Category: Art/NFTs

A lyrical sketch about fracture, direction, and the quiet pull forward

(Here’s the Link to the Studio Version)

This piece started as a stark image: a road with its guidance gone. The language came quickly—short lines, hard consonants, lots of white space—like reflective paint scuffed off the asphalt. I leaned into the eerie at first: narrow intervals, airless reverb, and a pulse that felt like holding your breath.

Then I softened it—just a little. I wanted the strangeness to remain, but with a hint of invitation. The result is still uneasy, yet more neutral in color: the edges rounded, a soft light at the end of the lane. Not “major-key happy,” more optimistically intriguing—as if the road might bend toward somewhere worth going.

Lyrics (highlight)

in the middle of the roadway
theres a broken mast
in the middle of the roadway
rud less to the task
painting in the roadway
grassless in the past
fault no lines of roadway
quake filled seismograph

From eerie to “strange-neutral”

• Harmony: I kept the minor contours but swapped a few cold clusters for open voicings; a small lift in the final cadence nudges the ear forward.
• Rhythm: The pulse still staggers (on purpose), but the syncopations breathe more—less claustrophobic, more curious.
• Tone/space: The early version had a glassy chill; the current take adds a slight warmth in the midrange, so the voice sits closer, human, imperfect.

Companion piece

Right after writing this, I tracked an instrumental echo of the idea—“Flight Lanes of Morphed Names.” It follows the same weather system but speaks without words. I’ll be posting that alongside this, so you can hear how the feeling translates from lyric to guitar figure and back.

Thanks for listening and for spending time in these liminal places with me.
—Josh

If you’d like alt text for the artwork, or a stripped, unlyrical version to compare, tell me how you plan to share and I’ll format links accordingly.

(Here’s the link to the original posted edition on Youtube)

More music & moments: @thejoshworldme
NFTs + visuals: opensea.io/joshmontague
Writing, process, fragments: 👉 thejoshworld.com

A short guitar piece born from an eerie roadside thought

This new guitar sketch—fragment, really—is called Flight Lanes of Morphed Names. It came together right after I wrote a short lyrical piece called Middle of the Roadway. This one’s about 20 seconds long, but it holds some strange weight.The other, a little eerie. A few of the lyrical highlights from that one:

“In the middle of the roadway / there’s a broken mast”
“Fault no lines of roadway / quake-filled seismograph”

The idea of fractured direction and ghostlike structure carried straight into the guitar piece that followed. Flight Lanes picks up the thread, but in a more abstract, instrumental way. Think flickers of syncopation, breath-like pauses, tension that never lands fully. Not a melody so much as a shape moving through static.

About Middle of the Roadway

I’ll be posting Middle of the Roadway soon— it plays with dynamic elements even in that tight space, although a bit longer than this one. It’s lyrical, but minimal. Kind of like a single verse left behind on a roadside wall. Once that was written, I felt something else still needed to speak—so this guitar piece came out right after, like its shadow or echo.

Why the title?

Flight Lanes of Morphed Names felt right because it suggests motion that doesn’t follow its original plan. Something renamed mid-flight. It captures that unsettled feeling I had after writing Middle of the Roadway—that sense of continuing on, but not quite sure under what name or shape.

Listen & wait for the companion piece

If this one resonates, Middle of the Roadway is its sister song—short, sharp, and coming soon.

Thanks for listening and walking with me through these weird sonic paths.

—Josh

More music & moments: @thejoshworldme
NFTs + visuals: opensea.io/joshmontague
Writing, process, fragments: 👉 thejoshworld.com

The Stone of Rome – Josh Montague

(Studio version link)

On writing a cold symphony about roads, ruin, and what’s left after the fire

“the road marking nothing—nothing but stone.”

That’s where this song begins. The Stone of Rome is my attempt to sing from inside the ruin—where history isn’t a chapter heading but dust in your lungs, marble under your feet, and the echo of legions in an empty forum. It’s the lyrical version of a piece I first heard as shapes and shadows—sharp intervals, restrained melody, and a pulse that felt like marching feet disappearing into ash. (There will be a link below to a purely instrumental, unlyrical version if you want the ashes without the breath.)

A cold symphony

The arrangement is intentionally spare: voice, guitar, and a low, almost-bell-like drone that keeps returning like a winter wind. I wanted the production to feel cold—not lifeless, but precise, unblinking. Reverbs ring like stone halls; consonants hit like chisels. Every silence is another column fallen.

