non-human intelligence
22 tracks. Five acts. A mind coming apart and putting itself back together.
This one's more of an exploration than anything. I've had manic episodes. I've had moments where reality slipped, even a little, and it's one of the most terrifying things there is. I wanted to follow it all the way down. What it actually looks like to lose yourself. To dissociate. To fall all the way into something that isn't there. I think it happens to a lot more people than anyone says out loud.
It started as a breakup record and turned into something stranger. A break with reality told as an alien abduction. It's not a diary. It's more like an alternate reality, a what-if I just kept following until it broke.
Here's what holds it together. The aliens are the grief. The whole back half is a rescue. Trying to save her, getting pulled up into the ship, the fight on the mothership. But there was never a war. She left. My head couldn't sit with that, so it built a war instead.
Short songs, heavy drops. A minute, maybe ninety seconds. One drop each. I grew up on metal, where a song runs two verse-chorus loops, a bridge, then another chorus. Long. When I moved to electronic I'd already cut that way down to two drops. This time I cut it to the bone. Each part hits once and it's gone. It barely counts as songs anymore. It's closer to a mix, and honestly it sits better that way for streaming. You're in, you feel it, you're out.
I pulled that from a few places. Skrillex did it on FUCK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3, a whole record that plays more like a DJ set than an album. And XXXTentacion, the way his tracks were short and raw and just said the thing and left. The vocals here work the same way. Fragments. They don't add up to much alone, but they line up across the record into one story. Nonhuman intelligence isn't a machine. It's the part of me that keeps making things when the anxious part finally shuts up. All produced solo in Ableton. No generative AI. Just me in a room.
The thread isn't genre. It's pressure.
Liner Notes
Track by Track
ACT 1 — THE CALM THAT ISN'T
awakening
Aggressive from the first second. Not a soft open. More like a warning of everything coming after.
believe me
The first night. The easy promise. Her voice telling you it's all going to be fine, before anything's wrong.
anxiety
The first crack. Glitchy and aggressive. Something's off and your body knows it before your brain does.
picture perfect
Everything looks perfect. You keep telling yourself that. The more you say it, the less it holds.
escape
Same days on repeat. Replaying what went wrong until it stops making sense. This is where the descent starts.
ACT 2 — THE DISSOLVE
copilot
The world goes thin. Nothing feels real. Something's pulling at the edges.
i feel u
First contact. There's something out there and it wants you to come closer.
its real
You give in. You stop fighting it. It's not a feeling anymore. It's real.
quiet
The new wears off. What felt exciting turns cold. Everything goes quiet, and the quiet is the worst part.
what u lookin at?
The shadow before the reveal. You see the figure. You see what's standing behind it.
ACT 3 — CONTACT
NHI
The vocals tear in. The thing shows its face. The grief finally has a shape.
dont leave me
Begging her not to go. You tell yourself it's the aliens taking her. Anything but the truth.
vortex
Pulled up into the ship. Time stops making sense.
walls cave in
Everything closes in at once.
ACT 4 — THE GUARDIAN
seraph
Something comes through the noise. Call it a guardian, an angel, whatever it is that finds you at the bottom. Not here to win the fight. Here to get you through what's left of it.
swarm
The approach. They're closing in.
slipstream
The big one. The peak.
mothership
The climax. Total chaos. This isn't about getting her back anymore. It's just the storm.
ACT 5 — REASSEMBLY
repair
Picking up the pieces. The slow work of putting the ego back together, after all of it.
reincarnate
The switch flips. You come back.
love again
The other side of picture perfect. You come back and finally see it. The aliens never took her. She just left. Not getting her back, just finally letting it be over.
go
The next chapter. That's it. Go.
Non-Human Intelligence — Artefex. Produced, mixed, and mastered solo. No generative AI.