Music

Fetal Position   Year: 2002 | Run Time: 40:47

©2002 Paste Music and Meat Market Records. Produced by Tom Lewis, Bill Mallonee. All songs by Bill Mallonee published by CyBrenJoJosh Music/BMI ©2002.

Track List

    1. She's So Liquid [3:01]
    2. Life on Other Planets [4:25] YouTube
    3. Crescent Moon [4:47] YouTube
    4. Summer in Our Veins [3:59]
    5. Smooth as a Stone [4:24]
    6. Wintergreen [4:20]
    7. Grave [2:23]
    8. All or Nothing [3:06]
    9. You Give It All Your Heart [5:23] YouTube
    10. After All You've Done for Me [4:59]

    Did you know?

    Fetal Position was Bill Mallonee's first solo release (more accurately, his first released not under a band moniker). Conceived as a fans-oriented, internet-only released, a limited number were created. It was recorded in six days and was released in June of 2002. The artwork for Fetal Position features a few astronaut-related images. At the time of the album's release, Bill had been including a song called "Astronaut" in concerts. Was this song originally intended for Fetal Position? The label says no. On the traycard spines of the first release of Fetal Position, Bill's last name is spelled with two n's (Mallonnee).

    Quotes from Bill Mallonee

    DATE UNKNOWN: I think the songs on Fetal Position are good but I think the record lacks focus. It feels like it kind of goes all over the place to me—some of it sounds more decisively americana and some of it sounds more pop, you know, with that Athens, Georgia thing to it. So personally for me, I like listening to the songs one by one, but the record as a whole doesn't feel cohesive.

    DATE UNKNOWN: Fetal Position is a position you sink to when all the externals show themselves as illusionary and internal things sputter and cough for a moment. It's also the stance just before a new birth and emergence from the womb; moving from darkness into the light and holy regions of the future, where every day is a "first day" and charged with possibilities and grace.

    Jun 25, 2003: The idea was to record whatever ten songs fell out of the songbook first... I think this was a bit of a mistake now... but one for which there was no remedy... speed and execution was of the essence... I have always tried make records that "hang together well." That is, they have threads and concepts flowing throughtout and are thus somewhat "conceptual." Not so with Fetal Position and Locket Full of Moonlight... these records, due to the quickness with which they were made and the limitations of their budgets, have a bit of a schizophrenic quality, going here and then there stylistically.

    Jul 9, 2004: Fetal Position I'd say, is the lone exception; it's a record I feel is a bit schizophrenic in it's "first pop-psychedelic then Americana" leanings... but perhaps that's forgivable since it was suppose to be the first of ump-teen internet releases. Fetal Position was in fact the first ten songs to drop out of the songbook when we commenced working on it.

    Quotes from Other Folks

    Paste Records / Jun 2002: On Fetal Position, Bill Mallonee's first solo album, the uncurling process is underway. In typical Mallonee fashion, the album's ten songs provide an emotional map of the heart, complete with smudged highway lines, detours, washed-out bridges, and dead ends.

    Credits

    Bill Mallonee: all guitars, vocals, harmonica, percussion

    Billy Holmes: acoustic and electric keyboards, mellotron, analog synths, mini-moog, mandolin, electric guitar on "Wintergreen"

    Kevin Heuer: drums

    Produced by: Bill Mallonee and Tom Lewis. Recorded by Tom Lewis at 3rd Ear, Athens, GA. String and Orchestral arrangements: Billy Holmes, Bill Mallonee. Executive Producer: Nick Purdy. Art Direction and Design: Paul Soupiset and Ryan Foerster for Toolbox Studios. Photography by Brenda Mallonee, Paul Soupiset and I. Carter.

    Liner Notes

    Hearty thanks and deep gratitude to the following folks. Brenda, Joshua, Joseph... my, oh my, how we've built a life! Tom Lewis, The Vigilantes of Love (wherever they may lay), Tim White (Wildwood Agency, Chicago), Lee Beitchman (legal guru, Atlanta, GA), PasteMusic (for vision, goodwill, and energy), Lott Shudde, the family at Compass Records; three cheers to John Mark Johnson and A Startled Chameleon Records, UK. Reed and the fine folks at Musicians Warehouse, Athens, GA. The Taco Stand, The Grit... and of course "The Inappropriately Mirthful Organist at the Gates of Doom." Shamus & Dick at Mapex, Terry at Eastside Guitars and Drums, Drs. Mauer and Awan. Kevin endorses and plays Mapex drums.

    Bill's Cyber Hub is at www.billmallonee.net (mad props to Piksl Design).

     

     

     

     

     

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