The Reality of Pacing
Life is not real. This website, Moths and Giraffes, isn’t real. The screen you’re reading this on isn’t real. You are not real, and neither am I.
The artist, Pacing, isn’t real.
Her album,
‘Real Poetry Is Always About Plants and Birds and Trees and the Animals and Milk and Honey Breathing In the Pink But Real Life Is Behind A Screen’
…isn’t real.
Join us as we explore and separate the spaces between reality and unreality with a concluding Q&A from Pacing, as well as production notes from one of her collaborators, Sun Kin. But before we establish whether or not this artist is real, we must first understand the expanded universe from which she came.
Pacing is the artistic moniker for Florida-born, San Jose-based songwriter and producer Katie McTigue. Pacing frequently crosses genre thresholds coupled with her unbridled lyrical delivery, fleshing out styles from indie-pop and bluegrass to harsh-noise and folk, folk punk, and anti-folk. The latter is of particular influence to Pacing, who cites Kimya Dawson (of The Moldy Peaches and Juno soundtrack fame), America’s local band Cheekface and Sidney Gish as inspirations to her sound.
McTigue began the Pacing project back in 2020 with a song inspired by and supporting Pyramid Studios in Florida, an arts programme aiding adults with intellectual disabilities. ‘I’m Getting Kicked Out of the World’, an acoustic song with programmed heavy metal-esque double bass drums(?) takes inspiration from its single artwork, purchased from the studios.
Pacing’s early single artworks for ‘I’m Getting Kicked Out Of The World’, ‘Snow’, ‘June/Tinfoil Hat Song’ and ‘Taste’.
‘Why do I feel like a con artist just for asking to be taken seriously?’ – Snow (2020)
The electric guitar heavy ‘Snow’ followed Pacing’s debut, becoming the soundtrack of her first music video and something of a Pittsburgh driving tour. 2020 also saw the release of ‘June/Tinfoil Hat Song’. The double A-Side was a change of direction for Pacing, leaning into her softer acoustic tendencies, the former becoming her biggest track so far, amassing more than 135,000 streams on Spotify. Pacing closed out her first year with ‘Taste’, available exclusively on her Bandcamp page, working with the same team as her debut single.
‘Cause when I was an alcoholic, they made up dry January, when I had an early flight, they told me I should take a taxi.’ – Is everybody hanging out without me? (2021)
In 2021, Pacing continued her run of singles with ‘Is everybody hanging out without me?’ This track would help establish a familiar theme in Pacing’s writing, an often cynical and anxious perception of self that would continue through to her current work. ‘Goodbye, Uncle Bucky’ was a collaboration with vocalist and violinist Julia Read. It’s here where Pacing’s bluegrass influence is most evident, a trait that would begin to evaporate as she solidified her sound.
It was also 2021 when Katie collaborated with Daniel Feinberg to create a new project called Sundae Station, who released their debut single, ‘Just A Sound’ at the end of the year. While simultaneously working on her next project, the duo put out their self-titled EP in early 2022. This was the time when Pacing would really seize the reins of her solo career, releasing her first larger body of work and physical media.
‘hatemail’ mixtape artwork.
Lovingly referred to by Pacing as a mixtape, the eight-track ‘hatemail’ begins with the opening line, ‘I hate you, I hate your songs, you’re never gonna get a job,’ and overall explores the mean things we say to ourselves. To this end, Pacing invited followers to submit their deepest insecurities for use in the music video for ‘Who has ADHD now lol’, the contributions of which are now immortalised in an anxious place.
Other singles from this record include ‘Sunny <3’, a track that highlights the problem of comparing your productivity with that of others. ‘The Family’ is about plotting to murder the fictional Tony, the Mafia boss depicted in HBO’s ‘The Sopranos’. ‘Air Freshener Vampires!’ is paired well with ‘ADHD’ on the mixtape, featuring a lyric rife with claustrophobia and Pacing’s relationship with the internet. The concept of ‘Vampires!’ is expanded for its music video, setting the benchmark for Pacing’s mission statement of spending exactly $0 on the artform.
Unrelated to the release of ‘hatemail’ was a cover of Randy Newman’s ‘Political Science’, originally included on his 1972 album ‘Sail Away’. For the song’s music video, Pacing asked followers to send in ‘the most American photo on their phone’, creating a collage of stereotypes, surprises and annotations.
‘Things are getting kind of weird over here.’ – Aliens (2023)
2023 is undoubtedly the biggest year of Pacing’s career so far. We happened upon this artist as an international community of songwriters began to emerge. The first song we heard from Pacing was ‘Aliens’, a standalone track included on the #veryjazzed ‘WAVE COMP. Vol. III’. Together with Kane Wilkinson’s piano playing and Maddy Hellstrom’s lead guitar performance, it helped cement this song as a standout in Pacing’s catalogue.
The community that evolved during this time featured artists already covered by Moths and Giraffes, from the US, Canada, the UK and beyond, all of whom were enamoured with Pacing’s uniquely untethered songwriting. After much Twitter tagging and imploring, in February and March, the Charitindie collective persuaded Pacing to perform her first live set of sorts in late April as part of the first annual Charitindie livestream.
‘Hey guys, I’m Pacing, and this is a song about plotting to murder Tony Soprano.’ – Charitindie (2023)
Presented by producer and songwriter Cayt W, the cause supported The Trevor Project, a charity Pacing previously donated the proceeds of her ‘hatemail’ CDs to in 2022. Her set featured highlights from the mixtape, a cover of ‘What If I Like It?’ from the ‘Pretty Filthy’ musical, and amongst others, a song from her next EP.
