Unless we do a reboot…Into The LoZverse, LoZ Afterlife, LoZ - The Dark Knight Rises.

The possibilities are endless, not to mention lucrative.

Reboot titles and any requests for such a franchise can be submitted below.

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Below is a segment of the choir arrangement, created by the brilliant Elliot Vaughan, for Last Diamond of Light. This is a layer that is a little clearer in the mix than the past stems I’ve published for Every Step of the Way and 1,000 but, at least for me, it’s a treat to hear the choir on it’s own. Especially when it is made up of the tremendous talents of Dani Fuentes, Dawn Pemberton and Khari McClelland. Goosebump inducing.

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For those of you that were able to attend LoZ in 4D you will have heard these choir stems in all of their glory. Alex Penney used them to great effect at the climax of his re-imagining, swirling them under, over and all around the warm bodies lying across the floor at Lobe Studio.

Listen to the album version below. This choir sections starts at 3:41.
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Love,
David

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As I said then, LoZ may very well be my “Wall of Sound” record.

In all of the layering Jonny and I did, some of the material we worked so hard on had to be felt more than heard.

So, let’s peel back a few layers and take a look at another section of another tune.

You can tune into some of these subtler details and then dive back into the album version to see if your ear picks up on anything new.

Stems

At the top of this publication is the guitar arrangement for the chorus/bridge of Every Step of The Way—a whole bunch of mes trying to rhythmically lock together into a funky ensemble that feels (hopefully) exultant.

The incredibly talented mix engineer Anthony Dolhai (who mixed both side 2 of Golden Future Time [track 5-7] and all of LoZ) opted in this section of the song for the warmth and familiarity of the synth strings, synths and layered vocals. A wise choice.

Listen to the album version below. This guitar arrangement start at 1:36.
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P.S. I have a Bonus Holiday Season video for you coming this Saturday. Something to get you warmed up for Christmas.

If you’ve ever wondered what a figgy is and why it ended up in your pudding you’re about to find out.

My co-producer, Jonny Tobin, and I spent a lot of time layering sounds to achieve this bigness. Maybe this was our “Wall of Sound” record.

In all of the layering Jonny and I did, some of the material we worked so hard on had to be felt more than heard. There is only so much one can bring a listener’s attention to in a single mix.

With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to pull out some of the lesser heard instrumental arrangements from LoZ so you can hear them in isolation. You can tune into some of these subtler details and then dive back into the album and see if your ear picks up on anything new.

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At first glance, this may seem like a music nerd deep dive.

It is.

But I also think this kind of listening can bring an added richness to the music. After hearing the isolated string arrangement on Michael Jackson’s Rock With You for the first time the song glowed with new grandeur for me.

Maybe this seems a little navel-gazey, but we are living in a time when a record comes and goes in the blink of an eye. An artifact someone has spent years of their life on can disappear without anyone noticing. There is always something new (or something old) that we can switch our increasingly split attentions to with the swipe of our finger.

We spent many months (for me, years) on LoZ and I think it’s okay to stand up and be advocates for our work.

If nobody is leaking my stems, I may as well do it.

In my own life, I am progressively trying to slow down and re-visit to discover the depths I couldn’t possibly have waded into upon a first watch or listen.

So here is an invitation to slow down and listen a little closer.

Enjoy.

love,
David

Stems

At the top of this publication are the triumphant harmonized synth lines Jonny Tobin recorded for 1,000. In the mix we opted for the warmth of the vocal harmonies to take precedent but I love the way these synth lines weave and jubilantly sing together.

Listen to the album version below. These synths lines start at 0:35.
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I love a good merch item. I’ve got a collector gene buried in my makeup that, over the years, has been drawn to everything from baseball cards, to comic books, to vinyl. Music is a magnet for the collector. It carries the spark of excitement, adventure, joy, kinship, nostalgia and mystery that lights the fires for fan clubs and collectors. Why do you think I became a musician?

This sweatshirt is a collaboration between myself and local designer Sleepless Mindz, who did the cover art for LoZ, both the singles and the album.

