“Heart(s)break”
Save Our Ship
Alienation
Original Release Date: 04/01/3991
Loneliness, we can all relate, dear Audionauts. The counting of petals does not do much to satisfy the yearning, whether that be for a sense of place, purpose, or potential. Alienation, they call it, and the nom de guerre of perpetually lonely and double-jointed (we'll get back to that), Nedley Femtome. A member of the Uorescene Galaxy, no single species like Nedley existed. Abandoned at birth, his biological ancestors were nowhere to be found, not a photograph, an etching, a recording, just silence in the void. Because of the lack of classification, Nedley's species became colloquially known as Unks or Unknowns. Saddled with this burden, Nedley was a shy creature, not one to speak out, picked on, surely, by classmates who gawked at his height despite his age and the way in which his limbs gyrated in their double-jointed sockets, giving him the appearance of a ratchet noisemaker. One such incident at Qualifying School XXI left him sobbing in the nearest waste receptacle stall, his spinning limbs and high-pitched moaning emanating like a synthesizer from his mouth. A concerned teacher, fearing that a bomb was counting down to some inevitable catastrophe, pounded on the stall door, demanding to know what was happening. But it was just Nedley, sad and lonely. At the time, the educator who found him had been known as Farghut Bertoosis, a similarly, near-extinct creature of the Bertoo clan of eight-foot-tall, blue-haired, ogre-like mammals. Today, we know him as Colonel Snow Barkman, a ruthless and uncompromising concert promoter with a knack for scooping up young talent and bleeding them dry. Nedley was the first of his victims, encouraging him to use his unique singing style to record an album in which his spinning appendages could accompany him as his band, his vocal cords replacing the synthesizer entirely. And, dear Audionauts, it worked. Save Our Ship, as much a call for help as a masterclass in lonely melodies, was an immediate smash hit, connecting with creatures across the Universe who also felt alone. But, there was hope, for Save Our Ship's message was not merely the beauty of solitude but the hunt for family, home, and purpose. That connection sealed the album's status and rocketed poor Nedley into another dimension, promising he would never be lonely when his fans were at his doorstep, begging to enter. Colonel Snow, though, had other plans for his young apprentice, slowly siphoning money from his young protégé to cover his gambling debts and serious drinking problem (Pork Soda was his preferred poison). He pushed Nedley to tour constantly, refusing to allow him to record new music, fearing that he would not be able to replicate the success of Save Our Ship. Justice came for Colonel Snow several decades later when a string of allegations upended his business model, and evidence was able to put him behind laser bars for good. Unfortunately for us, Nedley took his own life just a few years after achieving fame, leaving behind one of the largest what-ifs in the Intergalactic Beets Catalog. We still mourn the loss of one of the loneliest creatures in the galaxy, who, for a brief time, made it acceptable to share, acceptable to listen, and acceptable to turn those emotions into some of the tastiest beats in the Universe.
Side A
Unk
Save Our Ship
Bottle Note
Voiceless Echo
Side B
Petals, Petals, Petals
How Can This Be?
Not Alone
Heart(s)break