‘You call your boyfriend to get rid of me, with a broom and a pillowcase and a copy of readers digest.’ – Snakes are really good at squeezing into small spaces, just like the rodents they eat (2023)
The three-track EP was aptly dubbed ‘Snake Facts’, and showcased Pacing’s Reddit rabbit hole curiosity for the reptiles, born originally out of her fear for them. The music was a joy for Pacing to write and record, a happy deviation from making her second album. Stripped back to acoustic guitar, on the surface, Pacing touted the collection as, ‘an informative and educational EP of songs about snakes!’ Though in the same breath actually revealed, ‘Except, it isn’t really all that educational. And it isn’t really all that much about snakes. It’s more about death, fear, taxes, etc.’ (Source: Pacing’s Mailing List. You should sign up to her mailing list.)
Back in June, we revealed the name of Pacing’s next single when she contributed her thoughts on her favourite Taylor Swift song, a selection process she made casually:
“The best Taylor Swift album begins with the best Taylor Swift song which begins with the best snare hit of all time. This snare hit is like a great first kiss times 1000 cups of coffee. This snare hit is the moment. It smacks you across the face and says ‘listen up, bitch.’” - Taylor Swift: The Songs That Impacted Fifteen Artists (Moths and Giraffes, June 2023)
Prior to the release of her album, Pacing donated a cover of Fountains Of Wayne single ‘Stacy’s Mom’ to Outcast Tape Infirmary’s ‘2003 Cover Compilation’ in September. Performing the track on mountain dulcimer, the album contains covers of songs only released in 2003. By popular demand, the compilation was later released to streaming platforms beyond Bandcamp.
Pacing’s full-length album, ‘Real Poetry Is Always About Plants and Birds and Trees and the Animals and Milk and Honey Breathing In the Pink But Real Life Is Behind A Screen’ was released on Friday 13th October on Totally Real Records. With a lead-up of three singles, a remix, collaboration, sample pack and live performances, ‘Real Poetry’ was highly anticipated by Pacing’s followers, an album which could only begin one way…
…by Pacing ingraining her album title into your brain in the form of melody. Like grown adults still secretly recite their ABCs in song, so the listener is able to remember Pacing’s thirty-seven syllable statement of intent. But Pacing has a retort for the way this might make you feel, ‘You can Bite Me if it makes you feel any better.’
‘Bite Me’ debuted on the Charitindie stream and followed shortly after the release of Pacing’s ‘Snake Facts’ EP. Despite its title, timing, and the line, ‘Your venom is my milk and honey’ – this song isn’t about snakes. ‘Bite Me’ was born out of a need for Pacing to answer the question: ‘Why are Real Poets so obsessed with nature?’ Written in response to a Barbara Ras poem entitled ‘You Can’t Have It All’, this artist challenges the notion that real poetry can reflect the world we know, rather than the world we wish we knew. This song is the beginning of a journey:
‘Real trees don’t grow in my yard but I’m moving from the East, where the lemons are so plenty, they don’t know what to do with those things, and I’m taking you with me, my sweet.’
Katie McTigue did in fact move from the East, embarking on a road trip that took her across the US to eventually settle in San Jose in California, a world apart and over 2500 miles from her previous home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It’s during this road trip where some of these songs materialised.
The acoustic based opening number is simple on the surface, but already Pacing gives the listener much to absorb, adding rumbling cello, and violin that pierces off to the left. ‘And here we go.’ A sample from a NASA launch counts down to a drastic analogy, ‘Coronary coffee and my pulse is taking off, like one of those space rockets, you know sometimes they blow up.’
Bass guitar from Ben Krock arrives at a crucial point in the song, as if to reinforce the more serious undertone, ‘Real trees don’t grow in my yard but I’m moving from the East, where the Apple stores are plenty and there's a crack in my screen - you’re breaking it with me.’
‘Bite Me’ Spotify Postcard. Image Credit: Moths and Giraffes.
To support the release of ‘Bite Me’, Pacing mailed out a handy postcard to help her followers find the song, overcoming complications the internet can sometimes throw at you. If you were to input the URL into your favourite web browser, it would take you to the location of the track on Spotify.
What exactly is Real Poetry? This album’s introduction is also the perfect intro to the music of Pacing in general, but if you thought the entire album would sound like this, you’d be wrong.
‘Let's sit around all day, and get in everybody's way, sink into the ground and form a new society, I never really liked this one anyway…’
Have you ever felt stuck? Paralysed inexplicably? Sometimes it’s hard to do anything at all. Pacing has a song for that feeling. Maybe you weren’t expecting her ultra-pitched up vocal to open ‘I want to go outside!!!!!’ but it’s the perfect aural representation of dissociation. If you can make it to your headphones, listen with me.
Rhythmic piano brings you back to Earth, allowing Pacing to properly articulate her thoughts on agoraphobia and executive dysfunction. Her lyric shows the increasingly escalating thoughts of an anxious person, demonstrating why it’s so hard to leave the house, but also justifying her reason for not doing so:
‘I want to go to the store, get in the car, and drive down the hill, but that’s way too far, I feel every mile in my gut like elastic, pulling me back, plus we might get in a wreck and I’d be paralyzed for the rest of my life.’
