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// Letters to YVYNYL //
Paragon Cause “Lost Cause”
/ All of us have been going through this covid shit for a year, but Jamie and Michelle have seen some of the darkest parts of it. Nova Scotia is a pretty peaceful place, I reckon, but apparently, that’s not always the case.
Hi Mark,
I wanted to write a quick story for you as well as a pitch for our new album. I’m one half of the duo Paragon Cause. Prior to 2020, I kept my personal life separate from my music. I’ve been lucky to have now recorded 3 albums, two of them with Sune Rose Wagner of The Raveonettes. The story behind meeting Sune Rose and recording in our basement studio is a whole other topic, but I digress. We recorded our current album, What We Started as a bit of a concept album. It was about the culture of abuse, domestic violence, and the lack of action in many cases, on the part of the justice system. Never did we realize what would happen in 2020 around our release date.
First, Covid. I am a surgeon in Canada, a head and neck surgery (ENT) which has one of the highest death rates and infection rates in all specialties. I had to make the decision, do I continue to work on my music during this incredibly stressful time or put it off? Michelle and I both agreed, the world needs music and we decided to push forward. Even though my work life has changed dramatically, I still find the time to promote and get our music out there.
Just this week, a shocking occurrence happened in my home province of Nova Scotia here in Canada. An individual dressed up as a police officer, with a fake car and uniform and proceed to kill his ex-wife, partner, neighbors then drive over the province of Nova Scotia pulling people over and killing them in their cars. Nova Scotia is a paradise in Canada and it sent chills through my bones, particularly considering the themes of our new album.
This year has been difficult for us all, but we hope that our music may help. Thanks again, hope you take the time to listen and consider for a post/review.
Jamie and Michelle of Paragon Cause
…
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
Kennedy Shaw “Heaven”
/ Sometimes I get letters from right here in my hometown. Kennedy sent this one over and I think it perfectly encapsulates the feeling a lot of my readers are going through. Those of you who are struggling to make their music despite all odds, to make a life of music, to grasp on to the love they get from putting it out there. We are all in this together, our weirdo crew of misfits and hooligans who’d rather make a song that rips out our hearts and lay it out on the table for all to hear than just ‘be normal.’ We hear you. We hear you. Keep it going, friends.
Hi Mark,
When I think of music, I think of my grandmother singing me a song titled “don’t fence me in.” There's a home video of us singing it somewhere. Music to me feels no separate from myself. My mom used to listen to Tori Amos when she was pregnant with me and always told me that's why I started playing piano the minute I could.
My name is Kennedy, I’m a 21-year-old songwriter in Philly - or was in Philly - until a global pandemic interrupted my second year of college.
I’m only 21, but as far as coffeehouse music goes, I’ve probably seen it all. My parents used to take me to perform once or twice every weekend. They critiqued every show and were extremely supportive of how loud and passionate I was. Because of this, I know every jam band and bluegrass cover group that plays in the bookstores of the East Coast. I know which ones have AC and which ones make you pay for a meal after you perform. I have the stories of men telling me I’m “mature for my age” and taking photos of my 14-year-old legs while at the piano bench.
After I went to University, I knew a lot about basement scenes, too. I got too drunk while performing a few times, I kissed audience members during the choruses and band members during the verses. I drove off in the wrong uber twice. When the residence hall elevators shut down, I carried the keyboard, amp, stands, and book bag down 9 flights of stairs, and carried them back up at 2 or 3 AM less tired than before.
During this pandemic, and being back home in NJ, I’ve been asking myself why I continue pursuing music as a career, even though I never feel entirely validated or see financial gain from it. If anything actually, I see loss.
I switched my major from Music to English just before the pandemic broke in the U.S. I decided it was time to focus on a 'real career’. Then, I listened to some rough mixes of mine and decided to use all of my savings, every penny, to buy recording equipment and finish my EP in my bedroom. Clearly, I don’t have any answers on why, or what’s logical, or what's smart. I’m literally a crazy 21-year old girl-woman doing vocal takes in my parent’s shower when they let me and finding the personal information of music bloggers and emailing demos to small labels like I’m their musical messiah. I’ve never filmed anything for anyone, and yet I’ve been dressing in vintage clothes and setting up “sets” (a bedsheet usually, chair, flowers) and recording them on my iPhone.
Even when I want to move on, the feeling of working on my music creatively is something so close to my core I don’t think I can ever stop. Not because I think my music is worth listening to, or even good, I just can’t stop making it. When I think of music I think of waking up from a dream and jotting down words. My dad saying to 'turn it down,’ and then 'close your door’. I think of every love I had in high school giving me mixtapes, my best friend passing out on the train ride home with my amp in their lap. I think of watching strangers cry while I sing to them, basements of sweaty chances moshing, and my bandmates cans of beer. Every car ride with my parents I took for granted then, oblivious to the cost of gas and how many hours it took to get to the record shop where one person listened to half my set. I think of my younger sister listening to music to avoid new driver anxiety, and I think of my grandmother singing me songs, telling me to sing my own. I think of pausing the youtube tutorial, running from the desktop and to the piano upstairs. I'd make this hike a million times a night but never felt tired, and when I think of these things I don’t have to wonder why.
