Troll Rising

I wrote the first two episodes of this in 2010, long before Trump and the authoritarian turn. After the Inauguration in January 2025, I decided to channel my angst into something creative and so revised the first two sections and finished the story. It was only halfway into the new sections that I realized that I could put it to music…and about that…At first I wasn’t sure where my musical ideas came from. Rap and hiphop are obvious influences, but I wanted to sound more deadpan, less rhythmic. In retrospect, what I ended up doing was following the example of the great collaboration between John Cooper-Clarke and Martin Hannett in the late 1970’s, and putting poetry to a soundtrack. When I listen to it, I see a movie in my head. I hope you do, too.

Episode Summaries