"Working Class Weirdo" is the 11th full-length album by I Am Hologram, released on May 5, 2023. Serving as a sequel to the 2016 acoustic album "Idiot Savant," this record continues the artist's exploration of unconventional soundscapes and introspective themes.
The album comprises 14 tracks, blending fully realized songs with experimental noise pieces, bass solos, and even a satirical commercial interlude. This eclectic mix creates a "psychedelic acoustic experience" intended to be absorbed in a single sitting, reflecting the artist's penchant for defying musical norms.
"Laureitta", a standout track, is a poignant tribute to the artist's grandmother, Laureitta "Peggy" Tudor. The lyrics convey a deep sense of loss and remembrance, with lines like "I've been walking through walls pretending you're in the next room" and "I failed to see the way you let the light in," highlighting the emotional depth of the composition.
Another notable song, "There's A Light Out In Waco," showcases the artist's surreal storytelling. The lyrics weave a narrative involving "a sneak attack from Mars" and "extraordinary plans to save the moon from little green men," blending whimsical imagery with underlying social commentary.
The album's production is as diverse as its content, with recordings spanning various locations across the United States over two years. Notably, the main guitar parts were recorded in the artist's mother's kitchen on Long Island, New York, while vocals were laid down in a friend's basement studio in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
"Working Class Weirdo" exemplifies I Am Hologram's commitment to pushing artistic boundaries, offering listeners a multifaceted auditory journey that challenges conventional genre classifications.
A Working Class Weirdo’s Anthem: A Review by Ishmael Nihil
The album Working Class Weirdo by I Am Hologram is a love letter to imperfection, scrawled in the margins of a life most people wouldn’t dare live. it’s a pocket full of smudged napkins scrawled with the half-mad musings of a man standing too close to the sun. The artist invites you into the smoky haze of his memories, each track a cigarette burned down to the filter. It’s not pretty. It’s not meant to be.
Take Laureitta, for example—a whispered confession to a ghost that’s still too real to let go of. The lyrics hang heavy, not like chains but like well-worn clothes, weighed down with the scent of old regrets and an unspoken gratitude for the light she brought. He sings like he’s pressing his forehead against a frosted window, willing her to answer.
And then there’s There’s A Light Out In Waco, a surreal fever dream where little green men plot their cosmic graffiti. It’s a slow waltz with absurdity, a hymn to the impossibility of escaping the strange orbit of your own mind. The humor here isn’t light; it’s jagged and dry, like laughing while picking glass shards out of your palm.
But this isn’t just a poet playing with metaphors; it’s a craftsman chiseling jagged truths out of raw experience. You hear it in the production—the hiss of rooms too quiet, the guitar strings that buzz just a little too loud. It’s a sound so honest it hurts, like finding an old mixtape you made for someone who doesn’t remember you anymore.
Working Class Weirdo is the soundtrack to the kind of freedom that’s only found on the edge of failure. It’s the courage to stare at your own reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror and still write a love song. The bass solos, the noise experiments, the commercial interlude—they’re not mistakes; they’re the artist’s way of saying, “This is me. All of it.”
The album ends, but it doesn’t let you go. It lingers like the last echo of a conversation you wish you’d said more in. I Am Hologram doesn’t ask for your approval. He doesn’t even ask for your understanding. He just offers you a chance to see the world through his eyes, to hear it through the strings of his guitar, and to feel it in the space between the notes.
Working Class Weirdo is a living, breathing thing. It’s the sound of a soul refusing to be neatly packaged or easily understood. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re all working-class weirdos, just trying to make sense of the mess we’re born into.
Listen closely. It might be your anthem, too.
I've been walking through walls pretending
You're in the next room
Late night T.V. on
That Sunday in your bed
Your eyes were open
In the garden, the last rose
Was blooming just for you
I failed to see the way you let the light in
That time I OD'ed
You came to guide me
I was angry, you know why
If only you could see me now
If you could see me now
I failed to see the way you let the light in
On the mountainside, the sun became your love
The sun became your love
So long, So long
There's a light out in Waco
And a sneak attack from Mars
There's a light out in Waco
Those who carry torches will burn down
I know I told you I knew the secret of the Gods
But they changed the padlock to the guesthouse
And now I'm just an ordinary janitor
With extraordinary plans to save the moon from little green men
I know I showed you paper moths with uranium eyes
But they're a closed group with their own rules and rituals
And now I'm cut from the photographs
There's nothing left to do
But make the lizards dance
Well, I know you're there for me
Lord, it isn't quite the same with out your spotlight
Hanging over me
But, I know you're standing there
Smiling wide between the rainbow and the turnstiles
With teeth instead of trees
There were dogs in the moonlight
Dancing with the cyborgs
Sleeping under the desert with balloons inside their eyes
They were high as a kite now
Drinking with the lions
Drooling onto the topsoil where the peasants defend the king
Don't fall in rabbit holes
You better do what you're told
You better die 'fore your old
What the fuck do I know?
Live as you please
Don't be fooled by disease
Don't waste time on your knees
What the fuck do I know?
In the celibate seas
Where the sailors seize
Mushroom clouds
Free yourself from what you own
Don't wait to bury your bones
Don't isolate in your home
What the fuck do I know?
By the time you read this there will be nothing that you can say
And the Martian rain will wash away all my pain today
I look in the mirror and I know I barely exist
When did these eyes grow so sullen and swollen and weakened?
Every one for themselves today
Blame the heads of state
Which side do you stand beside
When nowhere is safe?
Yea, I'm tired of waking up like this
As you search for relevance
There is none to be had
All of life is fighting to kill you
Before you slither out of bed
Yea, I'm tired of waking up like this
Someone choke these demons from me
There's too many to fight alone
I'm not one to mourn you when you're gone
i crawl underneath the cracks in the floor
i am a serpent at your feet
With one wave of your hand I am helpless again
My eyes hurt from lack of sleep
I lie inside the shadows on the wall
And I wait for tired revelations
I'm falling into Eden with your hands on my back
But you never even seemed to blink
And I try to make amends with all the things that I've become
Close my eyes and try to dream of better things and
I'm alive when I'm inside you but with out you there's no peace
Rearrange the pieces that I've been broken into
My scars I touch with faith that one day they will heal
and we will be as one
your innocence completes me until the end
your scars I touch with faith that one day they will heal
and we will be as one
once and for all I am you