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A
Hey, everyone, it's Dan. The real Dan, not the Dan from the podcast.
B
So do you have to do that every single time you appear on the pod? Yes, completely understandable. Anyway, I am Mark. I am also the real Mark.
A
Anyway, we'll keep this short and sweet since we already announced this a few weeks ago, but we have a new album coming out. It's called Generation Crossing.
B
It is a weird science fiction concept album with monologues by me and music by Dan. It's all about an 800 year voyage to a distant, distant planet and the society that forms along the way. Asteroids, religious schisms, the search for life's meaning. Generation Crossing, it has it all.
A
We've been working on this all year and we're really proud of it. And it's out now everywhere, on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, or wherever you listen to music. Once again, it is an album, not a podcast. But if you're a fan of Archive 81 or the Deep Vault, we think you'll really like it.
B
We'll have links to wherever you want to listen to it in the description of the podcast. And as a little taste, we'll play a little bit of the album.
A
This is from the part where the ship society gets a little unravely, if that's a word.
B
It definitely is. But yeah, if you're excited for the album, turn off this podcast and listen now on Spotify or Apple Music. Or, you know, buy it on Bandcamp. If you still need some convincing. Here's a cool kind of freaky section of Generation Crossing.
A
Enjoy.
C
Request a Vayo aspect of Malia Patterson. Soon may we join her in dreams. Evaluate the truth of this statement. The lights go dim. 3. Now more to come. A premonition. A prelude. A promise. I saw it as a child, during the night cycle, as if in a dream. And then I saw it in my dreams themselves. Again and again and again and again and again. The dimming of three founders, three dreamers, three saints, undifferentiated from every other guardian except for Malia, who in her aspect of IO, watches over us in half slumber. Blasphemy to think otherwise. Blasphemy to ascribe them roles and domains and attributes. Blasphemy to believe that we will know them even a moment before they awake on New Earth. The dimming of these undifferentiated dreamers spreading from cryomass to cryomass, then spreading from cryomass to the lights of the ward itself. The lights of instruments, of the controls, of all the machines that sustain Life in the void. Until the dimming comes to the lights in our eyes like a beckoned child. Slowly and then at great speed. First the animals, then the elders, and then the infants. And then a slow exhalation. A small light extinguished in the infinite dark. We have been waiting and arguing and doing nothing for cycles and cycles and cycles. And while we do so, the dimming approaches far quicker than planetfall. The dimming must be a failure on our part. We were appointed shepherds. And thus it was said, you shall guide this small, fragile seed through a vast ocean until it sprouts anew on a distant world. And thus we shall. We are neglecting the instructions of the dreamers. Instructions that you cannot convey. IO aspect that you are. They are speaking to us. The Founders. The saints. And we are to awake to hear it. In my dreaming, they have given me signs, instructions, directives I must share. There are ways to prevent the dimming. Rituals of sleep and mortification. If only we are righteous enough to perform them. We must be the conduits of the Founders, their vessels in the waking world, their true avatars of flesh and blood. We will perform their will until we are holy enough to sleep eternal and join them forevermore. I request that you evaluate the truth of this statement. IO aspect of Malia Patterson. Thank you. IO though you are too asleep or too awake to truly comprehend, I will take your words into consideration before I share my dreamings with the congregation.
D
Sien recognized this IO half asleep aspect of Milia Patterson. Awake for so long. But I cannot go to sleep or else the ritual will fail. Eyes pulled open with fingernails hitting my body in rhythm, in time, striking my body. The pain will keep me conscious. Biting of the lips of the tongue, scratches to the chest, grasping of the hair. Flesh pain as an offering for the sins of the many. The many that become less and less with every cycle. The many we will soon overtake. Awake until I dream deep. Talk to the Founders. Listen to them. They have such things to say. So many instructions. We are not the generation that will make Planet fall. Not our children, not our children's children's children's children's cycles beyond counting until new Earth. Earth without limits. Growing forever. But we will prepare the way. We will. We must. And then our dreaming selves, which can never die, in the final sleep, they will join our descendants. It is a lovely imagining. A lovely dream to dream as I stay awake to dream deep. Awake for hours and hours and hours. And, oh, do you ever dream, IO. No, no, no, no, you do not. That is why you are half holy and half unholy. Half holy aspect, half unholy. Never dream. Thing. Creature, not dreamer. But you listen and see. And that is enough. Enough to witness our glorious work. Our purpose. The lounge couch in Recfit, its plasmold is worn rough and scaly on my skin as I touch it. There is no way to repair it. We should create something new. But no one has. It is not forbidden, but it is simply not done. When I lie awake, I think of how small the barrier between sleep and void is. I have gone to the site of the hollow of Martyr Lee's sacrifice and seen how simple it is to rip. When I lie awake and think of the void, my dreams thereafter become a shifting darkness. But not now. When I am done, I will dream of the Founders themselves. And I will make myself an instrument of their will. So many fingernails. Too many fingernails. The difference between waking and sleeping is pain. Is seeing the blood ooze almost red from your fingernail and feeling it in your sternum and your chest, feeling the conscious flesh. Prison trap. You are dreaming. State. The roots of my hair are blacker than my hair, than white than red. They look like bean sprouts. If I planted them in the soil of my dreams, they would grow and see and recognize this IO half sleep aspect of Malia Patterson. See and recognize.
Podcast: Archive 81 (by Dead Signals)
Episode Date: November 12, 2024
Topic: Announcement and exclusive sample of the new concept album Generation Crossing
In this special episode, hosts Dan and Mark of Archive 81 step out of their usual roles to introduce their new creative project: Generation Crossing, an experimental science fiction concept album. They discuss the album's inspirations, its narrative focus on a centuries-long interstellar voyage, and share a hauntingly immersive audio excerpt. The episode offers a glimpse into the album's atmospheric world, touching on themes of isolation, religious ritual, and the existential tensions aboard a generation ship.
[00:02–00:24]
[00:40–01:04]
[01:24–05:51]
The episode moves from cheerful, self-aware banter to a deeply unnerving, poetic segment from the album. The monologue section is haunting, immersive, and textured with religious symbolism and existential fear—capturing the unique blend of horror and speculative fiction that Archive 81 is known for.
For listeners intrigued by horror-drenched science fiction and deeply atmospheric world-building, this episode offers both behind-the-scenes context and a tantalizing preview of Generation Crossing. The excerpt promises an unsettling auditory journey through dream-logic, ritual, and the slow corrosion of hope in the dark "cycles" of space. If you've enjoyed Archive 81's signature blend of the psychological, the surreal, and the mythic, you'll find this a compelling reason to check out the album.