Behold, the new LoZ sweatshirt. Not only is this item collectable, it’s wearable! 😮

I’m taking pre-orders now. The sweatshirt is $65 CAD + tax. If you want one, leave me a comment or shoot me an email at info@davidwardmusic.com. Let me know the size and colour (blue or white) you prefer.

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It is printed on a Gildan heavy blend crew neck sweater. I own a few of these sweaters. They are soft, cozy and perfect for summer evenings 😉

Printing merch is expensive. Especially when you’re not sure whether or not anyone is going to buy it and a year later you’re left with 50 branded sweatshirts, 36 keychains and 25 ornamental wine charms that your mother now begrudgingly stores in her garage.

So we are printing a limited run of 25 sweaters. As soon as we reach 12 pre-orders we’ll start production. We’re already at 6 from our last show. Get yours before it’s too late! Collect it, wear it, trade it.

*if you don’t live in Vancouver, Canada please account for $15-20 CAD extra for shipping.

This is the last of the Song Breakdowns for my album, LoZ. You can find all ten of them here. Thank you for taking the ride with me. I hope these added new shades of colour to your own picture of these songs. Although, I suppose I would be just as happy if you rejected them all together in the face of your own fully-formed interpretations. Once the music is put into the ears of others, it is no longer the creator’s to dictate, try as they might.

So, here is my last interpretation for you to take or leave…

Pink Yellow Moons is about "vacation love"—the kind of love that is free of the burden of daily obligations. The kind of love where there is nowhere to be and nothing pressing that needs tending to. Where the days stretch out before you and time is of no concern. It is love that smells like the mellowed sweetness of tropical fruit and the milky fragrance of sunscreen. It is warm nights with an ocean breeze and it is the early morning sun sweeping its golden robes over the day ahead.

A Snapshot

In a small town in southern Mexico sits an open air restaurant where we watched the stars up through the frame of four concrete walls adorned in red tinsel hearts. 

Local beauty queens waved from behind paper palm trees, gracefully steadying themselves on parade floats wheeled down rutted roads.

Distorted speakers blared the crackled enthusiasm of a rhinestone cowboy.

There was music and dancing, deep fried desserts and barbecue-charred snacks,

There was my hand on yours, your mouth on mine, the ending of the day,

Time did turn upon its head and moments overlapped,

I lost myself to love.

❤️ dW 

Listen to Pink Yellow Moons

🎵 MUSIC

Jonny Tobin improvised the intro to this song before we started the take. It always astounds me how fluid he is in his creativity. We’ve used this ascending figure in every live show since.

Drums 🥁  

We had trouble getting the drums right on this one. Originally, I had asked my drummer Sam Cartwright to model his pattern on a rehearsal recording I had heard of the WCGD collective doing a cover of the Delphonics, La La Means I Love You. I loved what Sam came up with, and when we did it live it worked beautifully. But now, sitting in the context of an album that was created  to make people dance, it felt too “jazz,” for lack of a better descriptor. We needed something with a clearer back beat. So Jonny programmed the beat for the first half of the tune and as the outro slides into focus Sam switches gears and his heavy groove is what carries us out.

If you’re interested in hearing the difference in the two drum patterns drop a comment, let me know, and I can show you in the next post.  

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Lyrics

I wonder why
The early morning light grows softy where it touches upon her face
I can’t say why
Time did turn upon its head and moments overlapped

I lost myself to love

Love like paper palms and beauty queens, shooting stars and the heat that seals me to you
Love like tinsel red and astro green, fireworks and a float of pink yellow moons
Me and you

I wonder why
She talks just like the movies that she says she’s never seen
Given time
I’m seeing double in the dark, my memories crumble

I lost myself to love

Love like southern waves, salted skin, timeless days and the heat that seals me to you
Love like undertow and draping golds, coffee cream and a float of pink yellow moons
Me and you

Baby be mine

Take me to the place I never knew
And I’ll bring down the moon just to look at you
In this light I see it in your eyes
Pink and yellow beams of love she can’t disguise

Baby be mine
Baby be mine
For all of time
Baby be mine

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The album opener; the voice of American author George Saunders. For those of you that have been loyally reading Adjusting the Dial it will be no secret that George has quickly become one of my favourite storytellers, a mentor of sorts, and admitted man-crush (I’ve begun self-monitoring the amount of time I talk about George to my wife). 

