Today, new Earth Libraries-signees Confusions have released their brand new EP, Grounds, premiered via Indie88, and share the release's lead single + video, "We Were Programmed To Fall In Love."
Of the single, Ben said, "I saw the film Her a few days before I wrote this song. It wasn’t necessarily about that movie, but it definitely inspired the process. Like the sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, I was intrigued by the concept of a machine presenting with a sense of self, thinking, feeling, and exhibiting attachment. Themes like these were in my mind, one day as I improvised the lyrics, 'we were programmed to fall in love.' I was trying to experiment with a world in which a Beach Boys type harmony met an electro-pop sound. Brendan Youngquist (producer) and I treated the vocal harmonies with effects, so they would both sound like human voices, and electronic instruments. Like many songs, I find the meaning of this one isn’t fixed. At times, the chorus has taken on an evolutionary sentiment, as a simple observation on humans being wired for connection. In fact, we are so wired for it, that we’re easily intrigued by the idea of machines feeling. We look for ourselves in everything. Because of that, the most important creative role in the music process is the listener. What else exists in this sound world? How does it speak to you? That’s what I want people to take away from this song." Ben wrote the following of Grounds itself:
"Grounds was a place for me to process grief, observation, and connection. I was experimenting with romanticism, experimental pop, new wave, and surf influences. Recording and writing have generally been synonymous processes for me. As I was writing these songs, I was making a lot of lo-fi demos. They were lo-fi, largely due to restrictions of my setup at the time. But I had a Roland SP-404 I used to treat the audio, which added to the lo-fi character as well. The textures in these demos began to feel congruent to the emotions I was processing. Because of this, Brendan had the idea to blend lo-fi and hi-fi signals, of the same instrument, voice, sample, etc. This approach began to represent the varying levels of clarity I felt within myself, during a time of grief and many changes. We had the opportunity to track the percussion, as well as some of the pianos and guitars, in a recital hall. Thanks, Donna! We were really keen on the acoustics in this space. We recorded as much as we could in a week. Then we generally worked from a distance the rest of the album. We would intermittently meet up in Chicago, Cleveland, and Columbus, to overdub, exchange files, and work on re-amping layers. These trips were my favorite part of making the record. Each time we got together, something new and unexpected would come out of the process. Sometimes we would throw on a Werner Herzog documentary, and work in parallel on different things. We started to call these 'Herzog sessions,' which for us, also involved burritos, impossible burgers, and long breaks. We had some really good times making this album." | 
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