Music is by far not the smartest choice as far as a career- maybe if I was smart I’d choose doctor, or scientist, or engineer, but feeling “smart” doesn’t feel half as good as these memories music has given to me. “Heaven” is the first song I finished when I decided to work on rough mixes I had in my back pocket. It sounds haunting and compares heaven to a first love- the romanticization of first relationships is something that still pulls me in lyrically. I wrote it on bass, alone in my dorm room, probably crying. I hope you like it.
- Kennedy
…
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
Frail Jonny “What Happened to Your Coat”
/ Being connected to your own mind and remembering to feel through listening above seeing has shown to be fruitful for me. Perhaps that’s why it’s often one small tip they give you in meditation classes. When I’m listening to Johnathan Peter Wright’s music, I can grasp the deliberation of these sentiments that he feels through his music. Then I watch this video and think of, well, death. But in a funny way, it’s kind of comforting.
Dear Mark,
I’m here in a house in the mountains of Asheville, NC, lying on a bedroom floor with the afternoon light streaming in, and I’m confused. I’m confused about the way a single life can be divided and fractured into its chapters.
I’m confused about the way that the past simultaneously lives into the present and falls away into an untouchable, unreachable place. I’m confused about the future, and how it somehow stays future and never comes toward us.
It’s not that I always dislike confusion. Last year I finished a graduate degree in film studies up in Toronto, and my topic of research was the experience of confusion in film viewing. I loved it.
On blustery fall days, I loved taking apart films that puzzled me with their discontinuities and mismatches. But this year confusion is burdensome. It’s all-encompassing and too close to home. My stomach tenses and my vision tunnels when my mind begins to race.
Sound is confusing too, but a different kind of confusing. Recently, I’ve been closing my eyes at regular intervals in order to reduce my obsessive reliance upon sight and focus instead on other senses. When I do this, I’m thrown into a different space, swirling with dots and filled with sound. I listen and try to place each sound source. Still, it doesn’t feel like quite the same world.
Yes, being in the dark is different than reaching out with the endless arm of sight. But the swirling of shutting my eyes has a strange comfort to it because there is the possibility of accepting all that you don’t and can’t know. Accepting that you might never come to know it. And this is where music comes in: as the form of the invisible, as the acceptance of the ungraspable. To burrow down into a ringing tone, whether playing it or listening to it, is to cut away all that visual reaching. You don’t need to reach in order to hear. All you need to do is receive.
Over the past year I’ve been dealing with some things (ha! an understatement for most of us), things both from the past and the future. These things get muddled and mixed into the present, and pretty soon all my tenses are shot to bits. In those times, when I’ve picked up a guitar, or a violin, or stooped at the piano, and closed my eyes and pressed into the instrument, there was a release. A tearing free of the things I know and want to know and feel that I need to know.
This is not some gnostic tearing free from the body, but tearing free from the visual structures that surround me like ghostly cities, the visual mausoleum of the past, the half-abstract visualization of a multitude of futures, and the disembodied flashes of internet wastelands.
Music can cut through this. For months I struggled along, battling a simple dichotomy of sight/knowledge/desire and sound/ release/ acceptance. And I’ll probably continue the battle for years to come because I don’t see an easy way out of this predicament. Giving up on the former seems pragmatically impossible, and giving up on the latter sounds to me like signing myself over to self-destructive drives.
Music is what has given some ballast to my swaying ship. Because even in the darkness of sound, there is form. And while there may not be a strict right or wrong in the world of music, taste, balance, pattern, and movement act as guiding lights.
All this sounds conceptual, I’m sure. Maybe you’re thinking, “what does any of this have to do with your actual music, the music you share?” What I’ve been telling you is the story of the music, one of its stories. Here’s another way to tell it: I went into a room day after day, night after night, and made noises while sitting on the floor while pacing while lying down. These noises I then recorded. These recordings I shaped. These shapes I call songs. These songs, together, I call an EP, Afterlives, Vol. 1. Which is the truer story? Listen for yourself, what do you hear?
I hope this music gives something to you.
Sincerely,
Frail Jonny
…
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
HALAN “Little More”
/ When you love writing music that is sad, it tends to go slower and is muscled up through grumbling angst. It’s good to keep working on the craft of writing a song that feels danceable. Dancing is the antidote to being sad. Songwriter Helen Zhou’s new single was launched with the endeavor to stop moping and add a little skip to her step. The single came out on April 16th, 2021.
Hi Mark,
I grew up in Singapore learning classical piano but was never really good at it because I never played any of the pieces according to the style of the period - I added too much pedal to Bach and played Mozart too aggressively. For that reason, and that reason alone, I failed my piano Diploma exam.
I moved to Los Angeles for college and sang poorly in various rock and metal cover bands before finally learning how to scream and sing properly when I graduated. Post-college I found myself in an original theatrical metal band which promised much but did not do much, so I decided to learn how to produce music and make my own songs, and actually get stuff done.
I released my first songs in 2020 of the dark alt-pop genre. I almost exclusively write sad songs because music is my outlet for sad feelings, particularly the “romance” kind. So I found myself releasing a debut melancholy alt-pop EP titled “Best Intentions” about guys who had the worst intentions towards me. Fodder for me to mope around.
Towards the end of 2020, I realized that my music did not really match up with who I am and want to be. Pre-pandemic I liked going to metal concerts and headbang until my neck is stiff or electronic concerts and dance until my body turns into meat pulp. I miss upbeat music, and I want to make upbeat music. So I decided to change my style of production.