I reached out to George to ask if he would let me include a recorded excerpt from his commencement address to Syracuse University's class of 2013 on my album. I felt his address perfectly encapsulated the main thrust of what I was trying to say with LoZ. To my delight he said yes. He even took the time to say he thought the piece I wrote around his speech excerpt “sounded lovely.” Boo ya. 

At the end of a short chain of gracious emails, he finished with a simple wish for me—a reminder of why one gets into the arts in the first place; a north star that often gets buried behind a billow of clouds the harder we try to make a career out it:

“I hope getting the album out is pure fun.” George

I have tried to keep “fun” at the forefront of my mind as I share this record with as many people as I can. Thank you for that, George.

Listen to That Luminous Part of You

🎵 MUSIC

This all came out pretty quick while experimenting with a new synthesizer I was gifted. It is always amazing to me the multitude of creative pathways that open up when I work with a new instrument; a new form of expression. Whether it’s a different guitar, or a machine I have absolutely no proficiency on, something unexpected usually creeps to the fore. 

Bonus Saunders quote:

“Kindness is the only non-delusional response to the human condition.”  

I think about this one almost daily.

I thought it might be a good idea to break this song down as it serves as the spiritual centrepiece, if you will, for LoZ - an immersive re-imagining in 4DSOUND, happening this Sunday at Lobe Studio. Spatial Sound Designer Alex Penney has captained the ship on this kaleidoscopic auditory adventure and being a part of it has moved me to no end. There will be three showings in Vancouver, Canada this Sunday. I highly recommend you come out to experience this.

Tickets for the 4D Experience

And now, on to the song…

The title.

I think it is possible to live 1,000 lives in a single lifetime. That’s a number that’s less exact than it is punchy to sing. Other words I’d include in the punchy-to-sing category: “girl,” “yeah!,” “feel,” “take,” “blood,” “hot,” “ow!,” “back”…it’s not an exhaustive list, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Beyond the seismic changes in career, geography, and relationships that can feel like the delineation of a “lifetime,” I believe that by simply paying attention and remaining curious 1,000 lives can richly unfold before us in our everyday circumstances. Even that which is typically seen as mundane can open up if we ask the right questions and pay close enough attention. Difficult in practice, but I find when I can summon my powers of attention away from the daily brain scramble of information flow that this is starting to be my own experience.  

American author George Saunders created a beautiful visual representation of the many selves we contain in his novel Lincoln on the Bardo. When the lost souls populating his version of the bardo are finally freed they explode into a blinding timeline of all their former selves. I’ve included a passage from the book below. You’ll notice I’ve used a couple of Saunders’ images in 1,000. 

Christian Marclay’s meditative 24-hour film collage, The Clock—a montage of thousands of clips sampled from movies and television series demarcating, minute by minute, a 24-hour loop—and, Zadie Smith’s subsequent essay about it, also inspired this song in part.  

1,000 is a meditation on time—how much we have of it; how quickly it goes; how long it can stretch; how painful it can feel; how little we know of it; and, how much beauty can be grasped within its measure of our lives.

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“And there was nothing left for me to do, but go.

Though the things of the world were strong with me still.

Such as, for example: a gaggle of children trudging through a side-blown December flurry; a friendly match-share beneath some collision-tilted streetlight; a frozen clock, bird-visited within its high tower; cold water from a tin jug; toweling off one's clinging shirt post-June rain...

...Tying a shoe; tying a knot on a package…the feeling that there will always be a day ahead.”

― George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

🎵 MUSIC

I asked everybody who participated in the recording of this album to dictate a voice memo filling in the blank of “The time I _____.”

