The Darkest Of Summers

Hope your summer is going well! Speaking of summer, the next album I have on deck is called "The Darkest Of Summers"

Lyrically it explores the subject of death imparticularly several loved ones that I have had to say goodbye to over the last few years.

Also clocking in at close to a mere 30 minutes, this album will surely be a bit more easier to digest than some of my previous releases....

Coming off the release of Acquiescence in April, I analyzed what made that album good, and what made it bad. The good was that I was able to convey all the stuff that was floating around in my brain whilst still living in NYC. I felt at ease and it was very therapuetic to be able to get that stuff of my chest and turned into song. The bad, however, was that it was WAY TOO LONG.

​I seem to think we're still in the "age of the album" and people will actually invest their time to sit and listen and get to know an album, front to back...well, sadly, that is not the case in this day and age. We live in the age of countless distractions and other important stuff happening, that a 16 track magnum opus is not something most people will put the time into listening to, save skimming thru on Spotify. I then had the idea to simplify things a bit. Instead of release big ass epics every 2 years, release smaller, digestible chunks for people to enjoy in the now. I even wanted to release this new album as singles...spread out over a shorter time. Well, that isn't too cost effective, so I decided to release EPs. So then we arrive at The Darkest Of Summers.

Aurally, TDOS is very synth and keyboard driven but with some pretty heavy guitar sounds to shape out the mood...mix in a dollop of electronica, synthwave and soundscape ambience that I always throw into my songs and you have the sound of TDOS. Production-wise, this album was ALOT easier to get produced. Because of all the work I'd done on the back end during Acquiescence, I was able to save the good sounding channels in my recording software and pull up a pre-saved blank template for me to start a new song. No more putzing around with sounds and EQ and that noise, I was able to find a decent sound to start from and add and subtract instruments as I pleased.

Lyrically, I decided to do something WAY different this time. Typically, I write music and lyrics simultaneously, or have a nice music idea that I can easily write lyrics to at a later date. Well, alot of the tunes from TDOS were neither of these.

Since as far back as I can remember, I've been writing down song titles, little lyrical lines and other nice nuggets since, heck, the mid-90's. I am a hoarder when it comes to my music so all of those nuggets have been saved since the last century. A few years ago, I collated all those bits (notebooks, post it notes, receipts) into one massive Word document on my computer. Coupled with my iPhone notes, I now had a universe of ideas to pick from. When I was struggling with a rhyme or new verse, I could easily pick out anything from hundreds of lines of text..it was great. 

Here's a video of David Bowie explaining his songwriting in somewhat of a similar fashion I suppos. He'd write lines or verses, cut 'em up and rearrange them to create his tunes. At times, it may sound like it's Tourette's, just spouting out random verses and sentences that have no relationship to the one previous, but I think that's what's so special about. Little nuggets, little stories within the big story. Does this make sense?  Who knows if it'll come across that way, when you listen to these new songs, but I thought you might be interested in how I go about creating my music.

Anyway, I don't know when T.D.O.S will be released but if you join my mailing list, I'll send you periodic updates and exclusive song previews.

In the meantime, enjoy the teaser video below