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The Failure (2008)

by B Dolan

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    Available for the first time in it's entirety on vinyl (including a new Bonus Track), "The Failure" is now shipping worldwide! Each copy will come with a B. Dolan sticker, 2 Bombzo Red LPs, a new printed insert featuring unreleased album art. Another beautiful looking vinyl from the good folks at Bandcamp. Excited to be able to offer these at long last!

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1.
Generator 01:47
2.
3.
Knock Knock 01:15
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10.
11.
12.
Kate 05:43
13.
Breakadoom 00:44
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15.
Junk Poetry 04:58
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17.

about

"As I set down these notes on paper, I'm obsessed by the thought that I might be the last living man on earth... Writing down my daily life, I tell myself I shall preserve human history between the dark covers of this little book."

For over twenty years now, I've been making records in a studio I call the Fallout Shelter. Back in 2008, there was a hulking upright piano I salvaged from some barn. It was badly out of tune, but the lowest note felt like a bomb dropping when played late at night. It became the first sound on the record.

The project was never finished correctly, as you probably know. I ended up piecing the fragments of it together while talking to Ben (a text-to-speech program on my badly overworked computer). The computer that crashed frequently back in 2002, when I'd just returned to Providence from NYC. That was before the piano, even... the year I met Sage Francis and my wife Desarae at the Providence Poetry Slam. Prior to that I'd been in the New York underground where I started performing, trying to make sense of the music industry. I encountered the commercial music scene in the form of Def Jam, Rawkus and Roc-a-fella affiliates. They all wanted to know if I could rap like Eminem. The poetry scene was even more full of preening hacks and gatekeepers. I reacted by leaving the scene. Moving out here. Starting to build this place...

It took years to learn how to record that piano. Blindly experimenting with music software. Recording my own vocals in bathtubs. A million bad mixdowns. Recording Sage in my unlit closet with a sock over the mic. Distortion on everything. Mentally I had rejected everything that came from Slam Poetry and commercial music. None of it reflected the ongoing apocalypse. None of it depicted the ugliness and brutality I had experienced. As the years passed and the stillness of the shelter closed in, awful creatures came to visit me. They wanted to leave crowds in shock and silence. They wanted to splatter themselves with blood and clown makeup and scream their pain into the void.

A friend named Brendan "Alias" Whitney came into my life at that time, and gave me some nightmare-machine instrumental canvases. Another talented musician and singer named Jim Diotte would feature on nearly every project I ever made thereafter. Together we made a record that was truly for no one. I eventually learned to use the text-to-speech program in a sort of trance, and Ben came to life. Our relationship became strained and contentious. We grew apart. I soon realized it was him or me. Around this time I fell in love with a cockroach.

14 years after it's initial release, I've taken another stab at making the album. Enclosed you will find the result. I can't shake the feeling that it still needs some work, and has ultimately failed. The pandemic has taken it's toll. My body is a monument in ruins, and Europe is once again at war. The Falco Brothers continue to stalk the earth, but we are still here for a little while longer. Apologies to whoever finds this record. Rest assured it was not a success. In fact, the beauty has always been the attempt, while facing certain defeat.

Thank you for listening,
B"

credits

released March 1, 2007

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about

B Dolan Providence, Rhode Island

B. Dolan is a road-tested hip hop poet who continues to navigate life, aging, liberation and a body full of trauma, while carefully shaping beats and lyrics late into the night.

Visit IAmBDolan.com to read the full artist bio.
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