Draft:SELF-iSH

Self-ish (stylized as SELF-iSH) is the second studio album by American musician Will Wood formerly named - with his backing band - the Tapeworms. Released on August 23, 2016, self-published on severe music streaming service like as own page, Bandcamp , SoundCloud , Google Play Music , Apple Music , Spotify , Amazon MP3 and Tidal. It was produced by Kevin Antreassian and Jonathon Maisto. The album was recorded just a year after their first album, Everything is a Lot in 2015.

An experimental concept album, a short album that probes the very concept of "the self" through a psychedelic, chaotic and energetic lens, recurring themes of mental illness, addiction, memory, ego, religion, introspection and more parts of the abstract human experience as part of the illusory nature of the "self".

Artwork
The photo for the album cover is a manipulated image montage by artist and photographer Jesse Lazarus. Wood himself had his body painted for its realization. Creating a four-armed androgynous figure doing the Padmasana with a third eye, one of his arms carries multiple clocks and in the other he holds the Blue Marble and the Moon nearby.

Reception
Bobby Oliver of NJ.com wrote "The piano-driven madness is upped on August's Self-ish, where we get personal with Wood". Mike Abiuso of Behind the Curtains Media described it as "this twisted and powerful concept album". Samantha Stevens for The Voice Magazine recommended to listen to it carefully "Self-ish is a wild ride not for the faint of heart. That being said, those who crave the unconventional and want 30 minutes of immersive musical creativity" also writes about possible inspiration to listeners "Self-ish can be a great way to kickstart innovative thinking as it is an album without equal".

The Song "Dr Sunshine is Dead" gained remarkable attention in the long run, an animation created by the artist TWISTED-DOCTOR with the song in the background helped this fact. It was for several years Will's most popular song before the release of The Normal Album. Currently this song has 17 million streams on Spotify and 5.5 million on YouTube , in both including the two versions.

Reissues
A remaster released in preparation for the CD release, this is a slightly changed and tweaked version of Self-Ish. It was apparently released sometime around Christmas 2020, but was made available on streaming services the following year. The remastered version features a new cover, an edited version of the original Self-Ish cover with a different design and color palette.

Personnel
Adapted from the album's liner notes.
 * Will Wood - piano and keyboards, vocals, kazoo
 * Mike Bottiglieri - guitars, theremin, power drill
 * David Higdon - tenor sax, soprano sax
 * Jonathon Maisto - bass guitar
 * Matt Olsson - drums, percussion
 * Alex Nauth - trumpet, guest vocals
 * Dylan Jacobus, Cheska Columbo, Chris McRae, Lizzie Rowe, Kellyanne Zeleny, Timothy Simpson, Mike Yablon, Robby Stern, Bobby Sanner, Rebecca Paddon, Bianca Teresi, Papa Reese - additional guest vocalists


 * Production
 * Kevin Antreassian - producer, recording engineer
 * Jonathon Maisto - aditional engineering