Superdestroyer
Nelson Comes To Visit

5th wave emo / digipunk / nu punk / segapunk

Thematically, the album explores the concept and parameters of agency on a personal level, and within larger frameworks beyond one’s control–like time–by way of a unique, nostalgia soaked sci-fi love story.

"‘Nelson Comes To Visit’ is a love letter to my partner. She loves time travel movies. I like retro video games. It felt like it made sense, especially since I had just bought an FM synthesis and chiptune synthesizer. I have always been really interested in theories of how time functions so it was really fun to try to write something that can work from that sci-fi perspective.

Instrumentally, the album is as much a testament to the artists’ unique styles as it is to their longtime friendship:

‘Nelson Comes To Visit’ wasn’t really planned. Nelson and I have been friends for over 15 years and we’ve wanted to write some songs together in the same room for a long time. In February, Nelson was able to come visit. A synth I ordered for my birthday had just arrived 3 days prior (a Sonicware Mega Synthesis) and I wanted to try it out. Nelson had his MPC with him, so almost immediately we set some instruments up and started playing. We worked for about 10 hours that first day. We tracked out a majority of the instrumental for ‘:::Nelson:::Comes:::To:::Visit:::’ (the song), ‘:::Snow:::’, and a song we ended up cutting. The next day we tracked instrumentals for ‘:::Saturnville:::’, ‘:::Green:::Hill:::’, ‘:::91:::Crown:::Vic:::’, and ‘Only In Death’. I had started ‘:::Saturnville:::’ and ‘Only in Death’ in bed the night before Nelson got here, which helped those to move things a little quicker. We worked until Nelson had to leave that afternoon. It was this really intense and lightning fast writing session. When one of us would figure something cool out, the other would start working on adding to it, and the first would start something else. We’d jam together once we thought we had something to determine if we liked it and kept everything that we said ‘yes’ to. It was a really good time. I added Sonic 3 (Holograms) that night, which Nelson agreed should be added. ‘Cora’, ‘Instruction Manual’, and ‘:::Halloween:::City::: came towards the end of the process.

Once we had the original 8 instrumentals, I started writing lyrics and recording vocals. ‘:::Saturnville:::’ was written as a loose reference to Saturn Valley which gave me the idea for ‘Green Hill’s’ chorus “we create this pixelated life piece by piece” because that song is written from the perspective of a weary traveler encountering a place of kindness and care unexpectedly in an RPG. From there I just built upon the concept. "

Nelson: "This was suppose to be a peaceful nice catchup weekend with my friend, and it ended up being a marketable funky asset that we came up with and really it is nice to have evidence of my friendship that has lasted quite a while, more than half my life.

‘NCTV’ actually has a 2 chord phrase that I have been sitting on for a bit. Glad it has a good home, same with the guitar sample for ‘91:::Crown:::Vic:::’ (which was my mother’s car when I was a teenager) was sitting on my MPC for years, and they find a home with my friend. I fell in love with making music a new way. IF Superdestoryer had it, it was plugged in somewhere waiting for one of us to tackle it.

I am pretty sure we were working on 2 other songs when I sampled for ‘Crown Vic’, even the song we cut was a heater. As the songs kept coming we just pressed forward, only took breaks to eat, sleep, and watch Love Is Blind. Honestly I can’t wait to do it again, and we will do it again."