This year I still write sad songs about romantic letdowns but what the hell, I make them so at least I get to party to the songs. I make dance-pop now and my first release is “Little More,” about a texting relationship with a guy who promised much but did not do much. I wrote the song in 2020 as a sad indie pop song initially but revamped it into what it is now, a fierce rebuke to YOU, Mr. Gif, who can’t open up or progress a romantic relationship. Bye!
I hope you enjoy the song.
Best,
HALAN
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
ALMA “#naturanaturans”
/ While they’re touching dream pop in other tracks, this raw statement of a song comes off a lot like a new Mountain Man poem (who, coincidentally, released a new single covering Fiona Apple’s “Not Knife” on the same weekend). Musicians Alba S. Torremocha, Lillie R. McDonough, and Melissa Kaitlyn Carter have put together all the feelings about “put down your phone” in one lovely folky song. Here’s a little bit about how and why they made it.
Dear Mark,
We are a dream pop trio based in NYC - usually. The pandemic has separated us and we’re releasing our debut album during a time that is anything but usual. We’ve released our entire album behind the computer screen and via social media. It’s wonderful to have this privilege, but it also hurts. Not being able to be the social human beings that we are. Not being able to hug, to touch, to sing together and find the harmonic waves on our chest. That hurts.
Our newest single, #naturanaturans is tied to this experience. It’s a DIY anthem about the trials and tribulations of social media. Directly translated as “nature doing what nature does,” it explores the irony of how our natural choice is to not be natural when we have the chance, and how we lose ourselves in the scroll shaping our identities based on how others see us online.
The song came to one of us while we were chilling at home, scrolling through instagram. A targeted ad popped up, using female empowerment and body positivity prompts to sell… well, a corset. It was equally hilarious and infuriating to think that they didn’t even see the irony behind this choice. Just another attempt to make us feel like we should choose to be unnatural, no matter how painful or pointless. And that somehow we’re being empowered by doing so.
We started working on this project a year ago, before the pandemic. We wanted a song to perform live that would allow us to be truly raw and natural — just us, our bodies and our voices. #naturanaturans at its core invites us to feel into our own inherent completeness that exists beyond all of the likes, comments, and follows. There’s nothing that this song is without and the same is true for us as human beings. Then the pandemic hit and the song became the quintessence of ironic karma: we created a song to connect at a raw level, to be together, and suddenly we could only see each other through a screen.
For us, music IS medicine, you don’t need to purposely use it as such. It’s like going to sleep every night: you know you need it, and you don’t want to see what happens if you stop doing it.
With Appreciation,
Melissa + ALMA
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
Ian Steinberg - Feeling the Light
/ A lot of people who read this blog seem to fall into a certain amorphous group of individuals. Many, if not most, are people who are looking to use songwriting as a method of healing, grace, and purpose. Ian is an artist who sent me his music last year around this time and I’m just now getting to publish some bits of a record he put out online in the spring of 2019. Now, he’s worked on some new stuff from his base in Vermont. It is a piece he recorded in what appears to be his pretty chill bedroom. Have a listen while you read the inspiration in his letter below.
Hi Mark!
The best way to sum up my experience with music is with the famous quote by Nietzsche: “Without music, life would be a mistake.” For me, it is not so much a matter of why I do music, rather than I must.
I’m not sure I would be able to find life enjoyable without my personal pursuit of music. The sense of purpose it fills me with is a sustaining force. That is part of why I write, to fill an ineffable part of my existence that otherwise would be lacking. At least, that is how I’ve viewed most of my experience. However, as a part of my healing process, I’ve been able to find a lot of joy outside of my own work and recognize the love that is around me, which has been extremely helpful.
Songwriting itself is also a healing process. Beyond processing my thoughts and experiences through lyrics, it gives me the space to get my emotions out in a constructive manner. Songwriting, and performing more specifically, connects me with other people’s experiences as well, allowing me to process my grief by listening to others’ stories when they approach me after shows or write to me. I hope that it gives those who hear my music the space to do that as well.
My name is Ian Steinberg, a Burlington, Vermont based indie-folk singer-songwriter. I’m writing to you to share a new song I wrote for my Tiny Desk submission as well as the last album I made that carries great significance to me called “Guidance.” Entirely written, produced, recorded, and mixed by me, “Guidance” is a true indie product, with a clear arch and catchy melodies.
A quick note about “Guidance:” The album is the aural journey of my descent into and rise out of depression. It takes place over the course of many years and catalogs my emotional states and experiences in song form.
While I would prefer not to dive too deep into some of the stories behind this, as it’s pretty painful to discuss, even with close friends, I will try to provide some insight into the journey that the songs layout.
The album is collected into four blocks of songs all separated by instrumental (ish) interludes. The first block is three songs that lay out some of the fundamental causes of my unhappiness, including substance abuse, loss of love, and a sincere self-doubt built upon a lack of confidence. The tone of the songs are relatively light, but the lyrical content shows how I truly feel in those moments. The songs express an ability to put on a façade of cheerfulness while internally processing difficulties.