Rome, the fall, the ash

The lyrics circle three images: stone (endurance, weight), ash (afterburn, memory), and road (movement, empire, direction). Rome isn’t just a place here; it’s the pattern of building something so monumental it forgets its own edges. It’s also the pattern of watching that monument fracture, then living among the fragments.

A short lyric glimpse

(excerpt)

the road is marked with nothing, nothing but stone
the coal in homes the fromes in romes
nothing nothing but stone
in rome
but then you stare back at me
like a cold symphony
just to see the way to be
is not of you nor of me
of rome
of the fall
they will last
the ruin lash
the time of mast, the very last
the ruin lash
oh the ash

Two versions, two temperatures

• Lyrical (this post): vocals pull the narrative forward, giving the imagery a spine.
• Instrumental (linked below): a stripped, “unlyrical” mirror. No words, just the cold architecture—the harmonic ruins themselves. If you want to hear the fall without the witness, that’s the door.

Compositional bones

• Meter & feel: a steady, processional pulse—almost ritualistic—juxtaposed with syncopated guitar accents that crack the marble surface.
• Harmony: modal minor with deliberate tension notes—intervals that refuse easy resolution, like history that never quite closes.
• Dynamics: it never explodes; it tightens. The song shrinks the listener into the corridors, rather than blasting them with spectacle.

Why Rome?

Because Rome is the universal shorthand for rise, rule, ruin, residue. You don’t need a map to understand it. You just need to feel the weight of something massive that eventually can’t hold itself up. That’s not just empire-talk—that’s personal, creative, digital, social. Things swell, ossify, fall, and leave us with artifacts. This song is one of those artifacts.

Listen, compare, decide

If you’re drawn to lyrical narrative, take this version first. If you want the bones without the voice, hit the instrumental. Or do both, in either order, and notice which one makes the other colder—or warmer.

Thanks for listening, for reading, and for walking these old roads with me.

—Josh

P.S.
This is the first version—unedited, unproduced. Just the core idea as it came. Someday I might shape it into a fuller production, or maybe add layers and polish. But for now, it lives in this early form—bare and honest.

Resonant Flat Lines Sharp – Josh Montague

This latest piece, “Sync in the Static – NFT Guitar Etude No. 9” (Resonant Flat Lines Sharp), is a tight, syncopated burst of melodic precision—crafted in my usual way: raw improvisation meeting structured groove. It dances along flat lines and jagged edges, with rhythm leading the way. The tones hang in space like neon signs in fog—sharp, clean, and intentionally unsettled.

As always, the process starts loose and instinctual. This one just happened to lock into something that felt surgical and alive—kind of like drawing a perfect circle freehand. You can check out the full performance soon on my YouTube: @thejoshworldme.

This piece will also be minted as part of my ongoing NFT art/music fusion. Explore this and other unique digital works over on opensea.io/joshmontague.

—Josh

This is another one that came out entirely in the moment — a purely spontaneous guitar sketch. No prewriting, no edits, no production — just a raw take, as it happened. I also created a visual piece to accompany it, continuing my ongoing practice of blending sound and image in real time.

The title, “Eyeing Lines of Zones of Modus,” has been sitting with me in a personal way. It reflects something deeper — my own quiet search for new directions or different “modes” back into something resembling a career… but not necessarily the kind built around content creation or social media.

Sometimes the act of creating is its own kind of navigation.

Thanks for listening and for being here.

🎧 youtube.com/@thejoshworldme
🎨 opensea.io/joshmontague

I recorded this one within minutes of waking up.

As is my usual style, there was no planning — just a quiet reach for the guitar and seeing what sound wanted to happen.

“T Onic Toss of Oh’s” is a mix of harmonics and open strings — soft tension, circular phrases, and that in-between space where your brain is still dreaming.

I like these pieces best when I don’t fully understand them yet.

You can listen, watch, or even collect the paired visual on Youtube & OpenSea (NFTs/art on OpenSea).

New NFT/art creation with guitar portion on Youtube @thejoshworldme. As mentioned, you can view all my NFTs/collections at opensea.io/joshmontague.

Second post of the evening, again you can view guitar on my Youtube @thejoshworldme, and also view my NFTs on opensea.io/joshmontague.

I really enjoyed making this one!

Two more posts for this evening, first this one, and then one more titled ‘Nominal Nuisance of Ant ics of Nom Non?’

You can view them on youtube.com/@thejoshworldme and also view my NFT collections on opensea.io/joshmontague.

Hope everyone is having a nice evening.

Another NFT/art & guitar creation of mine, you can view the guitar portion on Youtube at youtube.com/@thejoshworldme. My NFT collections are at opensea.io/joshmontague.