Almost 40 years ago, preteen singer Chandra become an underground hero with her unique brand of post-punk/no-wave. These days, she's a fairly busy touring act, and now she's returned with her first new song since the 1980s. Entitled "Bad Ride," it's a collaboration with her bandmate MISZCZYK, and Exclaim! has the premiere now.
MISZCZYK is the solo moniker of Nyles Miszczyk, a Toronto producer who has worked with Hollerado, Girlfriend Material, Simply Saucer and more. He also plays bass in Chandra's band, while his solo material explores more of an electronic trip-hop direction.
Even though "Bad Ride" is Chandra's first new music in decades, she actually wrote these lyrics as a teenager way back in the 1980s. In a press release, she explained that the lyrics are a collage of a number of unreleased songs:
When Nyles invited me to write the lyrics for one of his songs, I headed straight for my newly organized lyrics archive and pulled out the 1980s folders. Then I started playing Nyles' tracks and very quickly, so as to access a more subconscious intuitive place, I pulled out loose lyrics sheets and flipped through pages of old notebooks, trying out lines from many different songs over Nyles' music. Within about three minutes I hit on this line, 'I'm stiff at the moment,' one line from an unfinished song I wrote when I was around 14.
It seemed to belong to this one track that Nyles sent, not the original song I was going to work on, but it fit so well, I had to roll with it. Pulling out sheet after sheet, playing the song over and over, mixing and matching between lyrics of at least five different songs, and adding and fleshing things out with a few newly written words to tie things together, within about 10 minutes I had the song.
So, there is a stream of consciousness element, only it's more like taking thoughts I had 40 years ago and using my brain now to sift through them, to see what still applies, play with shifting the original meanings and adding in the perspective of time/life passing. There is a love story element, heartbreak, finding strength to extricate oneself from a bad situation, a desire to succeed. It could be about a relationship with someone else or with oneself, probably both.
Check out the premiere of MISZCZYK and Chandra's "Bad Ride" below. It comes on the heels of Chandra's live 7-inch for Third Man Records.
MISZCZYK is the solo moniker of Nyles Miszczyk, a Toronto producer who has worked with Hollerado, Girlfriend Material, Simply Saucer and more. He also plays bass in Chandra's band, while his solo material explores more of an electronic trip-hop direction.
Even though "Bad Ride" is Chandra's first new music in decades, she actually wrote these lyrics as a teenager way back in the 1980s. In a press release, she explained that the lyrics are a collage of a number of unreleased songs:
When Nyles invited me to write the lyrics for one of his songs, I headed straight for my newly organized lyrics archive and pulled out the 1980s folders. Then I started playing Nyles' tracks and very quickly, so as to access a more subconscious intuitive place, I pulled out loose lyrics sheets and flipped through pages of old notebooks, trying out lines from many different songs over Nyles' music. Within about three minutes I hit on this line, 'I'm stiff at the moment,' one line from an unfinished song I wrote when I was around 14.
It seemed to belong to this one track that Nyles sent, not the original song I was going to work on, but it fit so well, I had to roll with it. Pulling out sheet after sheet, playing the song over and over, mixing and matching between lyrics of at least five different songs, and adding and fleshing things out with a few newly written words to tie things together, within about 10 minutes I had the song.
So, there is a stream of consciousness element, only it's more like taking thoughts I had 40 years ago and using my brain now to sift through them, to see what still applies, play with shifting the original meanings and adding in the perspective of time/life passing. There is a love story element, heartbreak, finding strength to extricate oneself from a bad situation, a desire to succeed. It could be about a relationship with someone else or with oneself, probably both.
Check out the premiere of MISZCZYK and Chandra's "Bad Ride" below. It comes on the heels of Chandra's live 7-inch for Third Man Records.