The Flipping The Pig albums My Heroic Cadences (2008) and You Get The Idea (2007) have just been released on iTunes (both albums can be purchased for the price of one).

21 tracks total, there's a playfulness characteristic of this musical chameleon's grab bag of pop/rock tricks. Whatever you're listening to at the moment, you can be sure that something else lurks around the corner.

 Click "read more" below for description and iTunes link.

My Heroic Cadences was created for the 2008 annual rpm.com challenge, which was to write and record an entire album in the month of February. It's Flipping the Pig's most lyrically cohesive collection yet.  The focus is one of personal loss, guilt, fear, neglect, regret, catharsis, redemption, and the inevitable acquisition of Eddie Deezen’s autograph. 

The sounds include the contemplative improvised piano instrumental "The Conversationalist," the after-hours dance club haziness of "Preset," the new wave melancholy pop of "Let A Moment Pass," the dual sadness of "Some Days Cloudy" and "You Don't Believe I Love You," and the orchestral ending to a song that never was, "Reprise." Also, for the first time, there are no electric guitars present. The best reason Mansk could come up with is that “they weren’t plugged in and I didn’t feel like tuning them.”

The title “My Heroic Cadences” refers to the quick turnaround time in relation to a certain recluse headbanger’s refusal to release a certain album at the time of this album's release, and his inability to sue over an anagram.

Hopefully.

The second album, You Get The Idea, was recorded in November of 2007.  Perhaps oddly, it's one of Flipping the Pig's more upbeat ventures.  "Oddly" because it was recorded in the midst of some heavy-duty medical treatments.  (The manic Weird Al singing for Pere Ubu "Must Be Nice," for example, was recorded within 48 hours of Mansk losing his voice due to radiation therapy.)  The collection opens with the Chinnichap glam pop of  "Love That Matters," the sardonic warped Disney feel of "The World Owes You Nothing," and the Partridge Family on steroids power pop parade of "Fixed."  Among it all, though, there are still forays into dreamy melancholia, as is evident in "Get Along," "I Wish I Was Here," and the darker "Winter's Grey."

Click below for iTunes link.