The next block, starting with “Pieces…Pieces…” is the true descent. A shift in tone and content, this block of songs shows some of the most difficult times in my life. “And Now…” (video live from the Wishbone Collective in Winooski, Vermont) describes the loss of one of my best friends to a drug overdose. “How Can Our Fathers” describes my dealing with what, for lack of better terms, was a betrayal by my dad (just a note that we have a good relationship and that this song is processing, not a lingering resentment).
The third block, beginning with “Stuck Inside the Water Basin,” is my realization that I need help. That I can’t be alone in this struggle any longer. The realization that I am loved. This in some ways was much more difficult to write than the previous section, because it is relinquishing a sense of independence and the idea I can figure it out on my own. The block contains the eponymous song of the album, and how I’m pleading for guidance, needing help. "One Foot One Knee" is an ode/anthem/chant to perseverance and recognition that we need to move one foot in front of the other.
The last section starts with “Fatima.” This contains a passage from Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” when the main character sees the love of his life for the first time. This is a bridge between a sense of destiny/place in “One Foot One Knee,” to processing losing what I thought was the love of my life in “At the Risk of Coming Off as Trite.” The last song, “Sunshine,” is a message of thanks, and that I’m working through this still, and that I’m grateful for the things around me despite my mental state.
I guess maybe I dived deeper into it than I was expecting, but I hope you enjoy listening with this context.
I’ve also released a video of me and my lead guitarist performing the track “And Now…” live from The Wishbone Collective in Winooski, Vermont.
Thanks for your time and consideration. I hope you enjoy the album!
Best,
Ian
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
The Duskwhales - Today
/ This project is an important one. It’s about cancer, and if you know of anyone who’s going through the anxiety and body-breaking experience of going through its treatment, these songs by Chris Baker will ring true. He sent me these recordings last year and while I’ve listened to his songs a dozen times myself, I haven’t pushed through to share it out yet. I’m jumping over that hurdle right here and now. I will wait no longer. For the honesty and bravery of Chris’s letter. And great news, he just tweet’d that he is in the studio again! Read on…
Hi Mark,
I was diagnosed with Stage-2 testicular cancer in October 2017 and had surgery the day before my 24th birthday. I found out a month later that cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, so I had to undergo three months of intense chemotherapy. I was unsure what to expect going into it. The strangest part for me was it felt like every day some new symptom would kick in. One day,
I’d feel super dehydrated, the next I’d have terrible stomach pains and my ears would be ringing. Then there was insomnia. Back pain. Acid reflux. Shortness of breath. Weird metallic tastes in my mouth. Some days I was so tired I could hardly move. Did I mention my eyebrows were falling out? It really felt like I was just pulling a lever waiting for some bizarre new change to befall me.
Today will be the death of me. As the side effects of the drugs continued piling up, I was constantly looking for new things to distract myself from the ever-evolving ways that my body was falling apart. Whether it was listening to podcasts, watching countless hours of BBC nature documentaries, or starting an online petition to get the new Star Wars movie streamed in hospitals.
My favorite distraction (though I didn’t always have the energy for it) was writing and recording music. Songwriting can be very cathartic and a great way to encapsulate memories and emotions, both positive and negative. In the spring of 2018, I wrote and recorded an EP called Hospital Dreams that detailed my experience going through cancer treatment. The title track from the EP I actually wrote in the hospital one night when I was having particularly bad insomnia. The song started out as a weird poem to catalog some of the aforementioned symptoms I was experiencing, which I set to a simple melody and turned into this hypnotic sort of mantra:
I am dripping slowly from a plastic bag
Waiting to absorb another poison
I am taking liquids to relieve myself
Hoping to retain a second cycle
Oh well I lost another night of sleep
Oh well I found another needle
Fast forward a few months, I’ve now finished chemo and received the news that I’m officially in remission. My band The Duskwhales has started playing more and we even teamed up with a non-profit organization called Cancer Can Rock that sponsors artists with cancer to go into the studio to record a song for free.
The song we chose was “Fight Back,” which is a tribute to the great support team I had during my bout with cancer.
If you can’t fight back, then I’ll fight back for you.
My bandmates, Seth and Brian, were extremely supportive during this strange, difficult time and even went as far as shaving their heads when I lost my hair. I still think I pulled off the egghead look the best, but I give them props for going bald during the winter along with me.
Our latest single “Today” was released on the one-year anniversary of my remission from cancer and harkens back to the early days of my treatment when every day felt like a new death. With musical nods to The Monkees, The Beatles, and The Turtles, “Today” is an upbeat, albeit not-so-subtle reminder of our own mortality. Our new Take It Back EP it out now.
Thanks for reading! Fight Cancer. Make Music. Live life with no regrets.
Chris
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
Nallo - Anger and Figureheads
/ It would not be a stretch to say that we’re all feeling a bit weary at the end of this decade. Depending on your perception, it’s great/terrible news that we’ve only got another month to go and we can see the doors open for another fresh ten years. Minnesotan Andrew Ranallo wrote me this letter a while back, but I think he really puts it in plain perspective. Can we let go of our anger? Can we pull down our figureheads? I think we’ve got it in us. I know that moving forward is important, but remember… there isn’t anything but NOW. Soak it in.
Dear Mark,
Going to start with an admission: For me, your blog and this letter are a convenient time capsule—a place to put feelings that are deeply personal but that, if published, could help someone else who may be facing similar things.