A clock ticks, guitar gently strums, and Pacing hums, lulling the listener into the safety of their own house. She then hits a home run with the group attack of, ‘I wanna go for a walk, but I don’t have a dog, so everyone will know that I’m lying about going for a walk,’ and then shouting it into your consciousness with drums and noisy guitars. These thoughts tend to boil over occasionally.
Pacing’s drums are typically programmed for her music, but they always retain a human element often absent when a producer thinks of drummers as mere mortals (drummers are in fact immortal). Her talking through of taking one step at a time, (‘Picking my foot up, and putting it back down’) introduces a visual aspect to her music, evoking the idea that this song is a stop-motion music video yet unmade.
‘I want to go outside!!!!!’ finishes where it began, ‘I want to go outside, but not tonight.’ Such is the cyclic nature of these things.
“Maybe I'm the kind of person who buys pillows that say ‘Live. Laugh. Love.’”
The second single from ‘Real Poetry’ is an anthem for a generation. Released in July, Moths and Giraffes announced the coming of the single accompanying notes on Pacing’s favourite Taylor Swift song back in June. ‘Live / Laugh / Love’ is a cynical look at millennial optimism in the face of the world we actually inherited. But it’s all done with a smile. A slightly unhinged smile, but a smile nevertheless.
‘If you build it they will come, tell that shit to anyone, who's ever tried to build a house into a home, with pickup sticks and chewing gum.’
Acoustic to a point, this song is filled with so many musical goodies to wrap your brain around, not least of all Pacing’s vocal array, beginning by echoing the last word of this line, panning ‘gum, gum, gum,’ across from left to right. It’s important to note the work of Dylan Ganz, who mixed and mastered this record and helps unify Pacing’s vision. Who knew the word ‘gum’ could sound so enlightening?
We will try our hardest not to quote every word of this lyric, but Pacing does ask an important question, ‘How come people who throw stones always have the coolest homes?’ Why exactly is that? With added passive-aggressively-enforced-audience-participation-clapping, Pacing declares: ‘Everything I do is dumb, I don't feel like anyone.’
Image Credit: Pacing.
One of the most pleasing moments on this record is hearing the transition to, ‘I don’t think you’re hearing me,’ and its acoustic accompaniment with shaker. ‘Now are we having fun?’ could well be voiced by a kindergarten teacher who in fact despises children. ‘Um, what?’
By this point in ‘Live / Laugh / Love’, Pacing is wise to her own lyrical stepping-on-a-rake and combats it appropriately, ‘This part of the song is a placeholder, to save myself from saying something stupid.’ Her backing vocal counterparts also respond pertinently, ‘dumb, dumb, dumb…’ Already digging something of a hole, Pacing uncorks a bottle of wine, ‘If you don't wanna be my friend, I don't blame you that's probably smart.’ It’s here she goes all in, embodying the personality of a true Live/Laugh/Lover, complete with guilt-tripping on Pacing’s part, ‘But if you don’t like this song, why don’t you just rip out my heart?’ This moment was helped into creation by Pacing screaming the words into a pillow and recording the result.
After writing a song that tackles the affordability of housing, the tighter restrictions on this generation relative to the ones prior, and self-deprecation (this one is a given in a Pacing track), this artist really does follow it all up with the lines: ‘Don't worry I'm just having fun, hope I'm not bugging anyone.’
‘Live / Laugh / Love’ is Pacing’s latest music video, an animated affair that shows the journey of a snake who fills their home with live/laugh/love pillows bought from T.J. Maxx. Going off on something of a tangent (a likely scenario in the Pacing expanded universe), she incorporates her love for chess before reaching a point of burnout, reversing the video to find the snake waking up. It was all a dream.
The single spawned a merch design combining the title with ‘Pacing Music Band Nation’, her functionally affectionate name for her followers, all written in a bespoke snake font. Having added lead guitar and bass to ‘Live / Laugh / Love’, Ben Krock’s musical influence extends to a remix of the song subtitled the ‘Harsh Noise Version’.
Intended for review explicitly only by bitch ass music critics, we felt it necessary to weigh in on the subject. The track begins much in the same way, have we got the right version? Wait, what’s that? Is there something wrong with the-!@£$%^&*... CAN ANYONE FIND THE OFF SWI&*())@)*(^£^)^%%%@ &&&&^^^&&)))) Please, my childre£££8y0_*____***‘I don’t think you’re hearing m$%£@!@£%$*****
And breathe. Pacing patiently waits for the interference to dissipate, like the kindergarten teacher finding her zen in a room full of screaming children. She continues with a smile, eye somewhat twitching, ‘I don’t think you’re hearing me.’ Pacing makes it to the end of the next verse before a wormhole opens and swallows the rest of the song, her voice reverberating in the cosmos.
‘If you don’t like this song*****&^^%$%$££%^^%$£@@@!!@!£%$£%^^&*&^%£$@£
The ‘Harsh Noise Version’ became available as part of something Pacing dubbed the ‘LLL Evil Superpack,’ a collection that featured the remix, album version, radio edit and the stems for the track, so that you might make your own remix. Pacing released this in support of Planned Parenthood on Bandcamp Friday, matching all the proceeds raised, bringing the total donation to $416.66. Despite her goodwill, the act of releasing the Superpack also spawned Evil Pacing, a Twitter counterpart who makes her opinions known. Follow if you dare.
As a mark of personal growth, Pacing’s less noisy version of ‘Live / Laugh / Love’ (also known as the single and album version) finishes with the very responsible and grown-up line:
‘I’m practicing not saying things that I’ll regret.’
