New Release: "Object Language"

Today I have a new album out called “Object Language.” It’s a digital release through We All Speak In Poems, clocking in at 49 minutes across 9 tracks. Thank you to taylor deupree for mastering, and to Brady & Matt at WASIP for coordinating all aspects of the release and distribution.

The irony of a snowy cover photo for an album released on the hottest day of the year.

According to Discogs records and my own hazy memory, this marks something close to 50 albums/EPs/collaborations released across 5 or 6 monikers/projects over the last 20 years - which means more than half my lifetime has been spent releasing music, backed by at least another 10 years of silent, non-published practice when I was learning to make music at all. Back in 2006, my then-high school classmates and I burned 50 copies of a demo CD for our jam band called “The Company” and shared it around the hallways of Dulaney High School to anyone willing to listen. In those days we actually still hung up posters to advertise shows, and sold physical, paper tickets to performances at places like the Recher Theatre, 8x10 Club, Fletcher’s Bar & Grill, etc…all since shut down or reconverted. Perhaps even more astonishing, this actually worked, and we could actually convince/count on people to come to said shows.

Those were simpler, phone-free times. But the lessons and experiences really stuck with me: the importance of practice, working hard, studying, rewinding the CD to try to copy that riff again, figuring out where to place a mic over the drum kit in the basement, honing a craft, making mistakes in front of other people, and taking chances on the way to discovering what you truly care about. All very cliche and obvious, sure, and I hate to sound like an old man yelling at the clouds, but I really do think this is the most beautiful and rewarding aspect of creative practice - the continual, accretive, experiential process of learning to say something to your own satisfaction. There’s no other way around it: learnings and experience accrue slowly, project by project, mistake by mistake, and every creative act ends up advancing all the ones that came before it. This is what art and life are all about.

Twenty years of that accumulation went into this album. It’s almost shocking to me that anyone would want to take a technological shortcut past all of this. The long process of learning is the richest and most rewarding part of making anything.

It’s remarkable to look back on how different those times were, and in a lot of ways, I’m pretty bummed about where we are now. Throwing a digital album into the ether can feel a bit meaningless in the scheme of things. Slop, shortcuts, and shallow, monetized “wellness listening” vibes abound. I’ll admit that I’m not immune to feelings of nihilism about releasing music nowadays and I have to fight a lot of cynicism and ick around self-promotion. I’m sharing but one drop of creativity into an ocean of content that very few people have the time, attention, or money to invest in.

But in a moment of serendipity this morning, just as I was thinking about what to even say about sharing another album, I read a fantastic piece from Jun Chou for The Creative Independent on the value of action, choice, and intention:

If no one owes anyone anything, how wonderful when we choose to do good anyway? And if I accept nothing matters in the long term, my focus shifts to this moment. There is a freedom to this insignificance. A beauty to the dark sky’s indifference. In spite of entropy, artists toil over temporary beauties. Lovers embrace in crumbling buildings, under napalm-soaked skies. We speak. We write. We do language.

…and we make noise. So, here it is. “Object Language.” Nine tracks that, in my head at least, are the product of twenty years of learning. The next one will be even richer with even more time and experience behind it.

You can read about the finer details and motivations in this prior post:

Object Language

Thanks, as always, for listening!