I’m in no mood for this
No mood to imagine
a lost consciousness
I’m too self conscious,
Lost consciousness
and frost crossed lips
So jaded
Probably brain dead
Devoid of blood
Flooded from the inside
Crashed, and bled out
Shed a tear, a face
for fear of what’s behind it
A future that doesn’t exist
One that has to be crafted
With time, and energy
and commitment
I’m all too aware

The mirage I’d see somewhere
Out in that nowhere
Is probably a lost cause
Zeus, or some other god
Who let their Icarus
floss his wings with demons
Prometheus make friends, and foes
Left us here, stranded
With nothing but death sticks,
prayer flags to weep with

But, I think a cigarette
without a song is a sin
and I swear I saw one
that said “never knows best”
caught fire,
and burned itself
into my retina,
Held my neck
Between soft ligaments
And tore at ambivalent bones
Disseminating them to the wind
immolated away
And lost its mind to the smoke

Maybe it was gone,
Before it ever left.

-J

A bit ago I told a mentor of mine I’d been feeling melancholic (I suppose I still am), he asked me what that meant. I had trouble conveying it but primarily intended to explain that it is little more than an awareness. More or less a constant feeling as a verb, of body and fear and humanity. Anyway, I don’t really want to argue for myself, but perhaps I can explain myself.

I am sorry for disappearing from what I enjoy. I enjoy writing these, so I’m going to try at it again, but also I’ve been writing poetry for a few. I lost my journal so I can’t give you the exact date, but I can ballpark it to some time about two months ago. I guess technically I’ve been writing poetry for years, my whole life even, and I’m not convinced there’s a difference between poetry and prose and conversation at that. Still, humans like to make distinctions and categories, and I’ve made a bit of a collection at this point. Plus, I’m proud of some of it in one fashion or another, and what’s a collection if its not shown off? I think just things…Anyway, here are some things.

There will now be a section here for poetry proper. Oh dear Watts must be so displeased right now, it’s compulsive though.

Anyway, if you’re here, thank you.

-A

It’s been about a year, so from my head to yours –

https://www.ifeelnotgood.com/

Sorry I don’t write that much. I can never decide what should or shouldn’t be shared. I suppose it all should be, it’s all universal, but people struggle with universal. Plus I’m self conscious. Anyway, I hope you’re well.

-A

On her 2016 Crush Me tour, K.Flay took around a blank book. It stayed at the merch stand, and she asked that anyone who desired wrote in it about a time that they felt crushed, that they crushed someone else, or “a time you finally let something stop crushing you.” Safe to say the book was intense, and lends great insight into what she values. K.Flay, Kristine Flaherty,  is a unique singer and songwriter, ‘K.Flay’ started as an MC side project, while she was in college at Stanford for psychology and sociology, to parody an overly misogynistic and shallow rap community. Once she was out of college she pursued the profession. She mixes fast paced rap influenced lyricism with other less centralized aesthetic influences to the effect of what can otherwise be described as dark indie rock. Alongside her signature genre, her voice is unique in its own right. It’s grainy, and smokey, and her melodies come across as though there is a little bit of television fuzz spilled into the cracks of her vocal chords. The style translates into a tender atmosphere, complimenting her imagery heavy lyrics. They swirl into a musical realm half surreal, and the other half too real. My personal taste tends away from her very earlier work. Single and Famous is a bit too silly, and her earlier EPs while still treasured don’t feel as refined as I’d like, despite their fantastic energy and certain blunt sass. I find the strongest stride in Life as a Dog. It’s an amazing album, with an atmosphere like that of an overcast day when you’ve already had too much to drink at only 2 in the afternoon. Can’t Sleep, a personal favorite off the album, has a nervous energy symbolic of the stress induced insomnia it details. It starts off with an incredibly quick verse that catches the ear and carries that energy into the poetry of the pre-chorus. It, along with the rest of the album is worth a listen, however for a more condensed experienced, Crush Me is quintessential. Crush Me contains only 4 songs, but each feels concentrated and inspired. You can listen to it in a matter of minutes so I’ll spare the gratuities. Dreamers is the third in the set, questioning the what ifs of a life, while marveling at the world. It starts with a bass drum built to shake houses, paired with some sparse instrumental help, to support the vocals. Though the introduction to the song she seems to be questioning her past choices, in an almost too calm existential crisis. As the song progresses however, a large horn drops into the pocket giving a great shift in energy, and the tone transfers from wistful, to forward looking. She goes on about the grandeur of the world, and how she wants to experience more of it still. The song feels caught between the what ifs and the why nots, and therein exists its beauty.

TL;DR I’d argue K.Flay’s voice fits her. Take a listen and think about death and get sad and stuff.