But even if I write this and it goes nowhere, it’s a perfect way to tie up some loose ends that have been bouncing around for a while.
The song and video I’m sharing come from the exact center point between progress and struggle. It’s that point of a growth period where you’re angry enough to express it and want change, but still haven’t processed enough to understand your feelings. A conflict in motion.
In 2019, I took serious space from some major, and unhealthy familial relationships. Not only because they were dysfunctional and frustrating, but because I reached a place of feeling hopeless: Nothing else left to try.
Beyond the mental health struggles and interpersonal dynamics, these relationships fell victim to 2019 itself. Internet trolls on the bottom half of the internet. Conspiracy theories. Panic. Pizza Gate. Hate. And truly, the current anxiety of American life itself.
Watching someone you love struggle so much, and also having to step away, is painful. And, now with some time, I can see that it was this pain and hurt that formed the foundation of the anger that fueled this song. So while it’s an expression of anger and frustration, it’s also a detachment and a hands-in-the-air submission to the uncontrollable swirl.
Now, with some time and space, I also see it as a release—writing, producing, and singing this song a hundred times for shows and recording has helped me set it down, forgive (in my heart, if not in person yet), and prepare for a new way forward.
Thank you!
Andrew
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
OM Collective - Icaro Ayamura
/ Today, I opened my mailbox and got a package with some outrageous but amazing goodies. First, a fully-written old school Letter on paper! From Australia! The package was so cool, my kids were trying to claim them as their own. My 3 year old daughter said that the rainbow-man USB stick is now her’s. But luckily, she let me have it back long enough for me to plug it in and listen (and download) the music. Meantime, I scanned the letter for you, lovely readers. Timothy James Ferson goes deep for us, his shamanistic approach to life and music. I share many of his experiences with the magic plants of our globe and understand where he’s coming from. Why don’t you join us for the ride. Listen to this one track of his gorgeous new album, hot off the presses.
Mark,
I’ve thought about writing this letter for about 5 years. That is, since I was 5 years into writing the album that has dominated my life for the last 10 years. It’s called ‘A Collection of Mr. Kite’s Open Mind’.
I guess I’m sort of Mr. Kite, I guess this 80 minute trip is a sort of collection of my mind, at least in the Japanese sense of the word… [the Japanese & Chinese character (‘shin’) is translated as both heart AND mind.
In a way, that one character is a symbol of the entire album… A quarter of my life documenting the exercises, experiences & obstacles in my journey towards open-heartedness & open-mindedness… - indued into one fancy-ass USB.
To begin with, these songs were experiments dominated by time-signatures & concepts. One day, one of my friends played me the first two tracks while I was tripping on Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds. For the first 30 seconds, during the opening crescent, I didn’t recognize what I was hearing. When it hit me, & I sat in silence, for 11 minutes, listening back to the recordings I had been working on for 6 months.
When it finished, my friend asked, “How do you feel?”
I said, “I feel like I got more out of it than I thought I put into it.”
He said, “What does that mean??”
I said, “I didn’t realize I was feeling anything when I was making it. But meaning it back I could hear all the relics I must have been putting into it.”
He looked at me, again baffled, like ‘Hoe did you just know what you were feeling when you made it?’
I realized then that I had a peculiar ‘some might use the word ‘diagnosable’ inability to feel my own feelings, but that i could use music like a mirror, in which I could see clear reflections of my own emotional state.
Suddenly, these songs became experiments in understanding my own feelings. I’m trying to refrain from using absolute statements at the moment, but it could be said that that was one of the most significant moments of my life. Top 10. To be safe.
-
I nonchalantly mention psychedelics there, but as afraid as I am of ACOWKOM being surmised as ‘another one about drugs,’ I also have pride & honour in saying that the entire album is actually a dedication to the first time I experienced psilocybin mushrooms. [ - also one of the most significant moments of my life… Top 5. Significant enough for me to have dedicated a quarter of my life to a work of gratitude for the effects these plants have had on my life; on my relationships; on my wellbeing.]
Despite psilocybin most likely becoming decriminalized for therapeutic use in the US in the next 5-10 years, I recognize that magic mushrooms aren’t for everyone & in a way, this album is more for those who haven’t taken & wouldn’t take mushrooms, than those who have. I spent so many years imbuing the love & learnings that have developed in my life catalyzed by that first trip into these sounds. If a listener opens themselves, it’s been my sincerest intention from the beginning that they will receive the message in this music - audio - mushroom - style - & literally feel their heart, their mind, their life altered. That said, a piece of me - if I’m honest - does hope that people experience ACOWKOM with headphones on, in a supremely safe space, altered by some plant-substance, to experience it in its fullness. But again, if I’m honest, that’s the same piece of me that is scared that I haven’t made something good enough to experience sober.
-
Anyway, this thing is coming out on the 10th anniversary of when I started writing the first songs for it (May 20, 2019). I worked on the recordings for 7 years (mostly full-time, learning how to play most of the instruments & produces as I went along), & have started writing a new album now, which is probably-but-hopefully-not another 10 years off completion. Don’t let the word out, but I’ve never been a big blog fan. I have followed your journey for a long time though. I feel it is the most genuine & connecting & least superficial piece of musical internet I have come across in my years kissing blog-ass. I sincerely respect what you’ve been doing, & I’ve always loved writing letters.
