Track By Tracks: HOG MEETS FROG - humANIMALization (2023)

1. Of snakes ‘n’ moles ‘n’ bulls ‘n’ dough:

Lyrically: the song tells of a friendship between a snake and a mole and a greedy bull who is addicted to the madness of money-making and wants to break up the friends to get more money himself. In the end, of course, friendship wins.

Musically: starting with a stonerous riff the music then slides into a dry, narrative stomping and further into a spherical reverberant sound delirium, to finally once again - as already at the beginning of the song - get the stones and rocks rolling.

2. Peeping-bear’s exegesis of not peeping:

Lyrically: the reason for writing the story of the peeping-bear was the intelligence services and control freaks of this world, starting with the NSA scandal up to the possibilities of digitally utilized psychometric tools used for influencing elections by corporations or rich power-hungry people and warmongers.

This and much more we have packed into the sleeve of the sympathetic voyeur bear, who on top of that smilingly believes that he is spying, spying, and eavesdropping on everyone with good reason and only with the best of intentions.

Musically: from the left, from the right, from above and underneath, there comes this funky oriental punch right in your ears that represents the toe-dancing voyeur-bear, who sympathetically elated but unerringly sneaks into your mind and makes you join in. This absurdly groovy riff - in all its variations - opens a brief window in the middle of the song to a ponderous 7/8 schizophrenia that provides a prime breeding ground for a guitar solo. When the window closes, the slapp bass hand in hand with the drums and the guitar do their fat oriental play again, until the song takes freaky punky forms to finally end in a massive slow groove.

3. Apes don’t smoke cigars – just pipes:

Lyrically: let me explain the tendencies to write the text for 'apes don't smoke cigars - just pipes' as follows: If the natural sciences are to be believed, the average commonality of human DNA and chimpanzee DNA is 98.5% - in some cases, it is as high as 99.4% congruent. So many a man has more in common with a chimpanzee at the DNA level than with a human woman.

Thus it has lent itself to transferring the behavior and attitude of some humans to monkeys. In this sense, bigotry, and hubris fit our DNA relatives with the oponating thumb like a glove. If I may quote myself at this point: ‘the pride of gods creation, the candle in the dark, above reproach superior, enlightened by the spark. admired by all livings, the sun but out of sight, infallible, benignant, a special kind of wight.’

Musically: at first, it sounds like someone's making music that you want to make a monkey dance to. . . and then, suddenly, the dance starts. First of all clean and slappy the wave suddenly swells to a distorted, fuzzy "stomp the ground" sound. When the story-telling begins, the bass is clean and sparking with the drums, while the guitar gives the monkey sugar in form of oblique tones, so that at the end of the verse he jumps from one leg to the other again, hitting himself firmly on the chest.

Then, suddenly, completely out of breath, the primate shows the schizoid side of the tune – a bit jazzy and odd. Another verse finally gives our megalomaniac a heart attack and the listener a fat guitar solo, which is supported by a distorted, shredding locomotive bass and a regular, double-bassy hit-by-hit-rhythm.

Last but not least, there is a weird-progressive fusion of guitar and drums and the bass, yes, the bass is next to it playing dully with itself.

4. Stuff(ed), cage(d) & enslave(d):

Lyrically: "stuff(ed), cage(d) & enslave(d)" describes just three scenarios on which a part of humanity perpetuates itself in history.

Does it make sense? No! Would there be other ways? Yes!

Panda girls being caged in boxes, dolphin teenagers being stuffed into tuna cans, human children being enslaved on cocoa plantages, and all this just to guarantee fun, tradition, and pleasure for a few people on this earth – and they never ever give a damn about where it comes from.

Does it make sense? No! Would there be other ways? Yes!

Musically: guided by a funky, slappy bass beaten off by the drums and licked by a weirdo guitar the voice tells the story in a sick way until the ‘three-nstruments’ in the back suddenly - just for a moment - jump forward and punch a distorted brute hole in the sound to immediately retreat right away again next to the voice, clear and distinct. But then, after some time, everything crosses over to a biohazard chorus - something that tells the listener what not to do what has been done very often for much with his mind too long while listening to it: "stuffed, caged & enslaved!"

5. ZIGGY the unpigcorn:

Lyrically: lyrically seen 'ZIGGY the unpigcorn' addresses a topic that many know, but very few are aware of the abysses that can open up: the beauty industry.

First of all, I should say that I personally am not a fan of cosmetic surgery - except for medically necessary ones. Even though I realize that most of us have been the piggy at some point that doesn't think of himself as beautiful or doesn't have much confidence in himself. Body modification and cosmetic surgery are for some – often on an unconscious level - the obvious way to salvation, pushed by a billion-dollar industry and a society that has taught itself that appearance should have an enormously high status.

I don't want to overdramatize this, but I think that in the sense of making money, there is far too little education about what psychological trauma interventions like this can have. Many are then not even aware of where the new problems come from, because they seem to have fulfilled a dream. But well... we all know these dreams, from which one wakes up drenched in sweat and is glad that it was just a dream. After having surgery you can't wake up anymore.

Musically: this is probably the least homogeneous song on the record. Because at first it bounces seductively slap sound happily back and forth in front of the listener until it suddenly jumps uncompromisingly aggressively into one's face, sucks itself there and slaps and trashes and slaps and trashes and slaps and trashs, to then shortly after crawling through the ears into the skull and hit there from the inside with a new metal hammer against the skullcap until it goes through the ceiling... and this with a playful surprise every now and then and always with a little smile.