Originally recorded between 2002 and 2003 on a Tascam 488 cassette-based 8-track recorder, this album was initially intended as a concept album. The idea was that society had become, in the post-9-11 era completely programmed by the media to support irrational ideas out of fear. This trend was troubling to me, and thus I decided that I'd release one, "serious," album by The Bassturd. After months of intense work on these compositions, I realized that my limited recording setup would not be enough to fully achieve my artistic vision for the album. At some point in the autumn of 2003 I took all of the songs I had been working on and hastily mixed them onto minidisc so I could send them to friends that seemed willing to help me complete the album. Though I do not recall exactly what I intended to do with the pieces, I know that they were not finished. My longtime friend and mentor, Rob "Steely Dan," offered to help me digitally record overdubs, as well as mix the entire album. In December of 2003 I flew from California to Illinois with the Tascam in tow in the hopes of completing work on, what I considered at the time, my finest work to date. Things quickly turned sour when we realized that the Tascam only had two outputs, (one for each channel), and that we would not be able to get the individual track data off of the machine for proper mixing. We attempted to record each track separately, but the motor in the 8-track was dying, and thus the tracks did not sync properly when dropped into a D.A.W. I was crushed. As a last ditch effort, we worked hard to try to re-record some of the pieces. I believe The Nazz and Andrew Duncan were involved in this process in some way, though I do not think we ever completed any of the stuff we worked on. Rob and I were able to finish three of the songs before I had to return to California. These three songs were later released as the first E.P. in The Bassturd's 20 E.P. series. After returning to California, I fell into a deep rut. I had spent more time on these songs than I had ever spent on any project up to that time. A friend suggested that I just shelve them and try to move on. Considering most of the songs were about the political happenings of the day, and by that point some of them were already irrelevant, this seemed like sound advice. As such, I just threw the minidiscs aside, and started working on what would become The Musical Healer album, released in June, 2004. Some of these songs stuck with me for years. In late 2004, Andrew Duncan and I collaborated on a project called Sleeper Cell. We took a couple of the tunes from these mixes and reworked them for that band. I would later release a few more of these songs on E.P.s in the 20 E.P. series. I had always joked with people about the, "lost album by The Bassturd," comparing it inappropriately to The Beach Boys, "SMILE." As time went on, I completely forgot about this album. I officially retired The Bassturd in 2011, and haven't really looked back. Fast-forward to September, 2015. While going through some boxes that had remained sealed through multiple moves, I came across a bunch of old minidiscs, and, (most surprisingly), a functional minidisc player. Among this wealth of discs were five separate discs labeled, "Operation Deprogram Civilization" demo mixes. I popped in one of the discs, and was immediately floored. "Holy shit," I thought, "I had forgotten all about these songs." I listened to all five discs, and thought, "Man, I should just put these out now, as-is." Then, I realized that I didn't know what the titles of the songs were, what the album ordering was intended to be, etc. Moments later, in the same box, I came across a notebook filled with detailed notes about the song order, song titles, themes, album artwork ideas, and the overall concept idea, which was complex. So, now it's 12 years later, and what is remarkable is that many of the things I was singing about have actually come to pass, (which is sad). As stated in my notes, the album was to be consumed wholly, in a dark room on headphones, playing on repeat for 48 straight hours. If, after this time, the listener still felt afraid of what was happening in the world, they were to repeat the process until they felt they had been, "deprogrammed." It seems pretty stupid to me now, but whatever. I was a kid in my early 20s dealing with a serious existential crisis brought on by the constant criminality of the government that had hijacked my country. Anyway, this is no masterpiece. It is, in essence, a collection of poorly mixed demo recordings that were intended to be released in 2003 as a full-length album. I thought it would be fun to share with everyone, and I hope you enjoy! ALSO, if you download the album, you will be treated to several bonus tracks that were recorded during this time period, but were, (according to my notes), not to be included on the final release. Much love patriots! Until another lost album materializes... - The Bassturd