premiere: PASTEL - I Ache

Melancholy, meditative new tune from a young singer in SoCal who wrote me this letter to tell me some background on his take on anxiety and a “soft grunge” cure:

Hi Mark!

I’m Gabriel Brenner, a LA-based producer/singer/songwriter/visual artist, and I make music as Pastel. I started recording music my sophomore year of high school with a good friend of mine as Brengam (a splicing of Brenner and her last name, Ngamnimitthum), a starry-eyed folk-pop duo with a devout love for Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes (TBT?). Sadly, we both switched schools and distance disrupted the continuation of our project. Eventually, I was able to get my hands on a Macbook the summer before my first quarter of college, and I’ve been recording solo work on Garageband and Logic ever since.

The name “Pastel” actually stems from my anxieties about college prior to attendance. Around the time us high school seniors began our college application process, rumors started swirling about the dangers one’s social media presence could pose to our validity as college student candidates. Whispers in the hallways could be heard between class periods. “Becky got her acceptance revoked,” one said, “because she had selfies with alcohol on her Facebook.” Gasp, Becky! “Bobby got denied because he said something racist in a status.” Well, Bobby, mayhaps that was karma. Know your history, sis!

The more horror stories I gathered about other Becky’s and Bobby’s, the more my anxiety grew. Big Brother was watching, and he was probably watching me. What if the rare F-bomb I dropped on Facebook was enough to convince colleges I was a good-for-nothing scoundrel? Perhaps they would discover my Myspace-angled selfies from sixth grade and find themselves too embarrassed to accept me. I started questioning every move I’d ever made online. Realistically, I had little to hide. I was a reclusive hermit who spent his days reblogging inspo on Tumblr. Hell, I didn’t evenknow who Becky was, let alone that she liked to drink and take selfies for the ‘Gram. The pressure, however, was too much. I had to go off the grid, so I changed my name. On Facebook at least.

And what would a Tumblr-obsessed teen in 2013 change his Facebook name to? None other than “Pastel Grunge,” a combination of Pastel Goth and and Soft Grunge, two aesthetic movements birthed from the bloggers of Tumblr themselves that often lead to heated debates over what exactly constituted either. I thought it was witty enough to be the catalyst for a few chuckles, and obscure enough to evade the watchful eyes of admissions counselors. The name was a hit, and it stuck with me for the remainder of the year. I was no longer Gabe. Nay, I was Pastel.

So when it came time to develop a stage persona, it felt natural to go by Pastel. I had already cultivated a brand, even though it was one founded upon niche humor. It might seem odd that the emotionally heavy content of “I Ache” is aligned with a lighthearted stage name, but it is often said that humor and trauma are distant relatives. 

“I Ache,” the first single from my upcoming self-released Bone-Weary EP, definitely deals with the trauma side of that relationship; it’s inspired by a period of months in which I was spread extremely thin emotionally and eventually crumbled underneath the weight of it all. Drawing from artists like Julianna Barwick, Perfume Genius, and FKA twigs, ‘I Ache” weaves together cavernous, atmospheric harmonies, devotional piano chords, and loose, skeletal beats, creating a heart-wrenching, cathartic rumination on stability and dependence. Directed by Hobbes Ginsberg and produced by Chloe Feller for Red Lighter Films, the visuals evoke traditional paintings of women and lush classical imagery to explore one’s emotional endurance when everything around falls apart.

“I Ache” is not exempt from humor, though. The first take of the song was actually recorded the night of Halloween in 2014. Dressed as the Domino’s Pizza logo, I repeated “I ache” over and over into the mic, summoning the traumas of the past year, and perhaps dually pining for a spooky slice of pizza.
“I Ache” is out January 15th. Bone-Weary EP out early 2016 (self-released). Watch Here. Listen Here.

Hope you enjoyed the story,

xoxo Pastel

Read more Letters to YVYNYL.