Melody's Gay Zone

over the last like, 5 years, i've been chipping away at songs for a new EP. and while i'm prepping ton release it this week (probs tuesday if only so it can be on nice day lmaog), i feel... weird, knowing that i'm releasing something unfinished. and i don't mean in the usual "oh art is never truly finished" because yes, that still applies to 3/5th of the EP, there are parts that are very literally unfinished. and that's ok? and also kinda the point of the whole thing.

all of these songs have been made at very different times during my transition, both when it was mostly in private, and after coming out more explicitly. and while i've struggled with actually finishing things for a long time, the last few years, and this last year particularly, have been extra rough. this left a couple songs in limbo long enough that i kinda just... got to the point of being happy with them in their unfinished state.

my transness is a part of every song on the EP, whether it's in name mixed with the joy i was feeling, or grieving someone who gave me hope while i was still in the closet, these last 2 songs were me specifically exploring that journey. they're also 2 parts of the same song. it started as this moody build up, slowly gaining more confidence, more energy. it hits the point where i feel some actual fucking joy, when i finally start not just feeling comfortable, but liking myself. shits tough. shit was tough. but i made it, and continued to find more joy. but the brick wall waits, and the last bits of my life finish imploding. and i don't know how to finish the song. i try, but the only ideas i have don't fit. the joy was gone. i don't think i even went back to do cleanup or last tweaks to the mix. in fact i know there are good tweaks i made that are effectively lost (they aren't really, i have the project files). i have 11 WIPs exported. number 9, which was bounced last april, is U4IA.

but some of the ideas were good, so i moved them to their own project file, for what i jokingly wanted to call U4IA part 2. except it really wasn't that, which is why its last render got renamed from U4IA_2_wip04 to DYS4IA. it's a lot more moody, but not in the same ways as the start of U4IA. part of me knows there was more i could have explored in it, while all of me wishes there wasn't. it's a song that exists because of the pain of having to stop HRT (can't afford it and provincial insurance doesn't cover it). i... won't get into the details in this post, but it was fucking rough. but i guess there was one evening where i felt like working with those ideas i cut out. i've tried to go back to working on it, but there's nothing. the pain is still there, though thankfully less crushing recently, but it doesn't feel like there's anything to add. at least not anything that wouldn't have to be a part 3 which lol, lmaog. so it too just, ends. echoing off into eventual silence.

and so just like transition, this EP won't ever really be finished. sure some parts may be, but others still have their rough edges exposed, and their next parts will have to be told some other time. because even when i'm scraping along rock bottom, i know it can't last forever. but i'm still proud of every song on this EP, finished or not. they're absolutely my favourite songs i've made. i listen to them a lot, and wanting to be able to share them openly (instead of passing around MP3s on discord or on stream), especially during pride month has been pushing me to finish up things like the album art (spoiler: that's going to be the "temp" mockup i did because i like its charm, and at this point "in progress" is the theme of the EP) so that i can finally hit publish on bandcamp.