I loved receiving these—all of them unexpected; some of them ridiculous; every one thoughtful.  

“The time I ate ice cream for breakfast.”

“The time I said my last goodbye to you.”

“The time I first held my babies.”

“The time I learned it’s not the time, just a time.”

I am always grateful for the extra mile people will go to make something creative happen. I am fortunate in the generosity that has been extended to me within an artistic community I so deeply admire. 

I’ll share this audio montage with you in a follow-up post.

I hope you are doing well as we edge our way into autumn.

❤️ dW

I made LoZ for dancing.

Lyrically, much of the album is about reclaiming the parts of ourselves we bury out of fear.

I have mentioned both of these things here before, but I mention them again because Parade truly feels like the embodiment of both the latter and the former.  

This song is a celebration of individuality; of building back the parts of ourselves we’ve sanded down. It is about the strength in coming together to support one another—to collectively drum up the winds to make our freak flags fly!

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I use the term “freak” lightly here, and mostly because everybody loves a good freak flag flying. “Freak” is, of course, subjective. My version of “freak” will be different than yours, all of it based on a system of time and place-based conventionality conventionality. But the issue is, the spectrum of “freak” by which so many of us judge ourselves and each other is dangerously broad, and so are its social consequences. From the perspective of the person wading into “unconventional” waters there is the mortifying feeling of “People are going to stare,” to the ostracism of “I won’t be accepted,” to the physical threat of “I don’t feel safe.”

We are all essentially “freaks”—all different from one another, all flawed, all helplessly trying to make our way through this world with what we were handed in the way of genetics, family, friends, economic and social opportunity, belief systems (institutional, familial, or self-created), and emotional blueprints laid down since childhood! All of this difference is amazingly what makes us all the same.

“Freak” is only helpful when we can derive joy and power from the re-claiming and re-purposing of it, a la Freak Flags-a-Flying. As Hendrix sang in his anthem, If 6 Was 9, speaking to the counterculture of the ‘60s…

I've got my own life to live
I'm the one that's going to have to die
When it's time for me to die
So let me live my life
The way I want to, yeah
…I'm gonna wave my freak flag high, high
Wave on, wave on

Listen to Parade

🎵 MUSIC

Is it possible to listen to Darren Parris bass-slap at the end of this song and not want to booty-shake more fiercely than you ever thought possible? The answer is of course, no.

Also…

I have written only a few songs on the piano—this is one of them. 

I had entered full curmudgeon mode—my lower back ached, I was tired of the jostling crowd, and worried that someone would steal my backpack locked between the low-grade security system of my knees.

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I couldn’t seem to push any of this far enough to the side so that I could be swept away by the music. The stubborn, monkey-brained part of me had waved “bye bye” so that he could go have tea and cookies with the familiar company of his own ceaseless internal chatter.

We’ve all had hours, days, or months like this. We’ve also had days where we know what it feels like to be carefree, unencumbered, and present. Crystal Waters and Her Summer Sun is about edging our way on a daily basis towards the latter. The title is a metaphor for a place in which the things that don't serve us are quieted down to a passing whisper—one that we may still be able to hear, but isn’t loud enough to distract us from joy, from what is meaningful, and most importantly, from what is right in front of us.

🎵 MUSIC

There is an auditory illusion in the bridge of this song that sounds like it’s me singing. One of those happy accidents I’m not sure I have the musical vocabulary to unpack. Is it an overtone? A harmonic? Check it out…

Listen Now

…and then, comment if you think you’ve got the answer. I’d love to hear your theories.  

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photography Alexis Townsend | layout + design Catriana van Rijn | LoZ titling Sleepless Mindz

LoZ is officially out! Listen to it wherever you stream your music.

Listen to LoZ

Next week I will release a Song Breakdown for track 2, Crystal Waters and her Summer Sun.

If you’re in Vancouver, my band, Golden Future, and I will be celebrating LoZ’s release with a one hour concert where we will play the album from top to bottom. Thursday, August 4th, from 7 - 8 pm. at Guilt & Company, the underground nexus of this city’s soul scene. Tickets at the door.