‘What a stupid thing to say.’
…which is immediately scolded. Possibly the shortest song in Pacing’s entire catalogue, ‘Stupid’ is two verses and 29 seconds in length. But within that, she packs vulnerability. Gone is the humour and worldview of ‘Live / Laugh / Love’, Pacing going further inward and returning to the musical simplicity of the ‘Snake Facts’ EP. One of the aspects that makes this album so enjoyable and dare I say, ‘real’, is its balance between songs like ‘Live / Laugh / Love’ and ‘Stupid’.
In and around ‘Real Poetry’, Pacing has been working with Kabir Kumar, a producer whose artistic name is Sun Kin. For this piece, Kabir talks us through their contributions to the tracks, and how their meeting began with a wave:
‘There is a feature on TikTok that sends you an in-app notification on the top of the screen regarding contacts you’ve recently become mutual followers with. If you click this, it automatically sends the 👋🏽 emoji to that person. I am deathly afraid of clicking this. When I inevitably do, it is how I finally meet favorite antifolk revivalist Pacing.’
He continues to describe their working environment:
‘All of our collaborations to date have been online. One of us will send a track to the other that piques the other’s interest, drafts and ideas will be sent back to the OG creator until there’s some good feedback, then whoever began the song will finish it. Pacing’s songs are deceptively complex, the conversational melodies belying densely packed harmonic structures. These are my favorite kinds of songs. My entry point is always bass. I start with bass and then try to double and harmonize the lines with guitars and synths.’
The album’s shortest track is followed by its longest. In fact, this is two songs married together. The feeling created in ‘Stupid’ continues for ‘The Attic / Ghostbusters’. ‘The Attic’ at least is a song about self-awareness, with Pacing’s character exiling themselves to the room upstairs to live like a hermit:
‘I’ll listen to your phone calls, and pass you stuff you need, like Christmas decorations and the winter clothes you used to wear back when you had to share a house with me.’
Kabir Kumar and Katie McTigue.
This song is the first on ‘Real Poetry’ to be co-produced with Kabir Kumar, who describes their influence on the track:
‘The Attic / Ghostbusters might be my favorite song on the album. I think of it as sounding like Elliott Smith meets Sidney Gish. I wanted to create a synth tone that would depart from these touchstones and put it into the haunted space that Katie describes in the song.’
Across the Pacing oeuvre, she utilises different vocal styles, with her light and airy voice previously used on ‘Sunny <3’ making a reappearance for the wordless parts of ‘The Attic’. A heartbeat is heard in the song’s final verse, before the track stops altogether and transitions into its second half.
‘The sun has bleached the blood out of the carpet, and we bought a brand new 20-foot bed, to keep all of our guns under the mattress…’
‘Ghostbusters’ is not unheard in the Pacing story. A demo version was originally released for Halloween 2022, its instrumental paired down from the joint effort of the album production. Still present is the cameo from McTigue’s cat, Bird. Yes, her cat is called ‘Bird’. Kumar lends their voice, as well as lead guitar, heard best towards the end of the song, ‘When the house is too quiet…’ You’ll realise early on how well Kabir and Katie’s voices go together, but there are songs yet to come that better showcase it.
A favourite among listeners, ‘Have you tried meditation?’ is the spiritual successor to ‘Who has ADHD now lol’, but if the latter became a pyramid scheme in ADHD coping mechanisms. If you told me Pacing wrote this by putting pen to paper and when the pen ran out of ink, it was done – then I’d believe you.
Pacing barely pauses for breath in her opening verse, ‘My phone is glued to my face surgically, and it might be too late for me, I self-destruct the second I have nothing to occupy me…’ Isn’t this a reflection of what a lot of us have become? Is it even possible to be bored when you have the entire Library of Alexandria in a device smaller than a sandwich? The first verse of this song can be likened to a kid folding their arms and refusing to speak to you because you didn’t guess their favourite dinosaur right first time. Even though the one you guessed is the one they say is their favourite.
Haven’t we all felt like this though? Pacing also manages to capture the supernatural power of making a list and then completing the items on said list, ‘Wow, clarity!’ Here, Pacing isn’t without a hint of sarcasm, as if she knew it all along. Through rising nerves, ‘I might kill you if you look at me or make that noise or breathe in my vicinity,’ Pacing vents her annoyance at the listener, punctuated by an escalating scream.
The most amusing part of all of this is that the music Pacing has written to soundtrack this outpouring of emotional turmoil is actually quite chill. It’s like a room of people sitting down and quietly enjoying the comfort in playing their instruments while their lead singer is having a nervous breakdown. Or at least a fight with themselves, which they immediately retract:
‘Fuck you, don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell me to do what I want, cause I’m already doing that, thank you. Sorry for saying fuck you.’
Whew, I’m exhausted. There’s only one place you can go once you’ve expelled so much emotional energy, ‘And I might burn out on this. I might just sit in silence…’
And that’s exactly what Pacing does.
…kind of. Exhaling into the microphone, before you know where you are, the tension builds up in a pool of noise, similar to that used in the ‘Live / Laugh / Love’ remix. Titled simply, ‘*******’, Pacing has actually performed this piece live in her recent expansion into gigging.
The origins of Pacing’s foray into noise begin by her attending a Vomir gig with her husband Ben Krock at which they placed plastic bags over their heads and were hit with a wall of noise. Though initially puzzled, McTigue began to understand the sheer nothingness, the simplicity of the sound.