-A

Seth Sentry is an Australian hip hop and rap artist with an interesting history and trajectory. The narrative he details through is work, should you take it regardless of embellishment, is that after schooling, he worked in the service industry for ten some odd years before risking his assets to endeavor in hip hop. He released his first EP Waiter Minute, in 2008, which well received, allowed him to continue into his debut album This Was Tomorrow in 2012. After a fair hiatus, he released Strange New Past in 2015 with an acknowledgment to his aging, and a drastic shift in style; he has only released a few singles in the time since. One of my chief praises of Seth is with regard to his focus, a vast majority of his pieces detail critical opinions on society, happiness, and relationships, which are matters of sublime interest, that he handles delicately and with erudite analysis. This Was Tomorrow, arguably his most juvenile material, still maintains more legitimately interesting philosophy than many other more serious albums from other artists. Seth adds a great deal of humor to his interpretations of the world that ensure that his work accessible while still maintaining its depth. Where Was You (When The Dead Come Walkin’)? details a post apocalyptic situation from the position of a blue collar worker, where zombies break into the work facility, and he has to shirk his day job in favor of survival. Seth uses irony in contrasting the two ways of life to supreme humor, but manages to retain undertones that are critical of the blue collar lifestyle which many average members of modern day society inhabit. Secondarily, Seth’s talent for imagery is supreme, exemplified in his description of the room inhabited by the characters in Ten Paces, a recollection of a decaying relationship, the kind that fizzles rather than imitates the Hindenburg, where a slow atrophy and separation seem unavoidable but wherein the two stay together. He describes room where the two, in states relatively not awake or asleep, where every move is calculated, and where sad thoughts fill the air like birthday balloons, a description that wonderfully pairs irony with the potent melancholy that envelops the scene. His mockery of the doublespeak nature of our modernity is even more developed in Strange New Past, where he dedicates the entirety of Hate Love to the complex double edged nature of relationships. From pessimism to hope to confusion, the song works itself in circles, mirroring a frequent internal debate of people concerned with the abstract sense of love. While his newer material is incredible, his first EP has a distinct purpose in its risk, as he was independent at the time of its release. He wrote most of it while he was still working a full time job which places that context to it. Strange Lot is a about exactly that work, and monotony, and foremost its associated depression. Strange Lot is an absolute heartbreak, and has lent me strength when I most deeply needed it. Seth’s and Jane Bunn’s vocals are both complimented by simple instrumental backing, which lend them a calmness and space in which to perform. The simple drum loop and backing strings make the most beautiful backdrop for the hook, and Seth plays off of that energy with some of the saddest and most beautiful poetry I’ve heard. The words drip down from the mix, and festering the cracks of the floor find their way downward with a fitting anguish such that by the end of the piece there is a tsunami of emotional torrent that follows the piece. He describes day after day of torment and apathy in the face of his waking life, putting into words the most difficult, deepest sense of depression, the song is one of the most emotionally raw I’ve ever encountered.

TL;DR Seth’s Strange Lot is haunting, and riveting, and depressing, please give it it’s due time. Then, if you’re interested, progress to his newer work; he retains his sense of self in the face of exploration, it’s refreshing.

-A

Eden, formerly The Eden Project, is the production alias of Jonathan Ng from Dublin, Ireland. He was classically trained in music theory and violin in his youth and later proceeded to experiment producing harder electronic styles. In changing aliases he adopted a slightly more indie acoustic take on his previous sound and adopted a softer arguably more signature style. His first album officially released under EDEN, End Credits has an incredibly melodramatic sensibility, though is lacking a bit of intrigue in its tranquility. His most recent release, I Think You Think Too Much of Me, is a denser collection of tracks. Loaded with soul, the record covers most topics of existentialism and coping, and comes through as thoroughly heartbreaking. Over a combination of distorted synths and acoustic instrumentation, Jonathan croons painful tails of his human flaws, issues with love, desire to be remembered, and overwhelming melancholia. In rock + roll he details his dream to be like the mythical gods of music, the ones who transcended genres, spoke to all, and remain influential works long after their creation. The savvy guitar riffs thrown in the verses of the song are placed somewhat awkwardly, keeping the focus on his rolling vocals which keep the momentum of the piece. Where in most other tracks on the record use a combination of guitars, strong percussion, and dirty sounding warped saws, rock + roll keeps to a more traditional set of instruments, with the artificial instrumentation kept to a minimum. The track is almost crusty with a wistfulness,  paying homage to many of Eden’s influences, while the lyrics spell out his intentions fairly clearly. The composition is intricate  however, the track is broken into two halves, the first beginning with a soft guitar. As he builds intensity with his voice, the guitar breaks from acoustic to a much larger electric chord, and the track gains a great deal of momentum. The breaks down and repeats, but the second time backing his voice is a soft clean keyboard, tracing sets of 8th notes along behind him, exemplifying his different sets of musical influence, one on the traditional spectrum, and the other on a contemporary one. Both of these breaking into chorus with “I just want to sing like Sinatra” implies that the link between the two is in their quality, where fame can come from any place, it’s truly impressive people that make it come about. The delicacy of his words is frequently in their unexpectedness, where in lines like “I don’t give a fuck if you say you don’t fuck with me” he adds a rebellious flair while maintaining his fragility. As the song progresses to the second half he is joined by a choir and a conversation sample joins in the mesh. In the conversation of what sounds like two people talking, one about existential troubles, and the other attempting to quell them. The outro always leaves me with chills. Jonathan deserves a massive amount of respect for what he’s able to convey, especially given his age/experience; he’ll be turning 21 in a week and a day, which is absolutely absurd.

