Unknown (album)
Unknown is the seventh full-length studio album by American cello rock band Rasputina. It was released exclusively on CD through Melora Creager's website on April 10, 2015, and is unlikely to ever be released in digital format – in response to Creager's websites, social media accounts and her own computer being hacked by an identity thief.
Background and recording
In 2012, Creager formed the five-piece narrative musical project Fa La La: the Bastardy of Shakespeare's Madrigals. Inspired by the Madrigal works of Elizabethan author Thomas Weelkes, the project expands on the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship – the claim that Edward de Vere wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare – by alleging that Weelkes was another pseudonym used by de Vere, and that the music of Weelkes could be seen as scores to Shakespeare's plays.The fourteen songs found on the album were written and recorded by Creager over a three-week period in early 2015, and were performed by the singer alone in her "dank basement" recording studio using only one microphone – a Neumann copy of a Soundelux E47.
Inspiration and themes
Lyrically, the album's central theme stems from Creager's experience of having her computer, website and social media accounts hacked by an identity thief. Disabling the singer's access to all of the band's online accounts, the hacker eventually rendered Creager's own computer corrupted to the point of her not being able to access anything on it, resulting in the loss of much of her life's work, and leading to a mental breakdown. According to Creager, "Unknown was made in a state of clinical psychosis."She addresses this experience metaphorically on songs found throughout Unknown, which Creager has referred to as her "most personal album". Unable to use her computer to research specific historical situations or people – an approach which she had used when composing much of the band's latter work – she instead chose to write about her "own feelings, rather than taking from something that happened historically". She compared this approach to the one she employed when composing the band's first album, Thanks for the Ether, saying "I used to write songs on paper just from my own thoughts as opposed to 'Google it! Google it! Google it!', I'm done with that kind of regurgitation".
"Unicorn Horn Mounted" is a fable in which the incident is compared to a gamekeeper hunting the mythical creature for the purpose of removing its horn. As the hunter gloats in his trophy room, the unicorn laments being a "pathetic, broken down pony" with a "gory wound on face", and is left distraught over the loss of her magic. "Sensed" tells the story of the last two humans in a post-apocalyptic world, who choose to interact with one another solely through technology. By refusing to ever establish physical contact, they willingly facilitate the extinction of the human race. On "Psychopathic Logic", Creager comments on the ordeal directly by describing the perpetrator as someone who is blind to real human interaction, living instead through a fantasy on a video screen. She goes on to describe the perpetrator as someone who has "no empathy" and who wants "to own the girl, to own her world". "Indian Weed" deals with the issue of online privacy.
The album also contains moments of humor. "Emily Dickinson Trophy Letter" finds the eponymous poet and the Wizard of Oz fighting over the ownership of a bowl of pudding, with the argument eventually devolving into a masked wrestling match. "Pastoral Noir" finds the Roman goddess Vesta in search of her lover, a shepherd named Tony. After questioning several nymphs regarding Tony's whereabouts, she is led to the Greek deity Pan and is then seduced by his "instrument". "Bridget Manners" is in reference to Lady Bridget Manners, a lady-in-waiting for Elizabeth I of England, suggesting that it may have originated as part of the Fa La La project.