‘Sometimes when I’m really stressed I put on Vomir and just sort of disappear into it. It’s like the loudness cancels out unwanted brain activity. Or at least covers it up.’ – Pacing (Bandcamp, 2023)
I myself have attended a similar gig. It’s funny how the room seems to just settle into it.
This is also a good time to discuss Pacing’s album artwork for ‘Real Poetry’, created by scanning a mixture of ‘real’ things (flowers, grass, eggs) and juxtaposing it with ‘unreal’ things (receipts, plastic sushi grass, Pacing). A monumental amount of these images were put together, with Pacing asking social media to give her a number corresponding to a scan to help her choose the album’s final artwork.
Like the physical representations of ‘hatemail’ and ‘Snake Facts’, Pacing also released a run of self-produced CDs for ‘Real Poetry’. As with the former, these came in two editions, CD and DVD case versions, but for the first time her music was also made available on cassette through Totally Real Records. All editions have sold-out, unless you’re lucky enough to witness Pacing in concert, where she may have a few extra to part with.
During our Q&A, we asked Pacing, ‘Turns out there are lots of Orangevilles, which one are you not dying in?’ Her answer was:
‘Haha! I was going to tell you, but now I think it’s sort of funny to not tell you and make you figure it out from the context clues in the lyrics. I wrote during our cross-country move in the summer of 2022.’
So we did. The ‘real’ answer is Orangeville, Utah. And this is the most down to earth piece of music on this album. This song and its arrangement are a snapshot from that road trip, featuring the voice and guitar of Ben Krock, with no programmed drums – preserved very much in the way it was written during this time. Their road trip included minimal instruments, mostly a ukulele and tiny MIDI keyboard. Listen for the light-handed electric piano, and even more so for Pacing’s soft humming between the lines.
There are indeed lyrical clues to point towards this Orangeville, mentioning the desert in the opening line. The ‘little blue house’ was the only Airbnb in the small town, and whilst their stay was pleasant, the couple already had their true destination set, ‘I'm not gonna live in Orangeville.’
‘Hello. The lady at the post office said to tell you so.’ During their stay, Pacing would create and mail copies of her ‘hatemail’ mixtape, making use of the one library and post office the town had to offer. Recorded before they left Pittsburgh, ‘hatemail’ would be officially released while on this trip. Katie and Ben’s vocals complement each other beautifully, placing you in the backseat of the car while they practice these harmonies together. This would be Ben Krock’s last appearance on the album, but like Kabir Kumar, his musicianship is something we ask Pacing about at the conclusion of this article.
‘I feel, this little nagging thing, like there’s somewhere I should be, like there's something wrong with everybody else but me.’
The epitome of Pacing’s message for this album is ‘unReal / forReal’. The message is of course, ‘Nothing Is Real’. There are more topical lyrical moments in this song, with Pacing mentioning pollution and ‘the vaccine’, small references to conspiracies about both. Her voice is different still, dictated by the subject matter, as if she’s singing only to the listener. Like much of her music, you get the sense you’re seeing the world through Pacing’s eyes in ‘unReal / forReal’, and it’s radically different from what the rest of us see.
‘And now I can't remember something I’m supposed to do. Something just broke, it’s like somebody died.’
The music for this song is as if dreampop were arranged for acoustic instruments. Pacing incorporates gentle drums and percussion, with the same violin sound heard in ‘Bite Me’, used sparingly with acoustic guitar and electric piano. The result is a song that like a river current, it just takes you, but in safety. In ‘unReal / forReal’, Pacing has managed to write a song that’s caught in that moment between numbness and awareness. Where the world is so loud and yours is tired, but more than just physical fatigue. In this moment, you’re a bystander in the world, but not a participant.
‘We'd be so fucked if this was real, but I'm not really planning to stick around here. None of this counts in a couple years, I’m gonna start my life for real.’
‘Thank you, for your patience, I am waiting, on someone else. I’m sorry, for your patience, I am thank you, for your, well the thing is anybody mad at me?’
It’s the month of September and it’s Resignation Week. The third week of that month is the most statistically likely of the year for people to resign from their jobs. So Pacing and Sun Kin celebrated by bookending it with two new singles. The first of these, entitled ‘Annoying Email’ was the last song written for ‘Real Poetry’, dating back to Escapril 2023 about feeling self-conscious while sending corporate emails. If you’ve ever had to chase something up via email and you feel you need to apologise within that text while doing so – this one’s for you.
Pacing and Sun Kin give their fans two weeks notice.
‘We can circle back whenever you have the time. I'm available…all of the time.’
Originally conceived with the idea that every instrument on this track would be performed using only synth bass, Sun Kin brings a dynamic and rhythmic guitar while keeping some of Pacing’s original arrangement intact. You can hear Kabir Kumar’s voice among the myriad of vocals that close the song, apologising for their own email. Kabir explains how he helped shape the sound of ‘Annoying Email’:
‘Katie sent me this song when it was a demo constructed entirely of Logic keyboard bass played in different octaves. I enjoyed how low key funky it was, so I fooled around on my Nile Rodgers-est guitar and, because of our shared love of the band Cheekface, had the idea to dial in the Mandy-est tone that I could. Call it Chicface.’
Lyrically, this is one of Pacing’s simpler songs, but one that resonates if you’ve ever had to work from home or run a music review website (I’ve just opened an email that uses the phrase ‘circling back’). Is anybody mad at me?
