Pastel Hell - Drugs For Function

Excellent single off debut Endless Righteous Mourning LP due out August 18th 2017.

premiere: Pastel Hell - Each Day We’re Slain

// Letters to YVYNYL //

Pastel Hell - Love & Dementia

 / Bending a song’s tempo within itself will also bend its mood. The work of Alex Fox Tschan dissociates itself within each phrase it makes. In this song, the character is looking at a woman who “runs a lifestyle blog, which means she does nothing at all.” The ultra modern references in that oh-god-I-hate-myself sort of self loathing makes his work is more complicated than it at once appears. Let it soak, let it marinate a bit before you trust the story. And let his letter tell you more.

Hey Mark,

Hope you’ve been having a great summer man. Just wanted to drop a line about retiring Lunifred Benjamin. It does’t mean what it used to & it had gotten quite tiring to preface/spell-out each damn time I was asked. Plus, Pastel Hell sounds like the new tunes I’m making & it fits with my general sardonic blonde vibe I guess…

I just finished an EP on Friday. It’s 5 songs & is available on the links below. A video & full LP are coming… I always tend to keep relatively silent about sharing my personal life. I prefer to let the music speak for itself because the lyrics are very honest & autobiographical.

That said, I appreciate how you’ve always been on the lookout for the substance & context surrounding the music. I want to share some of the bullet points (dark impending pun not intended) with you. I owe that much to ya after you were so kind to pump me up from obscurity almost 2 years ago.

I’m from very rural Virginia & was raised by my father (who is from Philly & went to Lower Merion btw). My mom is a beautiful soul whom I’m very much like, but she is also bipolar.

I’ve made original music since I was 14 but it sucked until college. Possibly because at Virginia Tech I lost a couple friends, & nearly lost a best friend, to what was still the largest mass shooting in America until Orlando… but that event was also the thing that woke me up and made me more vibrant & grateful. But it also significantly scarred me in a way I did not realize until years later. I stayed in Blacksburg another year, then moved to NYC in 2009 with my band, The House Floor (all Virginia Tech folks like my good buds in Wild Nothing).

Somehow The House Floor got on All Songs Considered within 3 months of living here. Then in 2010 we got courted by Secretly Canadian for a while. We even made it out to Bloomington to meet them, but I was having a tough time emotionally & was abusing pills then. I ended up getting into a drunken argument out there with the main guy Chris. Still so ashamed to this day of that era in my life, but he is a gracious dude & we’ve remained pen pals over the years. I think he could tell I was not myself during that visit. I ended up breaking up that band in early 2012 because I wanted to try some different things. But we had a good run! One rad LP & shows with Mr. Twin Sister here and War on Drugs down in Virginia.

For nearly a year in 2012-2013 I lived in the back of my car after a bad break up. I was a casual cocaine user from 2010-2012, but became a heavy daily user eventually. That lasted WAY too long… until I got pulled over for a DUI in May of 2013. Thankfully & very luckily no one was hurt. But that shameful event may have saved my life. Whatever aggregating depression that I wasn’t acknowledging from all the aforementioned shit finally caught up to me. I got sober & sorted my life out after that. I think/hope I’ve finally dealt with the things I needed to, because nowadays I can drink & confront tragedy without getting pulled back into old habits.

I hope that my music sounds like it’s coming honestly from the person above. It’s the only thing in the world (other than bartending apparently) that i’m pretty good at. I thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoy the new music. Thank you wholeheartedly, Mark. Be well, bubba. 

-Alex

Tell me a story at Letters to YVYNYL.