TL;DR Have an existential crisis to rock + roll, Eden is an impressive exploration in emotion. Jonathan deserves some of the adoration he asks for. Oh, and be sure to wish him a happy birthday.

-A

Two Door Cinema Club are infamous as the indie rock scene’s Energizer bunnies. Especially their debut album, Tourist History, the average tempo of which feels like it’s already been nightcored. The band admits that this was probably overkill and in interviews has said that part of their focus in prior years was to just keep playing faster and with more intensity, but eventually were burnt out from it and coupled with non-stop stress inducing touring needed to take a break. This is why their latest album, Gameshow, has a more disco influenced sound, with slower songs and more off the cuff rhythms, it’s a departure from the energy they were known for. Which admittedly was a slight let down upon the album’s reveal; I thoroughly appreciate artists advancing their style but TDCC’s older material did and does hold a special place in my heart for its blend of sophisticated sound and unadulterated speed and energy. Since then however I’ve come to love Gameshow, and appreciate what I admittedly at first couldn’t take seriously as Alex Trimble (TDCC’s vocalist)’s upper register. Lavender is likely my favorite track off the album, although there are quite a few gems. Lyrically I adore it because of its focus. I’ve always marveled at dreams, their surrealism, taking material and influences from its conscious counterpart and skewing them to absurd-ism. I think this alteration of reality is synonymous with the power of creativity: the ability to see a path to modify material from what it is to what it could be, and purpose to do so. Obviously in dreams the limitations of physics and energy conservation and general logic are lacking, making this phenomenon even more grandiose, but the bending of things known to those unknown remains the same. Trimble has said in interview that in the wake of the band’s separation he underwent a serious depression and drug addiction, which causes me to suspect that Lavender details his desire for escape from reality, in this case through sleep. Unconsciousness is a space where he can rest his head in a field of lavender, existing in a bent reality where gravity has no application, he declares he’ll be there for centuries. This study of escapism is intriguing, and in addition to the thematic interest, the piece has amazing musical power as well. The verses are sweet and self contained, but the pre-chorus feels particularly long, with an illusion that it could just keep building endlessly. This gives the narrative a slightly dreamy feeling and when the chorus finally does hit, the payoff is immense with a punch in the guitar and vocal combo that has no rival that I’m aware of. After the second verse it proceeds to somewhat milk the chorus, yet I have no complaints, I’m frankly still not satisfied by the end of it. Alongside Lavender, Good Morning is likely the other track that I’m overly attached to, however the album as a whole is most definitely worth a listen. I’d also recommend their older work but it’s difficult to have existed and not heard at least some of it so I’ll spare the noise.

TL;DR TDCC GMSHW RN!

-A

The name Montaigne ought sound familiar, it’s taken from the massively influential writer. It’s obvious that the artist Montaigne, the project of Jessica Cerro, a musician from Sydney, Australia, takes endless influence from her chosen namesake. In Life of Montaigne, she uses minimal production and a blend of punchy acoustic sounds to create a style that I think very closely mirrors the thoughts splays out. They’re a little bit noisy and disjunct by design, particularly in I’m a Fantastic Wreck the song plays up the lyricism with strange instrumental quirks out of rhythm and tune. She wrote Life of Montaigne only a year or two out of high school, possessing extremely coherent style and voice for such a young musician. More recently she released her debut album, Glorious Heights, which is a slight departure from her previous work. It has more weight to its production albeit with some callbacks to her earlier style such as Consolation Prize. Glorious Heights employs more experimentation as on In The Dark, and a generally broader use of electronic instrumentation. Some of the pieces, namely the album titled track, are distinctly reminiscent of Florence and the Machine, with the album as a whole setting its tone as quite grand in comparison with her previous EP and pieces like I Am Behind You that are simply beautiful pieces of music.

TL;DR Montaigne’s minimalism, experimental risk, thoughtfulness, and talent are something to appreciate.

-A

The trailer for our upcoming short film. The remix used in it was mixed in house, proud of that one. Give it a try.

-A

A year ago I made a music video with assistance from a few friends for an artist who, to say inspires me is a drastic understatement. We have a short film in the works that will likely be released soon so I thought I might leave this here in the meantime. Please enjoy.

-A