‘Dreams Die was a song I wrote early this year, in the lead up to being laid off. Interestingly enough, it grew out of the sampled debris of an older song which I had given up on. It was her favorite among a group of songs I sent to Katie and she immediately sent back a Google Voice Recorder note of her verse, which weaves in and out of mine. Might be the coolest part of the song…’ – Kabir Kumar
The second track released by the duo for Resignation Week was ‘Dreams Die ;)’, and it’s possible this song has been going round my head for weeks. Whilst ‘Annoying Email’ was Pacing featuring Sun Kin, ‘Dreams Die ;)’ is Sun Kin featuring Pacing on vocals. The music is a real showcase of Kabir Kumar’s influences and production style, bringing together tabla and jangling acoustic guitars with a more traditional closing guitar solo. The gliding cello performance is by Marissa Deitz, with extra electric guitar and bass from Bryan Lovett. All fitting together perfectly, a song that of which the production needs nothing more and nothing less. And of course we get more of Kumar and McTigue singing together.
Kumar’s verses read like a list, ‘Sober, lucid, upright, patient…’ which ends up picking holes in himself, ‘Write myself up, for indolence. I’m basic, I’m hating.’ The melody in the chorus is catchy and infectious, ‘The dreams I have are drying up, but I am so excited for the new stuff…’ For ‘Dreams Die ;)’ the music is penned by Sun Kin, whilst the lyrics are a co-write. The second verse sees their collaboration peak, following the same format as Kabir’s first, but with Katie adding in her own additional thoughts:
‘Envy (won’t shut up so I just keep) eating (my feelings away) at my (I don’t want to go to my) jaw (job).’
The only shame of this song is that there isn’t more of it. With Pacing and Sun Kin sharing the stage at Permanent Records Roadhouse in Los Angeles as well as a writing retreat, there could well be more to come…
‘On the 275, there's ocean views for miles and miles and miles. Just take a little time out, okay?’
Part II to ‘Stupid’ goes even harder, expanding the concept to be more outward, in the way others are perceived by yourself and the way our lives could all be different. ‘So Stupid’ is a reminder that everyone has the capacity to do stupid things, or make mistakes that have a bigger impact around you. Things can change in an instant, ‘I could have a DUI, I could have killed that guy,’ due to the sheer belief that we are invincible. The stupid things that others do, we would never do, right?
Dylan Ganz is credited with additional production on ‘So Stupid’, who may be responsible for the song’s swelling ending, leading up to the devastating line, ‘Or I could be that girl, what she did in the car, they made her into a porn star.’ Early on, there are hints of this song’s connection to its shorter half, with Pacing’s voice in the background saying, ‘What a stupid thing to say…’
This track conveys a message rarely heard in songwriting, it comes at you from a level playing field, not one of preaching and belittlement. ‘So Stupid’ is a song that as ordinary people we all need to hear, if only just to nod and say, ‘I understand.’ Because everything hangs in a delicate balance, and a stupid mistake could ruin it all.
‘But it could have been you, cause we were so stupid. And it could have been me, just as easily.’
‘I woke up this morning, and forgot to be scared, when I looked out the window and there’s nobody there…’
‘Real Poetry Is Always About Plants and Birds and Trees and the Animals and Milk and Honey Breathing In The Pink But Real Life Is Behind A Screen’ finishes on a lighter note. ‘And I Forgot To Be Scared’ is loosely based on the 1998 film ‘The Truman Show’. Featuring extra production from Kabir Kumar, he approached the track with a light hand:
‘And I Forgot to be Scared is a really beautiful song that I turn on anytime I need to calm down for a second. On this track I contributed some percussion samples and bass. I also added a bit of vocals, but definitely didn’t want to overproduce anything, and in the end Katie went with a combination of our approaches that I really loved. Look out for my one line of harmony 😉’
Written at the beginning of the road trip when Katie and Ben moved to California, this song is anchored by the ukulele it was written on during that journey. ‘I woke up on an island, and I got in my car, and I drove to the water, and I started to walk…’ Pacing’s chord changes in this song are a dream, as is her use of a field recording. Water washes over the sand. The sun is beginning to set. It starts to rain - the journey is complete.
Once you let go of what is and isn’t real, you forget to be scared.
Image Credit: Pacing.
What exactly is ‘Real Poetry’? What makes some poetry more real than others? I’ll tell you something that is real: this album. It’s an album that has taken a small community of dedicated followers by storm. It’s made musicians and fans of music alike sit up and take note. It’s Pacing’s notion that nothing is real, everything is made-up that makes this record exactly some of the most real pieces of art derived from her experience and inexperience in life.
Pacing’s career is undoubtedly on an upward trajectory, with new fans finding her music all the time either via TikTok, her memes, live performances or the sheer joy radiated by the others that already bask in her musical output. With ‘Real Poetry’ headlining an amazing year for Pacing, we’re excited to see where her music takes her next in 2024.
Continue reading for our Q&A with Pacing. We ask her to validate her existence and discuss her collaborators on this record. We talk demos and noise, the fabled live/laugh/love era of the 2010’s and performing live with Copeland James. All this and more below!
1. Let's start with the most pressing question: Is Pacing real?
Yeah, I was lying before when I said it wasn’t real, Pacing is real. Unless I’m lying now.
2. Is your second album 'Real Poetry Is Always About Plants and Birds and Trees and the Animals and Milk and Honey Breathing In The Pink But Real Life Is Behind A Screen' real?