If you’re in Seattle, my keyboardist Jonny Tobin and I will be celebrating the release with a more intimate show at the iconic Seattle mainstay, Sea Monster Lounge in Wallingford. Friday, August 5th at 9pm. We’ll be opening for the monster funk band F2D.

We’ve had some kind words come in for the album and for various songs from it which you can read here: Clout Magazine . Vancouver Sun . Pop Fad . Rising Artists.

I’m always drawn to a well written review (not concerning my own work, but that doesn’t hurt!). It opens up a new window to the work wherein I can start to see the shape and beauty of it a little more clearly.

And because I’ve talked a lot about this new album of late, I wanted to balance out the scales and offer up a few works of others I am enjoying.

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Amber Mark
I was enchanted by her Tiny Desk Concert. It takes place in an Italian restaurant on Cornelia street in New York City’s West Village—the same one she grew up in. Mark’s godparents own the restaurant, and Mark lives above it, as she has since high school. At the concert, her family and friends sit at a long wooden table three feet from the band, drinking wine and eating Italian fare, watching and listening to Mark perform a soulful and slinky set.

Rosanna - Toto
I’m a little late to the game with this one. It’s not as if I hadn’t heard the song. But on my most recent west coast tour I put it on heavy repeat. There is so much joy, creativity, and incredible musicianship on Toto IV, the album to which this song belongs. In its scope, grandeur, and exuberance, some of it—and I mean this in the best way possible—feels like theme park music. I give credit to Jonny Tobin for making that connection and I couldn’t agree more with it. You could play this at the gates to Disneyland and nobody would bat an eye.

I Got You - Lydia Persaud
I Got You came on the CBC (our Canadian public broadcaster) the other day and I felt immediately transported. Lydia uses her voice in a way I haven’t heard from singers in a while. She sounds like Roberta Flack, and in my mind, never overuses, or abuses her powers as a singer. After hearing the song I immediately looked her up and realized I had billed with her in Toronto many years ago when she was singing with another great group called The O’Pears.
*Bonus - One of my favourite guitar players, Christine Bougie, plays on Lydia’s new album.

Cash in Cash Out - Pharrell Williams
I walked around my apartment for days trying to sing the various samples and hooks on this record, effectively annoying my wife and then slowly but surely, getting her to do the exact same thing.

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Still from the video vignette for Twilight. No, that’s not a carrot I’m nosing up to. It’s a colourful broom handle I’m serenading.

The first song I wrote for this album.

It came out fast, lyrics first, as a kind-of stream of consciousness.  

To accept everything that comes out first, lyrically and musically, is not how I usually do things, and with this record in particular, I was more ruthless with editing. 

Somewhere during the creation of this album I started to employ a story-telling methodology I had recently come across: George Saunders’ “Positive/Negative meter.” George is the American author who narrates the first track on LoZ—That Luminous Part of You. If you haven’t heard of him, go check him out.  

George is also a teacher at Syracuse University. George asks his students to review their work and consider the following: “Watching the meter, where would the needle be? Be honest with yourself, and accept the result without whining. Then edit, so as to move the needle into the ‘Positive’ zone.” 

In other words, keep the reader engaged; interested; remove the waste.

I’m still learning to use this method but I have adopted George’s belief that the “result of this laborious and slightly obsessive process is a story that is better than I am in ‘real life’ – funnier, kinder, less full of crap, more empathetic, with a clearer sense of virtue, both wiser and more entertaining.” The Guardian.

Given the limited space in the traditional pop song format to pack your punch, this methodology has become all the more important to me.

That said, I suppose much of Bob Dylan’s work flies in the face of this. 

For every theory, a counter theory. Sigh. 

With Twilight I was pleased in how the lyrics initially appeared to me, so despite everything I have clattered on about above, I did a Bob Dylan and kept most of it in its raw form.

Scribbled on a legal pad, in a snowstorm, I wrote in a pattern that kept the key of the song consistently changing making it (as I embarrassingly discovered on a few shows) one of my most difficult songs to sing live.

