Track By Tracks: Stabbed By Prongs - Static Skin (2026)

1. Corpus:

Nearly everything I write starts with drums, and in many cases, the selection of samples or drum machine heavily influences the vibe of the track that eventually emerges. In this case, that particular set of samples just screamed “dark electro”.

This track is all about contrast. There’s the sparseness of the verse juxtaposed against the loud, aggressive chorus. There’s also the contrast within the verse between the natural vocal and the vocoder, and again in the chorus between the solo voice in the first half of each line versus the stack of vocals in the second half.

I also really like the atmospherics in this track - the manipulated samples in the intro, bridge, and outro. I actually took them from a newsreel about S&M - one of those puritanical pieces that includes plenty of pearl clutching plus a token supporter arguing that the topic isn’t what people are afraid of.

2. Another Realm

This track was one of two that was written for a segment on Colin Spencer’s radio show. It was originally a long-form composition, about 8-9 minutes in length, that I edited down to a pop song format. There’s an obvious futurepop influence to this track, along with a dash of EBM. I have a tendency to gravitate towards huge-sounding drums, especially snares, and in this track, I was deliberately trying to make the drums smaller to leave room in the track.

In all honesty, I didn’t really like the song much until I heard Kimberly’s vocal on it! I thought it sounded like the kind of thing you’d hear in the lobby of one of those trendy mid-price hotels! Kimberly’s vocals transformed the song. She managed to put a lot of herself into the lyrics while ensuring they stayed relatable.

3. Come As You Are:

I did this cover for a 90’s-themed compilation that never happened, so I wound up basically having it lying around with nowhere to put it. I thought it fit the vibe of the album and was worth including.

I kind of heard the intro in my head - that dark, Killing Joke-inspired riff played on a flanged-out bass and the rest just unfolded from there. I worked really hard on the layered synthesizer and guitar sound in the choruses. I wanted that to really sound gnarly and heavy. When you’re mixing a track, and you throw up the horns in the studio for the heavy part, you know you’re getting somewhere!

I decided on Ry White for the vocals as soon as I chose the song. I recorded and mixed a record for his grunge revival band and knew he was a big fan of Nirvana. I knew he’d kill it, and he definitely did.

4. Pyromancer:

Pyromancer was actually left over from my first record. It had failed to attract a singer, but I still believed in it and knew that someone would eventually take an interest in it. It was originally much shorter. I made an extended version to fill out the three tracks I needed for Colin Spencer’s show. The breakdown was added at that time. When it came time to prepare it for the album, it just felt weird when I trimmed it down unless I got rid of the breakdown, and I didn’t want to do that. Gabi and I decided collectively that we’d just leave it long.

After it failed to attract a singer for the first album, I tried writing lyrics for it, but didn’t think they were good enough. The name “Pyromancer” actually comes from that version of the song.

I’d written the song from the perspective of the firebug who sees himself as a necessary part of the circle of things - the idea that there can’t be rebirth without death. It was a metaphor for what was going on politically at the time, the tearing down of old norms for new ones. It wasn’t something I personally supported, but I wanted to explore the other side of the coin, so to speak.

Gabi didn’t know any of that, just the title! She didn’t have to take inspiration from it, but she did. She picked up precisely what I’d put down without even knowing it, put her own mystical, witchy spin on it. I’d always envisioned a heavily processed vocal - synthetic, glitchy, tripped out. Gabi’s voice was perfect for that approach.

5. Violent Delights:

Much like Corpus, this track takes its inspiration from the drum groove and drum sound selection. Corpus kind of manifested without me really thinking about it, but for this track, the choice was deliberate. I wanted to build some old-school sounding tracks around classic drum machine samples. I think these drums were sampled from my Boss DR-550. They’re so aggressive. The rest of the track is basically purely my spin on EBM. I pinched the blippy little electro bridge from another song that didn’t work out.

It was actually Andy, not me, who introduced vocoders into the mix. He’d done the chorus using a vocoder, and that’s exactly what you hear on the record! I simply took inspiration from his direction.

I probably shouldn’t say this, but I pulled all of the dialog from Westworld, run through vocoders! Andy had used the phrase “violent delights have violent ends” in the lyrics. It sounded familiar, so I googled it and up came Westworld! I’m a fan of an extended intro constructed from a dialog sample, so that was an easy choice. I know that this choice means that some listeners won’t last long enough to get to the meat of the track, but I don’t really care!

6. Big Fake World:

Much like Violent Delights, Big Fake World started with a set of 90s drum machine samples - I believe in this case it was a Kawai R50, although the snare is layered with a few other things. I’m a fan of a big snare; this track certainly delivers that. I wanted this one to be dirty and grimy and gritty. There are tons of distortions layered onto everything, plus a lot more bitcrushing than I usually use. Musically, it’s a mesh of riff metal made with synthesizers and pulsing EBM-inspired basses.

In addition to a killer vocal, Ry White gave the album its title in the first line of the song! He loves to put in these sorts of random, weird voices that give the track a unique character. I am quite proud of the vocal production on this song. There’s a hint of grunge in the verses, and they sound more delicate than they should, given the amount of grit on them. The “gasoline” section alternates between polished pop vocal stack and Manson-esque weirdness, and the chorus is flat-out aggression.

7. Fall Into Darkness:

If I had to describe this song in one word, it’d be “bleak” - a trait it shares with Pyromancer’s chorus. This was the third of the three songs prepared for Colin Spencer’s show. It’s got a heavy Front Line Assembly influence, but it also is really emblematic of my own style - EBM basses, big drums, dark vibes and a heap of distortion.

As soon as I heard Kimberly’s vocals, I realized this was going to close out the album. I think she really poured out her heart on the two tracks she sang on. Most of the time, I like to use the fact that she usually only delivers a single vocal as an excuse to experiment. In this case, I felt a more straightforward approach suited the honesty of the vocal - plus there was less space in the track that needed filling out.

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