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August 4-Track A-Side: House of Love (This River)

Art by Billis Helg

This one is certainly a contender for my favorite track I've done this year. It started off as a different progression altogether, with a swinging rock beat, and eventually evened out into a very cheerful pop-rock track. For lyrics, I took inspiration from Psalm 84, as well as many images from the Gospel of John.

"Love" has always felt like a mysteriously vague co...

August Streams

August 27, 4 PST: Band's Delight stream with Will, content to be decided!

September 1, 4 PST: Family Dinner stream!

August Newsletter: Denial

Ten summers ago, we were tucked into the corners of Fremont, recording Teens of Denial with Steve Fisk. I remember it being a sunny summer, both literally and emotionally. Teens of Style, recorded earlier that year, had been a difficult trek, marred by difficulties in mixing and miscommunications with the label. Recording Denial, in contrast, was smooth sailing. We’...

Live Show Archives: 2018 Barcelona Primavera

Hi friends. Ethan here with July's Live Show Archive album. This time it's a little unusual: it's from Primavera, which is a festival we've played multiple times. It's always amazing, maybe the best crowds we've ever played to. This performance, however, has something weird about it: I wasn't there! This was a brief 2018 Europe run which I didn't attend, my parts being filled by the Naked Giant...

July 4-Track Song 2: Palomica

Art by Billis Helg

"Palomica" means "dove" in Spanish (I think). A friend of mine passed away last month, who was a lover of St. Francis. There's a story of St. Francis seeing a boy carrying turtledoves to the market, asking the boy for them, and raising and taming them at his monastery. I hope you've found your nest on the other side, Alan.

Recording:

Track 1: Piano

Tra...

July 4-Track Song 1: Blue Sky Tempter

Art by Billis Helg

The "tempter" is none other than the devil himself, who wants nothing more than for us to believe we can't live without him. Through whatever channel he's caught us up in, whatever toxic relationship you're putting behind you in hopes of a better future, he keeps calling, telling you there's no world at all out there beyond him. He's played here by Degnan Smith. The tit...

July 4-Track Rerecord: Ominous Pillow

Art by Billis Helg

Lyrics by Amanda Schiano di Cola, who said of it in high school: [the title means] 'safety barrier from the bad things'...if you always think the worse, then when something good happens you'll think it's really good and if the worst happens you'll just be satisfied with knowing it was going to come."

Recording:

Track 1: MIDI drums & bass

2-3: Guita...

Family Dinner Stream

Let's Eat!

tape experiment

today we're running sounds through a variety of tape machines. come explore the warm layered textures and embrace the imperfect nature of analog tape! feel free to sample if we come up with anything cool!

July Streaming Schedule

On these days shalt thou see us:

July 29, 3 PST: Join Seth in this month's Band Delight stream for tape experiments!

July 30, 4 PST: Family dinner time with the band.

New music and live show to come.

July Newsletter: The Heart that Hates

“Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate a brother are murderers.” (1 John 3:14-15)

That guy I kinda hate is here…

I don’t know why, but hatred and anger found their way into me at a very young age. I was a sensitive kid, physically and mentally, and any experience of discomfort would quickly build up into an intolerable friction within me; unable to mak...

Live Show Archives: Europa Park, Rust, Germany 2018

Hello hello, welcome to another live show archive. This time coming from Germany, I believe from the Rolling Stone Weekender fest? If memory--and the hard drive of board mixes I'm looking at--serves, we played two dates at this festival. One was at a big, indoor, carpeted room where we played a brobdingnagianly long cover of "Can't Get No Satisfaction", and this one was an outdoor one where we ...

June Show Archive Post

Hey guys! Putting the finishing touches on the show mix, some life business put me just a little shy of the finish line and it'll be about half a day late. Sorry to be pushing the envelope one more time, you're still gonna dig it and thanks again for the support and for waiting all month!

June 4-Track B-Side: Art's Exhibit

It turns out that if your art is successful, people start looking at it, and oftentimes will start thinking what you thinking at the time, and doing what you were doing. I've had plenty of bad ideas in my time, and I wish I hadn't elevated some of them in my art. It's easy to feel like you're safe "backstage" when you're creating in isolation, but nothing happens in a vacuum. So this song is ab...

June 4-Track A-Side: Stay Alive

I wanted to write a song about depression, its oppressive force, and the untrue darkness it casts on the lives of those who suffer from it. The way it's portrayed in this song is strongly influenced by this quote from Martin Luther:

"All glory of victory must be ascribed to God Himself, not by any means to us. We are far too insignificant for this. Here, however, the Word of God is requir...

June 4-Track Rerecord: Any Time You Want

One of my favorite self-penned ones from the late-middle-school era. There's a lot of Green Day DNA in this.

