do Not Bend here on the ‘stack.

So what can I tell you about this thing? It’s pretty lean! It’s only about 30 minutes long. Packs a punch and then - poof! I wandered into some new territory for a few of the songs. I took an old school approach to putting it together and so out of necessity, I fell back on some of the tricks I used to use back in the 90s. You’ll know it when you hear it. I finally executed a few ideas I’ve had in the back of my mind for decades. I also finally finished off some beats that I had been tinkering with many years. I hope the amount of work that went into this comes through loud and clear.

I wanted to deliver a bunch of different styles with my rapping and so I deliberately set up some challenges for myself with the beats. The slowest song is 72 bpm. The fastest is 118. There’s also a song that I’m pretty excited about that is in 3/4 time. Hadn’t tried that since 2011 or so. I like making things difficult for myself because the results are always satisfying, even if it takes a lot longer to reach them.

Oh, and one last reminder that the plan is for this to be a Bandcamp-only release. I’m not going to put it up on any of the streaming platforms or press vinyl or anything. I just want to keep this as uncomplicated and un-stressful as possible.

As I’ve said a few times over the last few months, there are other projects in the pipeline. The juices are flowing pretty well right now, so I’m going to go directly to work on the next item on the list, which may or may not see the light in 2026.

I thank you in advance for any support you may give to Do Not Bend and I always appreciate feedback and whatnot.

Talk to you on Tuesday!