I hope these sounds move you, & I hope that - if you choose to share - all this work of yours & mine adds true value to any who come across it.
Thank you for your time & ears & heart & mind.
Blessings,
Timothy James Ferson
AKA OM Collective
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
Simon Lee - My Daughter
/ I get a lot of people sending me music that they write as a way to process. A tool to help normalize their life after trauma, and it helps mitigate the stress after a life-changing event. When I got this Letter from Australian musician Simon Lee, I was first struck by the calm he sounded. While he doesn’t use many words here, his story is powerful and deep and full of love. From his peaceful music to his straight-forward words, I’d love it if you could thank him. Listen to his song while you read his thoughts here. Also… wombats!?
Hi Mark,
I spent my early years playing in bands as a drummer, working with Australian indie bands and musicians such as Mckicko, Fur and Tom Cooney.
In June 2017 I got in my car for a 10 hour drive to visit a friend who was selling a vintage Rogers drumkit his Grandfather had left him. I decided to drive through the night and left home at midnight. At about 2am I was speeding along the highway on a stretch of road in the countryside when a large wombat suddenly walked onto the road. I swerved to avoid it and lost control of the car.
The car rolled and ended up crashing somewhere off the road, my body was propelled outside of the vehicle, and I found myself laying face down in the bush.
At that time I couldn’t remember what had just happened. It was like waking up from a dream. I was in the dark looking up at the stars, trying to work out where I was and what had happened, I wasn’t in any pain, but I couldn’t move my body.
At this point, I started to panic and had to pray to calm myself down, fortunately a truck driver saw my car and stopped.
The accident broke my neck, damaged my spinal cord and left me with my body paralyzed from the upper chest down.
After 6 months of hospital and rehab I returned home and continued to practice with some sticks and a drum pad, trying to keep my hands in shape while hoping to regain movement in my lower body, but eventually I decided to let it go.
I have always wanted to do more songwriting, and have found the process really fulfilling, so in some ways it has been a change for the better.
Living with a spinal cord injury is hard, especially in the early stages, however, I am fortunate in that I have had a lot of support from my family and friends, particularly my wife and three kids.
I have included the track “My Daughter” which was inspired by my children’s pure childlike hearts.
I hope you enjoy it.
Simon Lee
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
.wendil - Maturity
/ Man, I love getting letters from far away (for me) places. Hearing music happening in those spots of the globe makes me feel connected. I realize how similar all our human lives really are, and how they are shaped together. And isn’t it wonderful how we can speak to one another through song?
Hello from the cacophonous streets of Metro Manila, Mark!
I hope this letter finds you well.
First off, I wanted to thank you for picking up this letter from the thousands you must receive everyday. It’s nice to be noticed, and I’d been feeling very small lately, and quiet, like a whisper beneath a tempest.
I don’t talk much, or at least I am not as vulnerable as society dictates you should be at my age. I’m in my early 20s, and I don’t use social media as much as I should. I think it is loud, and over here, it is a place where people talk and talk over each other and never listen. I’d rather not add to that!
But taciturn as I am, I do have a lot to say.
How does one deal with telling a tired story over and over again through reassuring smiles and halfhearted sympathies? By translating them all from my written journal to an EP release, of course. At least, that’s what I did this past year and a half.
(I hope you don’t mind me being a little open and honest in this letter!)
My journey as a musician officially began 2018 after witnessing my father’s passing due to a long and hard struggle with cancer. The year prior was an uphill climb, with me returning to college to complete my thesis and graduate (dad’s last wishes), and juggling different jobs to help keep us afloat. My parents are local film, theater, and TV actors, and the publicity that came with our trying times did a number to us a family.
Now, when you come from a background like that, it’s honestly hard to know who to trust and differentiate who wants to be your friend because of the connections. (I do my best to stay positive and kind, and truth be told, I’d been burned a few times back then–trust me! I’ve learned since that one can remain kind and open-hearted, but firm!) But in a fleeting environment like that, it was music that kept me together. The sounds from my diverse playlists would reassure me that I was not alone.
Before my dad passed, he told us all that life was beautiful, short, and something that was worth fighting for, no matter how hard it could get. And I took those words with me, held them fast, and realized that my own personal anxieties were but a split second in this vast wonderful lifetime that I’ve been allowed to experience.
So I started to write. I turned old journal entries, poetry and essays into music. I composed melodies, harmonies, and when I would conceive a song, I could hear the whole production in the air around me. In the silence, I could hear every single instrument, from the loudest crash to the smallest unnoticed bubble sounding synth you could only notice if you really listened.
Music became my healing point, in another form, where this time, I was creating the sound I needed, rather than seeking comfort in what I could find. A year’s effort later (a very emotional year at that), with the help of my partner and music producer (who goes by Memoryville) I have completed my first EP as .wendil entitled “Nighttime Fire” to symbolize the moments in the silence of the night that keep you awake, alone, and alive.
Make no mistake though, the music may have been born from the death of a loved one, but it is a project that celebrates truth, the validity of emotion, love and life! It feels like this long chapter of my life has come to a gracious end, with its lessons and memories, and I’m grateful and hopeful that despite everything, it will come together beautifully.
