#analogvibes

Upstate Zine

𝒃𝒚 𝑨𝒖𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒚 𝑫𝒐𝒚𝒍𝒆

𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎 : 𝒂𝒖𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒚.𝒂𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓

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I decided to make a gospel song, or at least my little version of a highbrow version of one. It was inspired by Corinthians 12:10: “When I am weak, then I am strong.”  When I was a kid, I’d always get into trouble because I had issues, and as punishment for my little outbursts, I would get beaten… but I’d also have to rewrite the bible in English and Spanish. Anyways, to make a long, traumatic story short, Corinthians 12:10 has always hit me in the chest like an ancestral dagger.

This song is a cathartic victimhood battle cry; a space for me to suffer unapologetically, on a psychedelic, lush landscape. I know there’s always going to be someone out there worse off than me, but at this moment in time, I’m having the worst day of my life. I look back at my life and realize how awful it has been for me, whether it’s been my fault or not. I think strength shouldn’t be associated with victories because, for most of us, strength is found through our survival despite surrender. I want to be a victim without the stigma of surviving because at least I know I pushed through.

The productions lean heavily into Musique Concrete; It’s not about perfection, it’s about presence, it’s about being alive, embracing noise, while saturating the beauty. When I started making this song, I didn’t want to glorify conquering pain because it always leaves a stain on your painting and a clipping noise on your audio. Instead, I wanted to celebrate the act of standing 10 toes down in the eye of the storm and saying, “I’m not strong, I am weak.”  And letting the orchestra just rain on me. The song is aggressive, but soft and psychedelic, C#m1210.

Anyway, here's a picture I took of me last night