This record is a cipher for The Innerworld. This music is not concerned with commentary on style; it is not a critique of culture nor does it possess any irony. It is the recollections from a soul in continual transformation, reckoning, becoming… It is the crystalline echo coalescing from that world shattering encounter with the primordial sea of Tiamat, the chaotic feminine vibration, which burst forth in the very core of my being and shaped me in it’s panopticon/tableau image. Or more prosaically, when I came out as trans and decided to test if I was really what I thought I was by taking LSD (because I, impressionable autist that I am, was told by someone that this was how it worked - don’t take this as advice!!), this is what was on the other side of the “doors of perception”. I found it to be a deeply affirming experience, but also so much more.

“The Ephemeron Loop” is my personal idiosyncratic phenomenon… It is the system which emerges out of the crisis of that which exists between the infinite and the infinitesimal… An attempt to retain a link to those moments of sublime realisation, lucidity, vulnerability, transcendence, annihilation, which were fleeting and fragile as they were glimpses into a spirit world which could not be contained or entirely assimilated because of their vastness, yet changed me forever once I experienced them… You could call it an “autism problem”. It is also the quandary of the Trans person. Due to my neurological configuration in which the “crossing of wires” runs deep, wherein different sensory signals trigger one another simultaneously and extend further into more abstract cognitive phenomena such as emotion, memory and aspects of executive function (with the imaginal Innerworld always present), there emerges a “grammar” of esoteric multi-modal constructs, which branch outwards from those axiomatic points, those fragmented glimpses into the beyond, such that sonic mantras precipitate from intrapsychic fixated “looping” wherein the memory is re-played over and over, until it becomes a microcosmic room of the endless Innerworld, a divine Loop… The chords/harmonies/melodies/rhythms/textures heard in these compositions are as much a faithful rendering as I could possibly manage of otherworldly music I heard inside my mind in those ephemeral moments where I embraced the ineffable; as many of them brought about through completely unanticipated occurrences as those where I intentionally pulled at the threads of reality… What results is a projection chamber for my life, wherein through replaying these compositions which are syntactically and semantically adherent to the synaesthetic grammar of the Innerworld, I can re-experience the fundamental formative manifestations of meaning and substance which define my identity, along with their ghostly parallel potentialities…

The epicentral genesis of this album was the period between 2007 and 2009, a time of many formative experiences surrounding my realisation as a trans woman… Having previously been living a wretched existence wherein only extreme, negative music made any sense, my attempt to break from the misery that characterised my pre-transition life was in entering the world of hard rave music, shoegaze, psychedelic drugs and queer freaks in the Leeds underground, that created a new psychological setting in which the dark energies of my past were confronted with states of euphoria, elation and the ecstatic freedom to find out what I really am and be it entirely, which synthesised a new imaginal paradigm of synaesthetic contradictions which seemed both impossible and totally necessary to bring into existence (at least, outside of my mind)… Both because of the ambitiousness of these new ideas and my challenges as an ASD/ADHD trans person, along with other difficulties in my life and diversions in it’s course (e.g. the formation of Guttersnipe and my several years trying to be a cognitive scientist), it has taken 14 years for “Psychonautic Escapism” to be brought into the world and be here in your hands now. The initial collection of visions which constituted these compositions were mapped out as closely as possible, yet as I continued to evolve through my experiences of being alive in the world, I needed to further develop these concepts, to extract the impressions of The Innerworld and incorporate them into the record which my autistic sense of spiritual conviction told me must be a total expression of my selfhood in the present!! It seemed like it would never end.

In 2018, after meeting Ross Halden and seeing him effectively and enthusiastically handle the esoteric production requests involved in the two Guttersnipe songs that went onto our split with Cuntroaches, I decided I would ask him to help me realise this towering project that I had been struggling to finish on my own, pretty much in secrecy from most people I knew, without much of a home studio. Over the next 2 and a half years, we became good friends as we navigated the labyrinth of fragmented Reason 5 and Logic projects I’d put together over the years, re-recording and processing parts and recordings many things anew, with my books of guitar and bass parts and synaesthetic descriptions always present as a reference. There was a lot of Ross recording my various swirly ideas, giving me the projects so I could work on the arrangements at home and then working his magic on them when I brought them back to the studio. It was a long and challenging process and I learned a lot about why people don’t usually combine various kinds of sounds or styles in music… Because it is very difficult to get it to all work together!! But, we did it, so what you hear now is the finished artefact, the vision in full realisation… Welcome to my universe :)

All voices, guitars/bass, synths/synthesis, drum programming and sound design by Vymethoxy Redspiders
Production, engineering, arrangement assistance, guidance and emotional support graciously provided by Ross Halden at Hohm Studio Leeds (2018-2019),
Bradford (2019-2021)
All compositions by Vymethoxy Redspiders, written, partially recorded/produced and assembled 2008-2020
Mastered at Declared Sound, Leeds

Photography by Layla Legard, assisted by Tipula Confusa and Phil Legard
Artwork by Vymethoxy Redspiders with assistance from Anna Peaker + Tipula Confusa

Thanks to: My angel Sydney for endless love, support, inspiration and encouragement, Tipulasnipe for giving me the chance to harness my shred tactics and re-wiring my rhythmbrain, Tanith for helping me be who I am (witch-sisters first, last and always), Ellen Sparrowveil (wherever you are?? please come back…), The Big Dog R.Smith, OG 2008-2012 Techno TS crew - Kaitlin + Emily (Pretend Stage massive) and Maud + Lisa, Jeff for giving me the MPC, Pete “Pecan” Cann for the SP404, Trans Voice magicians Dusty Nebula plurality + Zhea Erose for teaching me what my voice can do and being inspiring badasses, SUF/Hydraulix acid techno family Henry, Chris, Aaron, Julian, Rachel, Sterling, Gizelle and Jeff Amadeus for warping my teenage/adult brain and continuing to be great teachers and friends, Mike Glowbones/Selkirk/Oly NRG (RIFF RAFF CREW FOREVER), Mariam Rezaei for your continual belief in me and being an amazing friend, Anna “Pantone” Peaker for helping me so much with the artwork - you saved me!! Phil and Layla Hawthonn (and Hooby) for the wonderful photography and costume/lighting help, Tony Gene Mutation, Kevin McCaighy, All the Leeds/Wharf Chambers massive, Tina Rashid for the bodyhack, Prevert sister Kay Logan, Dobby!!!, My family, Slowdive (hi lovelies! remember me??), A.R. Kane, Lycia, Lovesliescrushing, Burial, Xasthur, Velvet Cacoon, Seefeel, The Angelic Process (RIP), Bjork, Velvet Acid Christ, Trance to the Sun, AIDS Wolf (no list of my influences will ever be complete without you darlings!), Dead Can Dance, Vladislav Delay,
Mories, Striborg, Portishead, Wormlust, Basic Channel/Chain Reaction, Venetian Snares, all the mentalist hardcore raves I went to, Akira Yamaoka, estrogen, THC, LSD, MDMA, 4-AcO-DMT, 2Cx….
Diolch yn fawr i bawb arall sydd wedi ysbrydoli fi o hyd y ffordd….

Extra special thanks to Ross Halden, I couldn’t have done this without you buddy…

2xLP available via Heat Crimes Records.