february 26, 2019 02:56 pm

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.

spotify | itunes | bandcamp

december 23, 2018 02:02 pm

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

december 11, 2018 01:03 am

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.

march 04, 2018 07:26 pm

last night i sat down with my casio sk-5 and started messing around. looping beats, creating melodies from the little samples i had stored in it. i didn't expect anything to come out of it, but before i knew it a song started falling out of me. by your side is about being agoraphobic and in a long distance relationship. i think it's a very sweet recording, maybe you'll like it too. 

see myself in a screen
wasting days, counting weeks
getting more familiar with how you speak
while you're away from me
but i don't want to say goodbye
because it's safer when i'm by your side
i want to be near you
like i'm meant to

but hey
i think it's going to be alright
when we're sleeping and i'm by your side
i want to learn to fly
but it's safer when i stay inside

i want you
but the monster
won't let me
escape here

january 22, 2018 12:43 am

the oven heats up too slowly. this makes planning meals more difficult than it needs to be. thinking ahead, doing math, guessing how hungry i'll be by the time it finally reaches 400 degrees. i think it might be broken because when i turn it on i can smell gas all the way upstairs while i'm working. how long has it been? i check the clock constantly. time passes differently when you're this tired.

i didn't sleep very much last night, only managing to collect a few scattered hours. but, despite all of that, today was mostly good. it was one of those days that trailed on quietly, lead onward by lingering footsteps and foggy thoughts. moving forward at such a careful pace that it was almost as if it hadn't been moving forward at all. before long you wonder how it got to be so dark and why it is you haven't eaten. it's because the oven heats up too slowly.

nothing happened today but i did more than i thought that i would. i cleaned and put in the laundry and assembled packages. in between, i took out my camera. click, another shot. another part of my life, documented and shared. click, another piece of myself, given away to anyone who will have me. raising the viewfinder to my eye, i see something beautiful and try my best to capture it. i'm convinced that life is safer here, inside of this little box. but that's a thought that i'm not supposed to have anymore.

lately i've been thinking about the early days of existing as an artist on the internet. there was this website called cllct that was kind of like bandcamp but much smaller and more community based. bandcamp for bedroom artists. we sat there, creating music in our homes and sharing it with one another. nobody was worried about stream revenue or album sales. those were concepts too out of reach for us at that point. we were just creating things.

toward the end of its lifespan, flatsound was one of the top artists on the website. at the age of eighteen, i truly considered this to be the pinnacle of indie musicianship. sometimes i would go to the popular artists page and just stare at it. the feeling was so particular. tonight i looked at the old website via the wayback machine. most of the pages were still there, dated and archived, with missing pieces in their structure like gaps in a memory. every broken image existed as a test. do you really remember what was here? i swear i do. i clicked the popular artists page. there they were, artist that i used to interact with almost ten years ago, frozen in time. people that i hadn't thought of in years but had never forgotten. among them was my old profile. i stared at it for a minute. it still felt the same. 

i want things to feel like that again, i just don't know how to make it happen. not being on social media helps, and as a result i feel like i've been having deeper connections with people one-on-one. speaking to them on the phone rather than via text. i've been stripping down my website so that it feels more bleak. there's no longer a picture of me on the about page, and the only contact information is a physical address. i think that this is good. i think that sometimes the best way to add to something is to take away from it. i want to write people letters. i want to interact with them in a way that isn't for anyone else. i don't want this all to feel so passive. i just want things to feel special. i think the world needs that right now.