Bands typically break up after college. People move away, grow apart, or j… Read Full Bio ↴Bands typically break up after college. People move away, grow apart, or just shrivel up and get jobs. It was good while it lasted, right? But what happens when the music is so good, the band’s listeners so devout, the ambition to keep creating so strong that even the time-draining power of day jobs can’t get in the way? Such is the story of Faded Paper Figures, whose “day jobs” are not exactly easy gigs: Heather Alden is in residency after graduating from medical school (a real doctor!), John Williams is a full-time professor of English at Yale (just published his first book), and Kael Alden writes music for a production company in Los Angeles called Robot Repair (his music appearing in several Hollywood films, TV shows, video games and ads). How did all this come together? And how do they possibly keep it all going?

Kael and Heather married in 2005, and shortly thereafter moved to Irvine, CA, where they met John Williams, who was also in the area doing a PhD in comparative literature at UC Irvine. Heather was studying biology, and Kael was already hard at work creating music for film and TV projects. One afternoon in the fall of 2007, looking for a distraction from writing his dissertation, John suggested to Kael and Heather that they write some music together. Within three weeks they had written a few songs, and put them up online (on ye olde Myspace). The response from listeners was fast and overwhelming, so much so that they were motivated to continue writing and release a full album, Dynamo, in 2008. After playing some shows in southern California, the band won “Best Electronic Band” at the OC Music Awards, and was listed by the New York Post as a “new music must-have.” NPR called the band’s debut album “clever, intriguing . . . even beautiful.”

When John graduated and got a job at Yale, and Heather was accepted to medical school at UCLA, the band realized they’d either have to carry on via long-distance songwriting, or else end the band. With Dynamo doing so well, and many more songs still on their way, the band decided to try songwriting bi-coastally. John purchased some home-recording equipment to take with him to Connecticut, while Heather and Kael moved to Los Angeles, where Robot Repair built a beautiful studio space for Kael to work in. During the next three years, the band sent tracks back and forth online, video chatting, and emailing notes to write two more studio albums, New Medium (2010), and The Matter (2012). The band’s sound had matured by this point into something more powerful and intense. Alternately sparse and epic, harmonic and grinding, pensive and playful, FPF was clearly moving beyond their electro-pop beginnings.

By 2013, FPF’s music seemed to be circulating everywhere, with millions of plays on Spotify, LastFM, Hype Machine, and Pandora, and appearances on everything from ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” to MTV’s “The Real World,” NBCSports, and E! Then, just as the band was contemplating a fourth album Kael and Heather discovered that they were expecting a baby. Many fans wondered whether Faded Paper Figures would be able to maintain its songwriting work with so much going on. But very little seems to slow them down. If anything, the music now comes with even greater clarity and brilliance, and as a result, the band is now set to release their fourth studio album in August, 2014, titled “Relics.” This most recent album promises to be their most honest, sophisticated, and ambitious, spanning a vast musical and lyrical spectrum, from epic synth-pop anthems on questions of life and death, to quiet, intense meditations on the passage of time. The band seems to have fully mastered not only their signature sound (electronic beats, gorgeous guitar riffs, and beautiful harmonies), but accelerated full force into a brave new world of sitars, analog synths, and even more intense vocals. Whatever emotions and uncanny dreams those day jobs are creating, it seems to be paying off enormously in their musical lives.

Invent It All Again
Faded Paper Figures Lyrics

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Iron bridges, melodic chimes
Things I made for you back then.
All these clocks are only marking time
Let's invent them all again.

Folding chairs and building blocks
Magic mirrors to pretend.
Seismographic data in our hearts

Let's invent them all again.

Rocket arrows chart the motion of the stars you see,
Paper money on the go (go go)
Cartographic lines will mark the place for you and me
And we can change the things we know
Yeah, we can change the things we know

Climbing ladders to polar stars
Things I did for you back then
All these fires are only casting iron
I'd invent them all again

Folding chairs and building blocks
Magic mirrors to pretend.
Seismographic data in our hearts
Let's invent them all again.

Water mills conduct the rivers to the wider sea
Lovers moving with the flow
Watch the compass mark the broken lines from you to me
See, we can change the things we know.
Yeah, we can change the things we know.

I'll remake my works of art
I'll reward your restless heart

Overall Meaning

The song "Invent It All Again" by Faded Paper Figures is about the desire to recreate the magic of past memories and experiences with a loved one. The lyrics speak of iron bridges, melodic chimes, folding chairs, building blocks, magic mirrors, seismographic data, and climbing ladders to polar stars, all things that the singer made for someone in the past. However, they now want to reinvent these things and make them new again with the same person.

The song encourages the idea of invention and change in order to keep a relationship fresh and exciting. Rocket arrows charting the motion of stars and paper money on the go represent the desire to explore new things with the person they love. Cartographic lines marking the place for you and me suggest that the singer wants to create a new path with their loved one. They believe that they can change the things they know and create something better together.

The final lines of the song, "I'll remake my works of art, I'll reward your restless heart," suggest that the singer is committed to keeping their relationship alive and thriving by continually creating new experiences for the person they love.

Line by Line Meaning

Iron bridges, melodic chimes
I made beautiful things for you in the past, like sturdy bridges and sweet-sounding bells.

Things I made for you back then.
I created special objects for you in the past that were meaningful to us.

All these clocks are only marking time
The clocks we have only tell time, they don't create anything new or exciting.

Let's invent them all again.
Let's create these things again in a new and better way, bringing life back to them.

Folding chairs and building blocks
Simple and fun objects like chairs and blocks that we can enjoy together.

Magic mirrors to pretend.
Let's use our imagination and pretend with these special mirrors that can show us anything we want to see.

Seismographic data in our hearts
We can feel the tremors of our emotions and use these feelings to create something amazing.

Rocket arrows chart the motion of the stars you see,
We can use technology to explore the universe and better understand the world we live in.

Paper money on the go (go go)
Money can help us achieve our dreams and create new things when we use it wisely.

Cartographic lines will mark the place for you and me
Maps can guide us to new places and help us discover new things together.

And we can change the things we know
We have the power to change the world and make it a better place.

Climbing ladders to polar stars
We can reach for the stars and achieve great things with hard work and determination.

All these fires are only casting iron
The things we have now may seem unexciting and mundane, like simple iron cast by a fire.

I'd invent them all again
Let's take these ordinary things and make them into something exciting and new.

Water mills conduct the rivers to the wider sea
We can use the natural world to our advantage and harness the power of the rivers to create something great.

Lovers moving with the flow
Together we can go with the flow of life and create something beautiful as we move forward.

Watch the compass mark the broken lines from you to me
We can use tools, like a compass, to guide us and help us find our way back to each other when we are lost.

See, we can change the things we know.
We have the power to change our lives and the world around us, and we should never forget that.

I'll remake my works of art
I am committed to creating new and exciting things for you, and I will keep doing so.

I'll reward your restless heart
I will continue to create new things to keep you excited and satisfied, and to show my appreciation for you.

Contributed by Miles B. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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