The song is about the allure of “second skins”—the attempt to find oneself through the narrative of another. It is about separating what is helpful from what is not, in the myriad of lessons and lifestyles we are sold every day. 

Pre-Save LoZ

🎵 MUSIC

I love the recurring glockenspiel theme in these choruses. Jonny Tobin came up with that one and I think it lifted the song. It also feels like it puts it into a dreamy ‘50s pop song zone that I love.    

Listen to Twilight

photography Alexis Townsend | layout + design Catriana van Rijn | cloud design + layout Sleepless Mindz

My sister has struggled with anxiety and depression. I only write this because she said it was okay for me to share, and because she herself shares it openly with others. Her vulnerability in doing so is inspiring, and I see the difference it makes in others. I see people feeling understood, and less alone, and that is an incredible gift.

As the person watching someone they love so deeply suffer, I have felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness. I have also felt tremendous guilt over my own uselessness. And admittedly, while narrow-minded, and I think, natural, I have worried about how I may have contributed to her debilitating state.

The only thing I have come up with to combat all of these feelings is to start showing up on a consistent basis—to call; to text; to listen; and to love without judgement. This may be an imperfect solution, but until I graduate to another level of understanding, it’s the best one I have found.

For a long time I offered help in the form of: “If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out.” It is a form I have used in the past with many friends and family I have not known, or understood, how to support. I know there is value in it, but most recipients don’t reach out. Especially in the midst of depression. They can’t. 

My sister is great at hiding her depression. She is the light people are drawn to in any social gathering. She has a way of disarming, and then charming people with the adept use of a sense of humour that, if used by me, would get me murdered. She can call someone an asshole and have them simultaneously laugh while realizing that, regretfully, yes, they may be acting like an asshole. She can say things to people that shake them out of their daily stupor; that move them towards a sillier side of themselves; that get them to relax and open up. It’s a gift she continues to give while deeply struggling inside of herself.  

That’s her speaking at the beginning and end of this song. I asked her if she would contribute. I had originally written the words for the end monologue but for her, it didn’t quite feel true to how she would say things. So she revised, and revised, until my words were all but hers. The feelings she expresses here are a ray of hope in an ongoing battle, and not some grand solution or happy ending. They represent a moment for her; a moment when hope is possible.    

Listen to Every Step of the Way

🎵 MUSIC

The outro came out of an extended improvisation that my producer/keyboardist, Jonny Tobin played while the tape was still rolling. We had done this live once before and it had felt powerful. The outro lyrics were culled from that initial live improvisation.

If you’ve been loyally reading these song breakdowns, you’ll know the choir on this one is three incredible singers that are quintuple stacked—Dani Fuentes, Dawn Pemberton and Khari McClelland.    

When we were recording the outro “love” section for the choir on Every Step of the Way, Dawn said she felt like she was at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. All I can say to that is, “Can you Feel it?”

Diamond design for Every Step of the Way by Sleepless Mindz

Every Step of the Way, the forth and final single from LoZ is now streaming on all platforms.

Stream Every Step of the Way

LoZ will be released on Friday, July 29th.

Next Friday I will release the Song Breakdown for Every Step of the Way. For this piece, I thought it might be fun to talk about the song’s accompanying video vignette, and save all the breakdown chat for Friday.

The vignettes were choreographed by acclaimed choreographer Carlo Atienza (BTS, NBC’s World of Dance, twofourseven). It is one of 9 vignettes that were choreographed by Atienza, one for each song on LoZ. Each vignette has a complete story arc, and together the shorts chronicle a day in the life of one man’s interior journey who is isolated in his apartment.

Sound familiar?

For a number of years I have wanted to incorporate dance into my musical performance. I grew up dancing - not “grew up” as in started at the age of 4 under the tutelage of a ballet mistress who owned my training school and also happened to be my own mother (as is the story of many of the dancers who appear in my videos) - but “grew up” as in I took classes once a week with my sister and best friend: a trio that would carry me through my entire adolescence.