Recording:

Track 1: MIDI Drums/Organ/Synth
Track 2: Guitar

Tracks 3-4: Vocals

Lyrics:

When life has got you down

On the ground

And you feel like you’re the only one in the world

Well maybe you are

But I’m just the next world ...

Delight Stream with Andrew

Let's Delight

Stream schedule

June 25, 4 PM PST: Band's delight - random stream with Andrew!

June 29, 4 PM PST: This month's "Family dinner" will be a true family dinner - a Q&A with Will and his parents, while he's back home in Virginia! Come meet my folks and hear some stories from their perspective.

June Newsletter

Happy June, subscribers!

It’s stranger to me now to be writing to an audience like this than it used to be. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with many of you one-on-one, but I’ve seen very few of you in person. I used to prefer this level of isolation: I log on, write something that makes me sound smart, and send it off without any idea of who reads it. Same with my solo music. I th...

Live Show Archives: Paris Pitchfork Fest, 2018

Greetings Patreon land! Ethan here for this month's live show archive. Coming once again from the 2018/Naked Giants era, this was right at the time (I think the very day, even) that we released the Twin Fantasy rerecord. I remember this show pretty vividly, as it was pretty late at night, it was dark and cold and we were all pretty bundled up. The stage lights and smoke were very moody and drea...

4-Track May B-Side: The Robot Prince

Inspired by a dream I had. The idea is that the central figure is a kid who’s been abducted by a robot colony, trapped inside a mechanical fortress, and also placed inside a robot body. The electromagnetic waves inside the colony affect his brain and keep him believing in his waking hours that he’s a robot. However, he has flashes of memory and dreams about his true identity. Meanwhile, his...

4-Track May A-Side: If You Take Me Back

A pretty straight-up song about repentance. I’ve never been very good at apologizing, but hopefully I’m getting a little better at noticing when it needs to be done.

Recording:

Track 1: Midi Drums, Midi Bass

Track 2: guitars

Tracks 3-4: vocals

Lyrics:

Sorry sorry sorry

Left you stranded in the water

As you waited for your tears to reach the sh...

4-Track Rerecord: Exam Time Fun

Art by Billis Helg

(Edit: Now with full-rez files attached)

In honor of the month of May - hopefully everyone is done with their finals by now. Lyrics by Amanda Schiano di Cola - each verse (except the first and last) was meant to represent a different subject she was studying for. Can you guess what they are?

Recording:

Track 1 - Midi Drums, Midi piano, bass

Track...

Family Dinner Stream

Tonight it's rice, salmon and asparagus. Good job finishing all of your veggies!

May Streaming Schedule

I hope the month of May is going swimmingly for everyone! Here's where you can catch us in the following week:

Sunday, May 25, at 2 PST: Will will do the Band's Delight stream - another round of poetry analysis!

Wednesday, May 28, at 4 PST: Family Dinner stream! Join the band on Discord.

See you there!

May Newsletter

Happy Friday, happy May, and happy Scholars release day! Our album is out at last, and I’m so grateful for all the positive words we’ve received on it so far.

I think if there was one primary theme in the building of this album, it was trusting in the music. As I got excited about various concepts for the story, I filled up many pages of notes; in hindsight, that all seems like idle d...

April 4-track song 2: The Sun Is In Love With You

At a Passover dinner hosted by our friend Kai, Kai talked about the song “Dayenu”, which means “it would have sufficed”:

If He had brought us out from Egypt,
and had not carried out judgments against them
— it would have sufficed!

If He had carried out judgments against them,
and not against their idols‎
— it would have sufficed!

And so on. That so...

April 4-track song 1: The Bells

Art by Billis Helg

This month, I was thinking about the theme of “endurance” - what endures throughout the changing of time? Recently, I was spending time at Billis’s house, and kept hearing the chiming of their clock, which rang every quarter-hour. It reminded me of a time years ago I’d spent with him, hearing that same clock. I liked the notion that the ringing of the clock was ...

Live Show Archives: Sydney City Limits 2018

Hey all, Ethan here again with another live show archive mix. This one is from our brief Australia tour in 2018 with Naked Giants. Both tours of Australia have been highlight moments for us, the nice weather and somewhat more relaxed vibe of festival runs there almost feels like a vacation compared to some of the denser runs we've done.

As always, a fully tagged album of the show can be d...

April 4-track re-record: Mind Dance

Art by Billis Helg

Lyrics by Amanda Schiano di Cola

One of my favorites from the high school vault.

Recording:

track 1: electric guitar

track 2: acoustic guitar

tracks 3-4: vocals

Lyrics:

If I could

I would run with the wind ice cold in my face

I would run to a distant land where no one knew my name

I would run

and I would ...