Real Poetry Is Always About Plants and Birds and Trees and the Animals and Milk and Honey Breathing In The Pink But Real Life Is Behind A Screen Is Approximately 60-70% Real
Also, I can’t decide if it’s my second album or my debut album. What do you think? hatemail was only 8 songs and ~20 minutes, and I called it a mixtape, but is that really different from an album? I recorded both records in my room so they don’t seem that real.
3. What was the song that kicked off writing this album? Did you consciously try and go in a different direction from your debut?
I wrote a lot of this album while we were on our long road trip across the US when we moved from Pittsburgh to California! (Sorry I forgot you’re British, let me explain - a roadtrip is when you drive a car somewhere, and California and Pittsburgh are very far from each other. Also the Midwest is more North and East - don’t worry about it.)
So, anyway, I didn’t have a guitar with me! All I had was a ukulele and a little midi keyboard. I think that set the direction a bit softer and folkier than hatemail, at least at first.
I’m pretty sure the first song I wrote for this record was “Bite Me”, in December 2021 in a School of Song workshop taught by Courtney Marie Andrews. I think I pretty quickly latched on to “Real Poetry” as a theme, and a lot of the other songs were born with that in mind.
4. Your husband Ben Krock appears on four of the 'Real Poetry' tracks including the opening single 'Bite Me', is there any Ben lore that emerged while making this album?
Ben lore! Ben is great. It’s actually insane that he lives in my house and I can use him whenever I want (lol that sounds... whatever 😏 ). I guess the big Ben lore is he has like three music degrees and used to teach music theory, so he Knows A Lot of Things.
He doesn’t really like writing songs, but he’s the perfect editor. He saves me from myself all the time. And he’s really good at popping in and adding the perfect thing, but never too much. I’ll often show him a song and ask him to play on it and he’ll say “no, it doesn’t need anything else.” I think a lot of my general philosophy towards making music is stolen from Ben.
On Bite Me he literally played like four notes of bass (at the end of the second verse), but they are absolutely structurally integral to the song in my opinion. That’s Ben for you.
He also did a lot of re-tracking of my shitty guitar playing. I like to think my sloppy guitar playing adds character to some songs (like Meditation, and The Attic) but on others it would have been distracting.
[Lol, remind me to attach a hilarious photo I have of Ben being pretentious with some Schenkerian analysis in ~2015.]
Edit: ok I can’t find it anyway (YOU’RE WELCOME, BEN) so here’s one of him just being a dork
Ben Krock.
5. For this album, you resurrected one of your earlier demos called 'Ghostbusters' and merged it with 'The Attic', what inspired bringing this one back?
Oh, I pretty much always knew I wanted it to be paired with The Attic, I just released it as a demo cause I wanted to drop something fun for halloween!
I write a lot of short songs! I just write a verse and a chorus and maybe a third part and then I get bored and don’t feel like repeating myself. I cobbled together separate song ideas in a few places on this record (Stupid + So Stupid, unReal + forReal).
It’s a trick I have seen recently in pop music and enjoy. (See Phoebe Bridgers’ “I Know the End”, Lizzy McAlpine’s “nothing / sad n stuff”, Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever”)
6. 'Have you tried meditation?' is a real brain splurge, how were you feeling when you wrote that one?
Hahaaaa. Well, I wrote this one during another School of Song class taught by Phil Elverum of The Microphones. That dude is ZEN, let me tell you. He wanted us all to start a meditation practice during the course, and be on our phones less.
I tried really hard to follow directions but it was a struggle. At some point I was trying to meditate and my brain was just going 1000 mph and I started writing the first verse. And then I wrote the rest of the song that same day.
I do my best work when I’m supposed to be doing something else.
7. '*******' is a slice cut from the same cake as 'Live / Laugh / Love (Harsh Noise Version)'. How are you generating the noise heard in those tracks?
Ben is the noise guy, no surprises there. I feel like there’s a lot of people in the noise scene who spent too much time thinking really hard about “Real Music” and burned out.
He set up a pedal chain for me, and then I basically just played around! It was super fun. I’ll have to ask him what the pedals are.
@ Ben Krock, here, edit this google doc and tell us what the pedals are.
(Ok he’s not real I made him up, but I’m certain at least one came from Deathbed Tapes. I also did some of the stuff for LLL Noise using this sick Japanoise “Bento Box” noise plugin.)
8. Releasing the LLL Superpack was a boss move. If you could choose anyone to pick that up and remix the song, who would it be and why?
I thought it would be really funny to have the noise artist VOMIR do a “remix” that is literally just 2 minutes 38 seconds of noise wall but is called “Live / Laugh / Love (VOMIR’s version)”. I wonder if he would do it.
But my real answer is Sarah Tudzin. Or SOPHIE, if I’m allowed to resurrect people.
‘Live / Laugh / Love’ single artwork by Pacing.
9. Millennials remember the Live/Laugh/Love era in society well, did you ever buy into it seriously at the time?
Hahaha. I don’t thiiiiink I did, but it’s so hard to remember, and separate that time from after it became ironic. I was never really into quotes on clothing and stuff, even as a kid.
10. Sorry to bother you, but you made 'Annoying Email' and 'Dreams Die' with Sun Kin for resignation week. How did those collaborations happen? Did you just message them and ask?
Kabir and I famously became accidental friends when he accidentally slid into my TikTok DMs (there’s this stupid button to “wave” at someone that is really easy to accidentally tap). I think we would have become friends anyway, eventually. I was (and am) a huge GUPPY fan, and we are both very friendly and collaborative, and also very online.
