The majority of my musical energy over the last year and a half went into the Rivers of Light album 'Notes of Poems', but given I was writing that with someone who lives on the other side of the planet, there were many periods of downtime. A lot of what has ended up on this album was written in that downtime.
Originally I had two separate projects slowly forming. One was going to be very ambient, with lots of long spacious tracks, and a complete absence of drums. The other was in the opposite direction, being more upbeat and driving in basically every aspect. As we reached the end of 2023 I realised that I was going to need a bit of a palette cleanse after Notes of Poems was finished and decided that combining these two half projects was my best move.
This has resulted in an especially varied collection of tracks that I will rant about after I say thankyou.

I am as always incredibly grateful to my friends who listen to demo's and throw me some feedback, relying on just my own ears is very tough and the outside opinions always help me to keep pushing forwards. Cohen, Nia, Brendy, Noah, Nachos, Casey, Venomnomnsfiognmsjiofgmn, Aphir, Oscar, Brandon and any others that I may have forgotten.

An extra special thanks to Cohen for letting me use and edit a photo of his, for the album cover.

If you haven't heard it yet please check out the Rivers of Light album that I worked on with Cohen Mejan as well as their own solo music. I am extremely proud of what we put together and there is definitely a piece of myself from the last year and a half within this project.
Cohen also may or may not be releasing an insanely good album today!

riversoflight.bandcamp.com/album/notes-of-poems
cohenmejan.bandcamp.com

Looking forward to finally updating Ableton and moving on to something new, thanks for listening <3

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Dawn came about very quickly after my first visit to my parents place in a long time, an afternoon spent in the sun reminding me of how lucky I am to have grown up in the country. Since this visit I have made a habit of taking at least one recording outside while I'm there and I look forward to using the ambience in future tracks.

The Garden Jam sprung forth from one of those improvisation sessions where you just keep recording, there's no planning or thinking it's just go go go. A couple of the other unfinished tracks for this project had a very similar process. Soak, was not one of them.

Soak was, and probably still is, a pain in the ass. I think I like where this ended up but I could likely still go back to it and tweak 100 different things, functionally changing nothing but my own ultra-biased perspective on the track. Much like 'The Belt' from Solace, this track was an absolute battle to get right and it's inclusion here is partly so I never have to look at it again :)

Fading was largely written as I was recovering from Covid and was extremely fatigued and miserable, but it has since turned into a bit of Citizen Sleeper homage in my head.
The game Citizen Sleeper had a profound impact on me when I played it in the second half of 2023, the art, music, and writing was exactly what I needed at the time. I cannot think of another piece of media that has instilled so much hope in me, highly recommended. It also heavily inspired the naming and themes that I feel on the track 'Collapsing In', the calm in the chaos, the fatigue, the complete exasperation at the situation you find yourself in.

Thomas Wasn't Alone was inspired by the game Thomas Was Alone and its fantastic soundtrack by David Housden. Sonically this OST has stuck with me over the years and I still remember the game as an extremely charming and quirky experience. The track was originally just titled 'Thomas Was Alone' but was re-contextualised for me after spending Christmas with my family and being reminded of just how lucky I am to have them. Each synth/guitar/piano in the song represents a different supportive person in my life.

The Beginning is the last video game inspired track on the album and came together very quickly after going through the game NaissenceE. I played it late at night in a dark room and the experience left me shell shocked for at least a week with how many insane moments were packed into a 3-4 hour game. Never have I played something that captured the absurdity of my own anxiety in such a succinct manner. The song itself was more inspired by the scale of the games world, and its never ending pits and horizons.