here’s a short song that i recorded last night at 5am.
you shouldn't start
i know who you are
when you're behind his back
you take it too far
but you say
we'll all reach a point
where we get too tired
and it all just goes away
and i wanted to
be here next to you
when our bodies all decay
i’ve been writing and recording a lot recently. here’s a touching little song that i wrote last week, i hope it resonates with you somehow.
do you find it so much harder than me
to sit and watch me get eaten alive
by the thoughts that wake me in my sleep
on the nights that i feel everything
but i swear that i’m well aware
how i take curses and make them prayers
we’ll pretend that i wasn’t scared if you want to
i swear that i’m well aware
how i take curses and make them prayers
there’s a monster under the stairs
i think it wants you
i see it watch you
every time you walk through
now it’s black
and you’re in love with broken teeth
and every broken part of me
when it’s dark i feel warm beneath the sheets
i guess that’s why i couldn’t leave
but i swear that i’m well aware
how i take curses and make them prayers
we’ll pretend that i wasn’t scared if you want to
i swear that i’m well aware
how i take curses and make them prayers
there’s a monster under the stairs
don’t let it haunt you
because it’ll haunt you
when i think that i’m under fire
it feels like i’m underwater
i know that i must look tired
i hope i can meet your father
it feels like i’m under fire
i swear that i’m underwater
why does everything make me tired
i hope i can meet your father
my new full length ambient music album is officially out now. it’s called somewhere in the distance, somewhere toward the mountains. before you get to know this album intimately, i wanted to give some insight into what this release means to me, as well as the story that it tells. it does tell a story, after all. albeit without words.
as a lot of you know, i've not been able to travel far from home for some time now. about ten years, actually. i’ve written about this before and hesitate to do so again because the story isn't very compelling. i had always been an anxious person growing up, drifting between manageable stages of nervous thought and uncomfortable sensations. the tendency towards avoidance had always been there, looming in the background, but culminated sharply one day in 2008. i woke up and everything was different. my whole world changed, it became very small. things i'd previously done without much thought suddenly became very difficult. like getting into a car, or visiting friends, or going to the store. it all involved exiting the safety of the invisible walls my mind had built around my house.
i know, the releases about agoraphobia must seem repetitious at this point. but this sickness is the most defining and unique part of my existence. it's the reason that i'm here. to talk about it, and experience it, and turn it into art. it's all that i've known for so long.
these recordings are from 2016-2018. they're mostly melodic, only sometimes delving into the harsher and colder tones of drone music. some of them are completely digital, others are analog, playing with the limitations of a four track cassette recorder and homemade tape loops.
this album is about travel. or, the concept of travel. it's a story told without using words. a train ride that i've never taken. one that moves through the snow, and along the coast, and into a dream. it was written while looking outward, at a very big world that i haven't been a part of for a very long time. but, most importantly, it was written with the wholehearted and unrelenting desire to move toward it.
as always, thank you for listening.
i recorded this song last night before bed. i haven’t written anything in a while, so getting this out there felt nice.
tell me what to do
when i get home
all scratched and bruised
i’m licking all my wounds
anything to heal them soon
and i think
when i taste blood
inside my mouth
i feel alive
daylight, night time
what’s the difference now
it all blurs into colors
and words i can’t pronounce
i want to take a different route
but i don’t know how
i haven’t been going out as much as i should be. even little forced outings are hard. not that they’re physically hard to do, or that they give me too much anxiety, i just can’t find the energy to do them. it isn’t the cold. it isn’t the rain. it’s more like the quiet heaviness that’s lives inside me. something that’s always been there. that thing in the background. sometimes i can’t describe why something scares me beyond the vague acknowledgement that it’s there and that i can feel it.
maybe the ten years away really did change me too much. people annoy me. instagram annoys me. i feel safe saying that here because very few people from there actually care enough about flatsound to check my website. i’m just the guy who wrote that poem they liked, and because of that they demand my attention. they want me to continue to inspire them, even in casual conversation. to give them special moments.
i get it, and i hope i don’t come off as someone who isn’t appreciative of what he has. i just can’t shake the feeling that even the nicest messages are rooted more in selfishness than thankfulness. that even the longest letters about me aren’t about me at all. i’ve been talking to my therapist about that a lot lately.
it’s all little stuff in the end. i hope the little stuff doesn’t bother me forever. i really am trying to integrate back into society. there’s just so much happening all the time, and i’m already so tired. i don’t want to discourage myself too much, or trick myself into thinking that getting better isn’t worth it if i’ve already found happiness in the isolation. i do that a lot.
i’m going to start writing here again. at least i’m going to try to. i feel connected to this place, i always have. not just as a website. i mean of course i feel connected to flatsound.org, i’m the one who made it. i guess i just feel connected to the idea of something being tucked away. hidden, but still accessible to anybody willing to look for it. or maybe i just like the idea of talking to myself. i do that a lot, too.
i love you. i’ve been saying that to more people lately. it feels good. i love you.