Update on Sleep & Relief Release Date

I've been having trouble mixing and mastering the latest LP which will be called Sleep and Relief. I have three albums ready for mixing and mastering and I'm focusing on getting Sleep and Relief out this month but I've run into some issues, some technical and others motivational.

On the technical side, I recently upgraded to a new M1 MacBook Pro and the impulse response plugin that I'd used on these sessions is not compatible with new Macs (still… what's the deal Lancaster Audio???) so I have to go back and replace it with a different impulse response loader and remember the settings I used for that cab sim. Okay, fine. Not the biggest deal but that brings me to my second issue which is mental.

Like almost everyone these days I struggle with bad anxiety which is exacerbated sometimes by my Bipolar 1 disorder. I go through periods of deep depression and times of mania. I have good doctors and am generally doing great with treatment but there's a fine line that's hard to walk with that treatment. Too much medication and you're an uncreative zombie and too little makes it so your symptoms get in the way of daily life.

I've dealt with some mania lately. Mania may sound like fun but it isn't. Imagine your body and mind being totally wired while your body just wants to sleep and is exhausted. That's where I was for a while.

Now I'm back at the mixing desk but it's been so long since recording that it's hard to figure out how I can improve the sound of the album. I don't want to EQ the tracks. I don't want to add compression or other finishing touches. I kind of like the raw nature of the recordings as they are now but I know the final product will stick out like a sore thumb in my back catalog and most listeners aren't forgiving when it comes to production quality. So I've been trying to mix the album. It's been going slow. I have a week where I don't need to go to work and can work on this so I'm hoping mixing and mastering will be finished by the 22nd and I can set the release date for June 26th.

I did try to mix one song today and I just wasn't feeling it so I gave up. I'll come back at it again tomorrow. It's tough to work on releasing a finished record while also recording new music.

The pandemic and working from home has given me an opportunity to work on music more often than I would have before. The downside to this is that it's difficult to make the music evolve in a way that doesn't make each release sound like a sequel to the last one. This is because when you don't have a lot of time to think between sessions you tend to carry over a lot of themes, ideas, and recording techniques from what you'd just finished. I'll talk about this in more detail soon.

Anyway, just wanted to give an update on where this new album is. Sleep and Relief will be out before the end of June and I hope to get Metastasis (which is an EP but will technically be classed as an LP because one of the songs is very long) will follow in late July. I may or may not release Field Recordings, which I recorded late last summer during August or September but we'll see how I feel about whether the music fits my vision for the album. And finally, I'm now working on new sessions I'm calling The Revelations Sessions. That record could come out just before fall but we'll see how detailed I get with the production and recording so it's possible that'll be one that comes out early next year. I'm also really interested in branching out and releasing music under a different alter-ego as an artist that's real weird and more experimental than usual. But first, I'll focus on what I've got ready now.

So to recap:

  • Sleep and Relief comes out in June 2021
  • Metastasis is slated for a July release
  • Field Recordings will come just before fall if I decide to release it this year
  • Revelation (working title) will be an early fall release if it flows well, otherwise it'll be a January 2022 release

So that's what's going on. The US may be recovering from COVID but our political, social, and economic problems are still not being addressed properly and this pandemic's second year is starting to wear on me.

If you want to help support me and encourage better production value and earlier release dates I'd appreciate it if you supported me through Bandcamp by purchasing any song or album you like. The new albums coming out this year will also be available as a physical release on cassette as well.

Looking forward to letting everyone hear what I've been working on since last summer. See you soon!

  • The Darph
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