I became so enamoured with dance that I started to choreograph for myself, studying the videos of other choreographers, and eventually creating my own group.

My own group. We decidedly used the time traditionally set aside for Grad photos to capture this gem.

When I started to write my first music video, I knew that I wanted to include dance. So I went back to the studio I started at when I was twelve. I asked the dance studio manager/choreographer—the same one I studied under when I was twelve!—for choreographer recommendations.

That led me to Becky Izad who I was fortunate enough to work with on my first two videos.

Becky introduced me to Carlo when she invited me to attend a special presentation of a piece he choreographed for the twofourseven crew—a crew he started and led for many years, and the same one she danced with.

I had no idea what to expect from the performance. I was floored. I cried; I got goosebumps; I roller coaster-ed through all of the physiological touchstones I experience from a great piece of art.

Carlo and I speak a similar language and we had a blast working together on these vignettes for my new album. Many of the videos in this series reference the others so I encourage you to add them all to your unruly YouTube watchlist. We’ll also release the entire series as a short film—how we originally cut it together—soon after we release the album.

Enjoy and thank you for watching. ❤️ dW

photography Alexis Townsend | layout + design Catriana van Rijn | cloud design + layout Sleepless Mindz

When I was writing this song I asked a few people what their idea of paradise is. My mother said paradise is when a loved one puts their hands on her face. I love that. 

I wanted the chorus of this song to be a release; to represent a feeling of paradise; to conjure all of the things that make us feel whole, and bright-eyed with wonder. 

Elliot Vaughan’s choir arrangement gives the chorus its release but also underlays it with a tension that I’ve heard others describe as “biblical.” Colleagues have said the chorus sounds like an unearthly battle; the struggle for a soul; the last stand. Who am I to reject theories of ancient epic drama?

The title of the song comes from a personal vision of paradise. “Last Diamond of Light” refers to that feeling of sitting in the outdoor stands at a baseball game (is baseball the judgement day game of choice?), late in the summer. When the evening light begins to fade, you can clearly feel where the stadium floodlights separate you from the rest of the darkened world—the last diamond of light in the waning days of summer.  

To me, this is an apt metaphor for paradise—a temporary island of light. It is that ephemeral balance struck when every molecule of person and place aligns for one surreal moment; it is transcendence (big ‘T’ or little ‘t’) experienced through the light of joy, release, love, peace, or, all of those things at once. Paradise is our temporary diamond of light. And while these moments are temporary, I think there are a lot of them hanging around, some of them more accessible than we might think. It might be that all we have to do is ask a loved one to put their hands on our face.

Listen to Last Diamond of Light

🎵 MUSIC

Check out Organ Tears to hear the soloed Hammond B3 organ track from this song. You won’t regret it. Warning: full body elation may ensue. 

Diamond design for Last Diamond of Light by Sleepless Mindz

Last Diamond of Light, the third single from LoZ is now streaming on all platforms!

If you’ve listened to it, thank you! If you enjoyed it, please do any or all of the following:

• send it to a friend

• make it a part of your summer road trip playlist

• choreograph your burgeoning masterpiece to it

• spin it at the next wedding you DJ

• request it at your upcoming zumba, aquacise, and spin class

• pre-save / follow / add / remix / heart / spleen / liver / large intestine it.

Believe me, your body will thank you.

Stream Last Diamond of Light

On Friday I’ll release the Song Breakdown for Last Diamond of Light. As a little pre-cursor…

The choir on this album is made up of the inimitable voices of Dani Fuentes, Dawn Pemberton, and Khari McClleland. To get that big sound we double, triple, quadruple stacked their voices. To make it sound like a choir of 36 individuals, co-producer John Raham had them play different characters for each take. Our favourite character…

“Drunk uncle.”

You know the one: a font of belligerent political opinions; a trove of circular stories; trying his best to make keeping upright look like a casual lean against the kitchen chair. Happy, albeit, and a great addition to our choir.

Bobby Moynihan’s drunk uncle on SNL. He wasn’t in our choir.

