John Bergin is a multi-disciplinary talent: no written word, visual art, or musical expression is out of reach for him. He’s worked on some groundbreaking graphic novels, written some influential songs, and has designed more album art on your shelf than most. So today’s a special day. Today, Vehlinggo premieres “Kitchen Floor,” a delectably danceable and entrancingly mechanistic instrumental by Mecha Maiko from the soundtrack to Bergin’s new collection of short stories, Feels Like Rain, which releases tomorrow.
The Feels Like Rain soundtrack features new and previously released music by a host of synthwave, industrial, and electronic artists: Ainoma, Lone Runner, S.T.R.S.G.N., Xander Harris, OGRE, Time Pop, Steve Greene, Alpha Chrome Yayo, Mecha Maiko, Cemetery Gates, Bellhead, VV17CH, See Thomas Howl, and Bergin himself.
The contribution from Mecha Maiko (AKA Hayley Stewart) serves as the score to the story “From Now On,” which is a poetic piece about love and repairing broken hearts.
“My favorite part of this project by far was opening an email to find new music from each of the contributing bands,” Bergin told Vehlinggo. “Storytelling is a meeting of minds; the writer and the reader. We meet each other halfway in a weird imagined space. I do my best to paint a picture with words, but it’s just a suggestion. The reader completes the painting with their imagination. To have some of my favorite bands not only read a story I wrote, but also create music for scenes as they saw them was such a thrill. It was fascinating and humbling to hear my stories come to life like that.
“All of the tracks are so inspiring to me,” he continued. “Listening to them makes me want to turn the short stories I wrote into short films so that I can score them with the music. ‘What would those short films be like?’ you might ask. Read the book and listen to the album to find out.”
The book is an anthology of 16 short stories covering a variety of genres and topics — everything from guilt, anger, unknown pleasures, and even death:
In Raised by Rats, a chance encounter with a superhero alters the course of a young man’s life. In Corpse Gun, a guide leads his charges across a surreal wasteland to a destination deadlier than the journey undertaken to reach it. In The Mountaineer, a determined man undertakes the Sisyphean task of delivering an extraordinary gift to a remote location. In The Bullet Collector, a teacher flees from America’s gun worship and discovers there is no escape. In The Crying Giant, a fairy tale ending eludes a gentle giant. In The House Of Frankenstein, the Frankenstein monster is alive and well, working his strangest case yet as a private investigator in New York City. In Lost in the Cold Hard Vacuum of Outer Space, a rebellious space pilot happens upon a lost astronaut who teaches her how to cool her jets.
The soundtrack and book both come out tomorrow, Friday, March 12. Bandcamp album purchases include a download of the book in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB formats. Likewise, if you buy the physical book, you get a download code for the album. The soundtrack album’s cover artwork is by the inimitable Eric Adrian Lee.
Feels Like Rain (Original Book Soundtrack) Tracklist
01 View Of Dark Temptation (Dammed) – Xander Harris
02 Things To Come (Raised By Rats) – Ainoma
03 I’m Coming For You (Raised By Rats) – Ainoma
04 Hero (Raised By Rats) – Lone Runner
05 The Cricket (Corpse Gun) – S.T.R.S.G.N
06 Poly (Corpse Gun) – S.T.R.S.G.N
07 The Others (Corpse Gun) – S.T.R.S.G.N
08 Cube (Corpse Gun) – S.T.R.S.G.N
09 NUL Agent (Pushing Chrome) – John Bergin
10 Pushing Chrome (Pushing Chrome) – OGRE
11 The Projectionist (Pushing Chrome) – John Bergin
12 Stella Interlude (Feels Like Rain) – Time Pop
13 Stella Intro (Rain Like Feels) – Time Pop
14 Unbeknownst (The Wayward School) – Steve Greene
15 Lost And Found (Lost and Found in the Cold Hard Vacuum of Outer Space) – Alpha Chrome Yayo
16 Kitchen Floor (From Now On) – Mecha Maiko
17 Karmic Justice (The Bullet Collector) – Cemetery Gates
18 The Sound Of Blinking (The Bullet Collector) – Cemetery Gates
19 The Great Northern Woods (The Bullet Collector) – Cemetery Gates
20 The Sound Of Being Hunted (The Bullet Collector) – Cemetery Gates
21 Monstrous (The House Of Frankenstein) – John Bergin
22 Verrückt (The House Of Frankenstein) – VV17CH
23 Fire Control (The House Of Frankenstein) – Bellhead
24 New Way To Die (The Mountaineer) – See Thomas Howl
More Information about John Bergin and Mecha Maiko
For more information on Bergin, who is Lakeshore Records’ art director, check out this in-depth Vehlinggo interview from 2016. Catch Mecha Maiko on her new, regular segment on The Vehlinggo Podcast.
Furthermore, you can catch Bergin, Mecha Maiko, and yours truly, along with the likes of College, Electric Youth, The Midnight, 80s Stallone, and Perturbator, and many more, in the John Carpenter-narrated The Rise of the Synths documentary.
