Summary

Social Phobia is an electronic post-rock instrumental album by MR4. The music is a mix of electronic synths, post-rock guitars, and experimental soundscapes. Officially released on November 26,2016.

Liner Notes

Most of the tracks on Social Phobia were first created in 2009 alongside demos that I would eventually use on The Void. When beginning this project, I had no real audio production experience, and it was my first time working with Pro Tools. Previously, all of my work was created in a digital-only environment, but I wanted to add guitars into the mix, seeing how I had played the guitar for several years before venturing into music production. This created an odd genre mix between electronic and guitar-driven music. Some songs were approached through a piano roll like my previous album, Electrick Shock, while others were built around guitar riffs. Although production on this album stems a span of many years, there were long stretches of time when the project was at a complete standstill. Each time I came back to complete the album, I would run into things I wanted to change but was unable to go back and alter them due to corrupted data and bad file management. These issues caused me to change course on numerous tracks and set me back even further from the finish line. In 2016, I decided to complete this project no matter the outcome. During this production phase, I was focused on improving the mixes of the songs rather than composing and altering the arrangements. When it came down to it, there was not much I could do to revive the sound quality. I had done so many things wrong from the beginning and thus my mistakes were permanent. Social Phobia was finally released on November 26, 2016. This was the point at which I decided I had to be done with it and move on. I'll be the first to admit that the sound quality on this album is not the best. The composition of the songs is a big step up from Electric Shock in both complexity and style. Overall, I'm happy with how this album came out considering the development hell that it went through. I would best describe the workflow from beginning to end as "A Shit Show", or rather, a learning experience. My favorite track off of this album is Monophobia. Even in its early stages, Monophobia always stood out to me as an enjoyable listen. - MR4