Kabir and I are a great team, imho. We have sort of opposite skill sets that compliment each other well. World takeover is imminent.
In addition to Annoying Email, they played and sang on two other songs on the record! The Attic / Ghostbusters, and I Forgot to be Scared. The real bass adds so much.
PSA: Hire Kabir to record and produce your record before they are world famous and cost thousands of dollars per hour!
PS. Since I talked about Ben and Kabir, I also just want to give a shout-out to my mixing engineer Dylan Ganz (aka sinclayr)! He is much more than just a mixing engineer, he was definitely also a creative partner on this record, and spent a lot of time workshopping ideas with me. He was one of the first people to hear all the demos. I can’t imagine how this record would have turned out without him, but it would not be the same record and it would not be as good.
An assortment of ‘Real Poetry’ scans by Pacing.
11. To make the artwork for this record, you scanned a serious amount of stuff, giving you endless options for the front cover. How many scans were there and what were some of the runners-up for the artwork? How long did this process take?
I sure did, lmao. There are 373 scans. I think there were only really two days where I scanned things, but it was for a good chunk of the day.
The Bite Me art was my first attempt at the album cover:
‘Bite Me’ single artwork by Pacing.
For a while I wanted it to be exactly 50% real 50% fake
12. Congratulations on selling out several runs of CDs! Tell us your process for your CD production line. What have you learnt over the past year or so of doing this?
Every time I do a CD run I’m like “holy shit I did that so inefficiently, I learned so much, next time it will be so much better” and I think that that is FINALLY true. This one only takes like ~10 minutes per CD instead of like... god knows how long Snake Facts took.
With the DVD case ones, it’s basically
- Print all da stuff (lyric booklet, covers)
- Clean the shitty used dvd cases and remove the covers
- Drill holes in the DVD cases
- Sew the booklet in (while watching shitty reality TV, or while in a meeting at work from home lol)
- Add the covers and receipts
- Burn the CDs and add them (haven’t done this yet lol)
- QA! Test each CD in the car (historically Ben’s job 🙏)
Pacing’s hand-made CD variations for ‘Real Poetry’.
13. You recently provided a cover of 'Stacy's Mom' for the Outcast Tape Infirmary cover compilation. Was that your go-to track for the set? Or was there another you considered doing?
Actually, I freaking struggled to find a song I had a connection to from 2003! I was going to do “Your Body is a Wonderland” by John Mayer and really fuck it up with harsh noise stuff (I hate that song lol) but it turns out that was 2002.
Then at the last minute I realized Stacy’s Mom was from 2003. It’s totally shocking that no one had taken it yet.
It’s intimidating to cover such an iconic song. But I got really into the character of the asshat little teen boy who thinks his girlfriend’s mom is into him. That’s straight out of the Pacing extended universe for sure.
14. Going further back to the release of your debut album 'hatemail', you asked people to submit their insecurities for use in the 'Who has ADHD now lol' music video. How did it make you feel to read some of those?
Oh man, it was a bummer! I thought it would be fun and funny, but some of them were absolutely heartbreaking. When I was responding to some of them, I wanted to be like “you can email me if you need someone to talk to” but I had to be like “noooo I am not a therapist, stay in your lane.” But I feel really deeply grateful to those people for sharing this shit, they really came through. Big internet hugs to all.
15. This is a space for you to tell us a Snake Fact.
Coral snakes are part of the Elapidae family which means they are basically the closest thing to a cobra we have in North America! Their venom is very potent and harmful to humans, but they almost never bite because they are super docile and have teeny tiny mouths that are not very useful for biting people. People only really get bit if they are doing something VERY STUPID (swinging one around like a cowboy with a lasso). NO TOUCHY
Copeland James and Pacing. Coping.
16. You recently played a couple of gigs with Copeland James, how did those go? What was it like to step on a stage for the first time as Pacing?
AMAZING. I wish Copeland could play every Pacing gig with me for the rest of my life. I wasn’t even really scared because the Bloomington crowd was SO kind and warm and fun. I can’t imagine I’ll have better shows than that. One of the best nights of my life.
Oh also, we been knew, but Copeland is a fuckin magical performer.
17. Pacing Music Band Nation World Tour 2024?
That would certainly be shocking.
18. Finally, what is something in this life that is undeniably, irrevocably real that you have experienced?
Oh my god, you just used the exact wording as the description on the back of the Twilight book. Ok, I just looked it up and it’s not quite the same, but very close.
I have a distinct memory of being at Barnes & Noble in the mall in... 2009 maybe? I was probably there to camp out for a Harry Potter book. Twilight had just come out, and it wasn’t a big cultural phenomenon yet, it was just a book.
I picked it up and read the back and I was HOOKED, I thought it was the most exciting concept I’d ever heard. Imagine that. I had never heard of a vampire love story before.
That’s so real.
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Stream and download ‘Real Poetry Is Always About Plants and Birds and Trees and the Animals and Milk and Honey Breathing In The Pink But Real Life Is Behind A Screen’ from Pacing’s Bandcamp page. You can also find Pacing’s previous works there, including her mixtape, ‘hatemail’.
Purchase t-shirts and a tote bag from Pacing here!
Join the Pacing Music Band Nation by signing up to Pacing’s mailing list.
For more information about Pacing, visit her official website.
Follow Evil Pacing on Twitter if you dare @pacingmusic666.
Follow Pacing on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter @pacingmusic.
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