I’ll be releasing it this May 24 (Philippine time, of course) and I’ll be holding a party with other wonderful local musicians who have been nothing but supportive this entire journey! I wish I could invite you from all the way over there, but instead I’ll be sending you a digital copy of my EP, if you’d like! I want to share what I’ve written with as many people as I can, because I hope that one day it will be able to help someone, like music has helped me all this time.
Anyway, that’s all there is to say from quiet little me. I wanted to thank you again for giving us artists this platform to speak our personal truths, even if we feel that sometimes no one can hear or listen. You are an amazing individual and I hope you continue to do what you do!
Love and light from the wanderer,
Mika (.wendil)
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
Good Night Gold Dust - Second Moon
/ Stories like songwriter Laura Schultz’s note to me - life, death, an artist journey - permeates this record as it seems to create elementally personal inflections for her. I’m interested in how music and death find these paths together, but particularly the way in which tragic sudden deaths happen to influence a song writer’s work. I want to call it powerful, but sometimes, an artist needs to simply say it out loud; to recognized how it makes things feel better. Not that it’s always happier. It’s not. It’s sad and difficult. But still, there’s a spot of light within finding a place for reflection and for moving on.
Hey there, Mark!
I’m Laura, from Minnesota-based band Good Night Gold Dust. Thank you so much for featuring our song, “Waves” off of our first album a few years back! I’m happy to announce that we’re releasing a new album, and the first track is called “Second Moon”.
I wrote this song in the guest bedroom of our 111 year old home in Southern Minnesota, looking out on the hundred-plus year old maple trees, fallen leaves and the exposed foundation of some long-forgotten structure in the backyard woods. It was nighttime, mid-winter. The crickets were absolutely screaming through the nine windows of this second story sunroom and the wind made the old trees moan as their branches swayed. It was beautiful.
I told myself I’d write a song that night, and this is what came out. A friend died in 2012 and I’m still writing songs about her. It’s amazing and sick how grief comes in waves, how much it can take you by surprise, knock you out completely out of nowhere.
I wrote this song thinking about her, wishing things could have been different. Maybe I could have done or said something. Maybe I couldn’t have. Maybe someone else could have. And most of all, if Charlotte, robust and alive, all fantastic songs and unexpected guitar parts and cleverness, could have died like this, then anyone could.
She and I had played in a band together in Wisconsin just a year prior to her death. When I moved to Minnesota we formed new bands and kept playing together. She had her own amazing band and mine was just getting started, finding its footing. My boyfriend/co-bandleader and I looked up to the easy camaraderie she and her band mates shared. We loved their music. We thought we’d go on tour together, sing on each other’s songs at our next show together, keep drinking red wine and joking and playing.
Right after I found out, I talked on the phone with one of our old band mates from our first band together and he said, “Jesus, Laura. It could have been you. What if it was you?” It wasn’t me. But it could have been. That’s the tragedy. It could’ve been any of us, but it wasn’t. It was her.
Laura
Got a story to tell? Submit them via Letters to YVYNYL.
// Letters to YVYNYL //
Mellow Daze - Dear Friend
/ The letter I received this spring from Ben Knight, the bassist and keys player in this band based in Melbourne, Australia had me transfixed. I can relate to his story, that of fear and anxiety. His use of music as his healing mechanism sounds right at home here, an I know that sharing things like this publicly is hard work and a huge jump towards feeling better. I’m proud of him. Have a listen to his music while you read his thoughts:
Dear Mark,
I would like to start this letter off with a trigger warning for people with anxiety. This is a story that I’ve never shared with anyone, and it is my hope that its telling will inspire optimism in otherwise lost situations and demonstrate the healing power of music.
In May last year, someone close to me received a false positive cancer diagnosis. It looked bad. She was really sick—4 straight days in bed, with the curtains drawn and the lights out. I went to university, to work, to life. People made conversation, but they were just infomercials. Informercials selling a product I was getting tired of. And what scared me, just like when my grandmother had a seizure and I walked out of the room, wasn’t her condition. It wasn’t the future. It was my selfishness.
Not once had I grieved for her, or empathised with how she was feeling. The only thing my stupid fucking brain could muster up was ‘why me? why now? how could this be fair?’ I loathed myself, and I loathed myself for loathing myself. But as soon as it had begun, it was over. The illness, the positive test results, the days locked inside a hallucination: all a medical coincidence. There was no cancer. Her ghost flickered a wisp, not spoken but omnipresent, and left her room. But its job was not done. It slid through the cracks of doors, prowling from room to room, setting up residence inside my head.
It gnawed, bit and spat, desperate to make its presence felt.For 6 months, I knew I had cancer. The nodes on my neck—unobtrusive peas meant to protect your body’s system from harm—became my fear. My crux. My obsession. Every ten minutes I would feel them in their enlarged state and start to shake. I was a prisoner of my own ridiculous assumption. Every day I would spend hours researching cancer—what was chemo like, what are the signs of lymphoma, what are the odds that I would get lymphoma?
I ran the math. I saw doctors, loved ones, friends. They would all tell me that nothing was wrong. But I couldn’t believe them. Something was wrong. The panic was the worst.
There’s a saying—most people only have to die once. People with panic disorder die every day. That’s the simplest way of describing what it felt like during those 6 months. I thought each day might be my last. Every cough, every headache, every night I woke up with sweat literally staining through my sheets—my first thought was I’m going to die. My heart would pound to the point where it felt as though it might simply combust. My mind would scream at me: 'this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, I am dying, I am going to be dead’.
