Open Head

Open Head on “House”:

“House” emerged from what turned out to be a pivotal jam session during the writing of the album. The band had a batch of songs, but many were feeling stuck in an angular, busy post-punk vocabulary they wished to escape. Creating tonal landscapes became more important than intricate melodies, and a lot of talk at the time was about the simple immediacy of electronic music and the punk-like attitude of experimental rap. Following these impulses, Jon abandoned his bass guitar for an Arturia Brute SE, focusing more on the manipulation of tone than a linear bass line, and Jared triggered samples of scrap metal on an SPD-SX running through his guitar effects pedals. These became the main melodic elements of the song. Brandon bowed a guitar prepared with several screwdriver bits, creating the haunting pads that swirl through one another. The lyrics imagine a machine made of flesh and metal limbs, trekking along in some sort of destructive tortured state: “I don’t wanna know what habit forms chains / I just wanna be done for awhile.”