Artist Statement

Skeletonflowers_ had approached me after seeing my work with Lychee for Nowadays asking if I wanted to lean into the cyber-punk theme further with his solo project’s rendition of Deftones' “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)”. He explained to me this strange, hard to describe, attachment and emotional relationship to this song as it was the first he heard shortly after moving to the US. He emailed me stating, “Back then the escapist idea of getting in a car and driving away from one's problems was very alien and American and at the same time fascinating to me. It was something that I longed for but never actually did. When I listen to the song now, as a 29-year-old, I feel nostalgic about that youthful desire for escapism. The current crisis has invoked many of the same feelings where sometimes I wish I could just get in a car and drive away...but, I can't. Instead, as I did when I was a kid, I've tended to turn inwards relying on films, books, and music for that escapism, and oddly I've always found the most solace in dystopian depictions of the future (maybe because they made my own problems seem very small in the grand scheme of things): Blade Runner, The Matrix, Children of Men, Terminator, Escape from New York, Alien, Philip K Dicks' books (A Scanner Darkly, Ubik), etc. I also watched Akira for the first time recently and loved it. The irony for me is that we're living through our own version of a dystopian future and our world looks nothing like the worlds shown in these films/books (the folly of sci-fi I guess), so I can still rely on them to at least briefly escape from the current reality. Musically these films have had a huge influence on me as well, obviously with the synth sounds of Blade Runner, Terminator, Escape from NY/John Carpenter, and also the more 90s based soundtrack of The Matrix.”

This made me think of my previous video project and how Lychee and I were thinking through these feelings of suspension and anxiety; musing over digitally mediated selves and tuning in/turning into them during these times, and really how some of our cultural reference points for dystopia/apocalypse are kind of failing us now as we are entrenched in such unknowns. I thought of too, my own experiences with moving; being uprooted as a kid from Seattle and driving across the country to the East Coast. Skeletonflowers_ and I also talked about this idea of Americana; how important the automobile is as a fixture of freedom, expansion, and destinies (manifested). The latencies within those depictions and the contradictory nature of histories written by those with power and agendas. My work, both visual and cerebral, is about imagery and what images mean; the coded structures embodied, inherent. From this, I work to address the meaning(s) of what is shown and then subvert through rendering differently with a reliance on a photographic memory in order to find parallels either blatant or conceptual.

This collaboration is the culmination of shared feelings of escapism, a reveling in fantasy. Not necessarily a sense of nostalgia but instead a reflection on past experiences. Created here is a world without earthly confines of gravity; a weaving past the traffic of reality; and a truthful irony in that I simply do not know how to drive, and yet am fascinated nonetheless.

I asked for my commission rate to be donated to racial justice causes for this project. We have donated to the George Floyd Memorial Fund, Reclaim the Block, and the NAACP Legal Fund. I do not need any praise for this, I mention to encourage artists who are able to financially, and who have platforms as well as privilege(s), to amplify the voices of BIPOC and lend our talents to aid movements demanding justice and change. Please message me if you have a project that I could lend my artistry for that furthers this sentiment!

Cross posted: https://vimeo.com/434420930 & https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away) is the fourth and final track off skeletonflowers_' debut EP 'Digital Vampire'. The song is available for purchase on Bandcamp: skeletonflowersmusic.bandcamp.com/…/be-quiet-and-drive-far-…

skeletonflowers_ is the solo music project by New York based multi-instrumentalist Talha Alvie, also of progressive rock band The D/A Method and atmospheric metal band Ghostbound.

Video created by A. Morgan McKendry (@slimebubble): amorganmckendry.com/

Mix Engineer: Nolan Voss
Mastering Engineer: Mike Kalajian (Rogue Planet Mastering)
Album Artwork and Typography: Anthony Hamilton

All music arranged, performed, and recorded by Talha Alvie
Original music and lyrics by Camilo Chino Moreno, Chi Cheng, Stephan Carpenter, and Abe Cunningham.