To be honest, i had no idea this song was already 10 years old. Sure, it’s the track everybody cheers at the most during live shows, but still.. For me it was a thing of the past. Until I started to receive videos from a new generation of dj’s that play it again, and messages from potential buyers that the original vinyl was unobtainable unless you had a very big wallet.
So the decision for a reissue wasn’t hard, but it had to solve a few issues. The original was mastered/pressed stupidly loud and exaggerated, to the point where I heard complaints that needles were jumping out of the groove. So the new master was to be a bit more gentle and balanced.
Also every single DJ told me that that vocal break was wayyy too long. And while I normally completely ignore dj’s comments, in this case I could see their point: that break is so long you can leave the dance floor, have a smoke, get a drink and come back to catch the end. So the break was to be shorter, but as a gesture to the fans of the original version I added the uncut break as an acapella so that technically with 2 copies of the record, you can still create your own full version.
Many people have asked me about the inspiration or meaning of the track: was it made during a storm? Is it an ode to the German poet Holderlin? Is it about climate change? The answer to all of these is “no”. It was written on a summer’s day with no cloud in the sky, and the lyrics, which are indeed a reworked and loosely translated version of a classic German poem, found their way more or less by accident into the track. Music is like a puzzle sometimes, and it’s not until you combine certain things you were working on, that you realize this is what should be together anyway.
Going from memory, this was one of the first tracks where I used the TR-808, TR-909 and the Sequential Drumtraks I bought from Mr. Legowelt all together as my super rhythm section, and it was quite a challenge to get them all running in proper sync. Add the bassline arpeggios from my trusty Waldorf Pulse and Roland SH-09, and you have Storm’s basis, with some lofi 12 bit string sounds to play the chords.. And Shaunna may sing it live, but the original voice is a speech synthesis program. I remember the time used to get that voice to pronounce the complicated text correctly was almost as long as mixing the whole track!
Storm was originally just an album track for the Sadistic Tendencies album. But reports soon came back from dj’s who were playing the track to enthusiastic reception, so it was decided to do a 12”: a one-sided etched EP with the same soldier dude that features on some of Godspill’s Rude 66 t-shirt designs. It went from there.
This reissue should contain a little more music though, and the perfect combo in my book were the recordings of ambient versions of some Rude 66 tracks I had made with Shaunna on vocals and guitarist Danny Keen, practically my neighbor in those days.
We did these versions exclusively for the release party of the From Reasons to Rituals album in 2017 in the just opened Bordello A Parigi record shop in Amsterdam. There was a look of light panic on the faces of the shop crew when we showed up with a transport bike full of guitar pedals for Danny and car load full of gear, but we managed to fit it all and even some actual visitors as well. They are fully improvised versions of Without A Reason, Paranoia and Storm, beat-less, slowed down do a crawl, and somewhere in that void between shoegaze, ambient and drone music. Shaunna even ditched the vocoder on Storm. I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we did making them.
Amsterdam, July 2019
Rude 66