I was singing out of tune, trapped inside the climax of a terrible movie.It was after the fifth month of this depersonalised state when I started writing about it. Writing as myself was impossible—but portraying my anxiety as an outside character’s experience it became much less a project of expressing fear and one of acceptance. Even if this character was the only person in the universe to go through what I was going through, at least I was not alone.And as the song started to resolve, so too did everything else.
The world began to make sense again. I opened the door to my friends, who bared their own ghosts to me and told me how they exorcised them. I wondered how any of it could be fair. But now I know. It isn’t. Though that’s a cliche—and so is much of this letter—life is full of 'em so there’s no point fighting it.
Don’t waste time on fear. Fuck fear. Once we have nothing to fear, all we have left is to love. Well, that and to make music.
Ben
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// Letters to YVYNYL //
AKITA - Paul Rudd
/ I have been looking through my wildly over-full email inbox today. I think it’s high time that I start putting more of these up for all of you to read (and hear). Here’s something I was just listening to while reading a Letter from Patrick Buckley in North Carolina. This Letter caught my attention, and while I’m not a huge modern funk listener, I can appreciate the drive of people using it as a process not only to get up and fuckin’ #DANCE, but also, to use it as a community builder. Get those dance parties thriving, people!
Hi Mark,
I started opening this email to write yet another submission to another music blog and then got sidetracked reading one of the letters you’ve received and it totally changed my mind and approach.
I initially read the most recent story you posted and then another, and another, and another. I have never seen the curator of a music blog put as much time into personalizing their platform as you have and it is extremely inspiring. To see someone taking that much time to invest in their audience is amazing. To be honest I initially was going to use a basic approach and include all the right links and info for our upcoming EP release, include pictures, etc., but then started thinking…well, why am I submitting this? I have gotten so caught up in the BUSINESS side of music that I have started practicing my craft less, listening to music less, learning about new music less and everything else that I started wanting to perform for and learn about music for in the first place.
Everything I’ve been working towards just got questioned at once when I opened this email to send and it made me sad honestly. I don’t want to do anything else in life but perform and create good music for good people. It is so much to keep up with sometimes I think about stopping it all, but then I play to a favorite track or come up with a groove I’ve never heard or played before or hear a new song or new sound I’ve never heard and it keeps me going. I built this project from the ground up as the visionary and band leader and can’t believe the traction we’ve made in such a short time, but I find myself always stressed out focusing on the business side so much. The other band members do help, but there are simply too many subject areas for them to all learn that I’ve already become knowledable in and a lot of time I just take on the work. I’m trying to get better at delegating but just not good at it yet.
I guess a lot of what I’m saying is really a question. How do you manage everything with the blog and still have time to research new music and enjoy life and have other hobbies, etc.? I’m 31 and have a little girl who will turn 2 in October so that adds added stress and difficulty to most situations. She means the world to me though and I’m trying to set the best example I can for her and show her that, look, if you go for what you believe in and really work hard and make yourself known to the right individuals and become smart with what you’re doing, you actually CAN do what you love doing for a living. I just don’t want her to look back at my career when she is 11 or 12 and see that when she was born I quit pursuing music.
I want to be the living embodiment of that example for her and try to instill that stubornness in her to go after what you want in life with all your energy and passion. On the flip side, I know that if the band keeps up our traction and progress that within the next 2-3 years we will be on the road a lot which means that much more time away from her and my wife and as exciting and fun as being on the road is, that scares me. Will she resent me from that? Will she miss me, be mad with me, ignore me when I’m back? All those things scare the shit out of me but I don’t think there is much I can do about all that until the time comes.
I guess writing this and taking time to reflect on things has made me realize I just genuinely want to enjoy people and the world and for people to enjoy me and the world. I think that’s why I love funk music so much. It is 100% about fun, energy, enjoyment, smiling, dancing, all the great things in life and that’s the feeling I want to be able to give to other people.
Thanks so much for everything you do. It is motivating and I sincerely mean that. After getting that out the submission seems almost futile, but if YOU want to listen to the music I would love so, regardless of reviews or any of that other stuff. I just want the songs to hopefully improve your day personally.
It drops everywhere May 15th.
Thanks so much Mark,
Buckley
Got a story to tell? Submit them via Letters to YVYNYL.
// Letters to YVYNYL //
Nate Funk - I Didn’t Earn Enough Punk Points for this Tour
/ This letter popped up in my email today and while I’m not a huge pop-punk fan, I can appreciate his sentiments he shared with me in this letter. The stresses, anxieties and rewards of being an American high school music teacher can be daunting. Nate Phung writes about his experience and the ways in which he keeps the vibe alive in his personal journey in music.
Read on while you listen!
Hi Mark,
I’m a high school band- and orchestra teacher. It’s a gig I love, but it comes with building a high-strung “Type A” personality- when I work, I stay busy and I just keep going and going and going. Most people leave the work at work; I have a tendency to take my work home with me- both work in the sense of the busy, clerical work and work in the sense of worrying about my students and their well-being and ability to perform. I can admit that I can be unhealthily selfless in what I do as a teacher.
When I’m not working, I try to play and write as much music as I can to get all that energy out and to really create my own “bubble” to express myself. I play…
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