demo 11 in depth talk

my last post about demo 11 wasn't that insightful because at that time I didn't feel like organizing my thoughts to talk in depth about the album, but now here it is:

also I've spent the last few weeks traveling so I haven't been able to work, but now that I'm  back I have a lot of work to do. if you're doing a split with me this is still in the works  demo 11 waas released in 2016 compiling songs that I never released from 2015. I don't exactly remember why I called it "demo 11" but the 11 was probably refering to 2011, which was a magical emotional year for me, and in some ways the songs reminded me of 2011? this doesn't seem that right though. I know for a fact that I enjoyed the "demo" classification because of the atmosphere it puts the music in. there's something magical about pure, infiltered versions of songs, which is what I imagine demos usually are. I've always been more inclined to hear what the "demo" version of a song sounded like before a band went into the studio to "properly" record it. it usually always carries a much more raw sentiment and atmosphere. this also makes me enjoy the idea of an artist simply releasing a "demo". in the case of sadness, all of the music is "demo" version, the mix and recording quality is always terrible, and the songs are never rerecordings, so it m9ight not seem like it makes sense to randomly add a "demo" to my discography in the middle, but there was sommething about it that I really liked. this album isn't less complete than others, or less valid or less perfected, it just simply wears "demo" like a beautiful clothing outfit which adds for me a really nice emotional dimension to the whole body of work. an album is more than just the music, it's also the way it presents itself. its format, the artwork, the liner notes, even how the music was uploaded or distributed. again I don't remember where the 11 came from, but part of me thinks it's eluding to how beautiful it would have been if i Had released a demo in 2011., I had every emotional capacity to make a lot of meaningful music back then but I never really recorded anything, I was too busy living my personal life. the album cover is not my image, but I did edit the saturation a bit to make it even more blue. I think this was one of those instances where I had seen the image first and it inspired me to make an entire body of work for it. for me the tonality of the sonngs and the emotion fit perfectly with the blue saturation, and the longing feeling of driving far away on a rainy day.

the first song "illembraced" (see other post for lyrics) is about how illembraced I felt. "illembraced" meaning not hugged, or held, or my personal sensation of feeling held was improper, or rather absent. the instrumental side of the song was recorded in march apparently (according to the session file) but part of me feels like it was more like july. I remember the guitar intro I recorded while visiting a family friend's house. I'm surprised this says march because I don't really remember recording it in march, but I guess my memory could be wrong. at first the session file name just said "sadness", "illembraced" came around august or september. in august of 2015 I had a personal encounter that would mark me for a very long time, and it wasn't necessarily positive, I was contantly hardbroken and in codependent pain (I talk a little bit about this in my post about abendfarben I made a while ago, I won't go into personal details) but the details aren't necessary to understand why I felt "illembraced". actually now that I think about it I think I came up with the title "illembraced" before august, in that case it refers to just how lonely I felt and how much I wanted love and how little it existed in my life (0% really). ACTUALLY yes I just confirmed because august 4 2015 I had written a document that was an idea for the tracklisting of the album, before any of that situation even happened. this confirms that "demo 11" isn't even a "compilation", I had planned this release entirely since summer of 2015, I just never released it until 2016 (some vocals on the last track). I'm going to include a screenshot of the document I had written. clearly I had plans to record an "intro" to the album but that never happened. I don't even know why I had that idea since for a long time now I've thought that "intro" and "outro" and "interlude" tracks are fucking stupid. when I remastered these songs in june, I wasn't able to remaster this one in the way I usually would. for some reason I lost the vocal recordings on this song, so even if I remastered the insntrumental, I wouldn't have any way to include the screaming. so I just remastered the original recording.

"untitled V" is what's listed in the screenshot as "rainy sad". the original file name for the garageband session was "more rainy melodic melancholy msic", quite literally because it reminded me of rainy spring weather and certain spaces and atmospheres associated with that. at least the insturmental is from may 14 2015 (9 pm to be exact). the song clearly as vocals but I don't remember writing any lyrics for this song, so it was most likely me just screaming with  no words attached. the imagery of this song does not warrant any redundant lyrics anyway, it's purely that special atmosphere of a rainy spring moment.
i isolated the vocal track to try and understand if I was saying anything at all, completely incomprehensible. I really don't think i was saying any words, but at one point I can clearly hear "something in the rain i feel is blue".. this must have been improvised

in my other post I talked about how I lost the lyrics to summer night. I talked about how I had written the lyrics on my old cellphone one day when I was driving through schaumberg illinois but that I couldn't find them anywhere. somehow it didn't occur to me to look for them literally in that very same cellphone which I still have. so here they are:

"summer night

lucidly sad in suicidal melancholy

of somber colours and a brooding wind

entrancing the heart

slowly falling sun

in a schaumburg forest avenue

desolately, loving her

what if a car hits me

so still, standing

the summer wind in perfect cradle of love

but I'm alone..."

reading this lyrics again for the frist time in years I'm surprised by how much I eluded to suicide. I don't remember actually feeling genuinely suicidal, but whatever. musically, as opposed to lyrically, the song feels like it has a much different sentiment. the song reminds me of 2011 actually, and the beauty in a "summer night" that I'm referring to is really inspired by the way i learned to feel summer nights in 2011. the whole song came from one night when I was walking outside, looking into the night sky and remembering certain 2011 moments, and longing for such a perfect summer night beauty. the music in the song is very emo too, everything I was in 2011. in september (after that situation I was talking about earlier) I wrote more lyrics to the song, with new context in my personal life. I intended this to be for the second half o the song, but I never recorded them for some reason, I don't know why, and so now the second part of the song is just instrumental. the lyrics would have been:
"summer night continuation:

It was the way she smiled when I kissed her

How I felt so loved and held…

Like I finally had someone…

but I’m crying now…

why did she have to go…………….."

for "abendfarben" see my other in depth post I already made https://www.patreon.com/posts/51226161

"von vorn anfangen" is german and in english it means "to start over" basically. this song is the reason (at least one of them) that i didn't release this album until july 2016 because that's when I finished the vocals on this song. you can find the lyrics on my previous post about demo 11. this song touches on the most important thought i had all the time at the time, which was nostalgic reflection on certain moments of my life, and my current moments, and how much I wish I could go back and do things differently. somehow I felt that there were moments so pure and perfect that I didn't approach, like i had only had a taste of what it would be like to live truly perfect moments, and I would never stop longing to feel something so beautiful again. all the love transmitted in this song is from nostalgic reference. I could imagine what it would be like to feel complete in that moment, spring 2015, if only i had had something, something other than myself. it was just wishful thinking, but a beautiful way to daydream nonetheless. I wrote the lyrics one day crouched in this beautiful hiding space in the forest on a late spring day. the original session name for this song was "Beauty", before the song had the von vorn anfangen concept, I just wanted to capture the beauty in a spring evening in 2015