Look forward to sharing.

dW

photography Alexis Townsend | layout + design Catriana van Rijn | cloud design + layout Sleepless Mindz

I first learned about the use of psychedelics to treat mental health diagnoses when someone close to me started microdosing to relieve their depression.

To try and reorient my brain away from the smattering of my confused knowledge and associations with psychedelics—Grateful Dead, beat poets, the war on drugs, black lit posters of Jim Morrison, the Cheshire Cat, cartoon characters with spinning saucers for eyes—I started reading.

The checkered, and misunderstood history of psychedelics is a fascinating look at developments in neuroscience, ideas of “universal love,” military torture, fungal networks, and for me, artistic imagery. 

Through essays, articles, and personal accounts, what comes up again and again is the equating of “ego death” with a greater capacity for love.

Speaking to the phenomenological effects that people on psychedelics report, author Michael Pollan states in How to Change Your Mind, that “the dissolution of ego seems to me by far the most important and the most therapeutic.”

When the ego dissolves, so does a bounded conception not only of our self but of our self-interest. What emerges in its place is invariably a broader, more openhearted and altruistic—that is, more spiritual—idea of what matters in life. One in which a new sense of connection, or love, however defined, seems to figure prominently. p.390

I wanted to conjure some of that feeling and sentiment in a song.

I wanted to use psychedelic imagery to try and create a picture of what discovery, wonder, and love look and feel like to me.

Stream Cotton Candy Trees

TRICK MIRROR

This phrase in the latter half of the song comes from a book of essays of the same title by New Yorker staff writer, Jia Tolentino.

…a stranger tweeted an excerpt of a Jezebel piece I wrote in 2015, highlighting a sentence about what women seemed to want from feminist websites—a “trick mirror that carries the illusion of flawlessness as well as the self-flagellating option of constantly finding fault.” …I had not understood, when I was writing that Jezebel piece, that that line was also an explanation for something more personal.

I think many of us keep a “trick mirror” in our back pocket—a travel-size one that keeps us satisfied (unsatisfied) until we can get home and magnify things in greater detail in the full-length, alone in our bedroom.

At various points in the day, we might sneak furtive glances into its glass to admire how beautiful we are, how proud of ourselves we might feel in a moment, how lucky we are to be alive in this body, in this moment, in this soul, with these friends; and then, just as quickly, with a trick of the light, see that same reflection as suddenly ugly, reprehensible, devoid of whatever we perceive as value, and most of all, painful.

The end of this song speaks to the daily hope to find more and more freedom from that trick mirror, and its daily distortions, and maybe, more importantly, the illusion of self. 

🎵 MUSIC

I love Sam Cartwright’s (drummer) playing on this. His groove is so greasy.

There is a magic and privilege to sitting in the studio, on the other side of the glass from the recording musician—being present when that ineffable moment occurs in their playing that gets everyone in the booth to turn to one another, jaws slack and eyes agog. “That’s it!” everyone says, without speaking a word.

Stream Cotton Candy Trees

Lyrics

Cotton candy trees 
Lucille and me

Draw me out
Into the stars
In your honeyed golden light before the dawn
Send me out
Like a shot
In a purple chariot 

Flying high above the world we know
Giving time for our love to grow

Come and see the moon
Underneath the door
Trace the light that’s spilling out across the floor
To the dawn
You and me
Carried out to god in green 

In a field where the flowers enfold
The two of us in a burnished gold

Now I 
I am losing time to pain
And you
You are losing time to shame
But I know, if we take it slow and
Open our eyes into the

Cotton candy trees 
Lucille

Let’s climb the stairs
Like we should
Going higher than we know we ever could
In a chair
Chair-o-plane
Swinging out in our own blue lane

Flying high above the world we know
Giving time for our love to grow

Leave behind
What never serves
Kiss the light n just to know what we are worth
Packing light
As we leave
Cause there is little that we need 

In a field where the flowers enfold
The two of us in a burnished gold

Now I
I am losing time to pain
And you
You are losing sleep to shame
But I know, if we take it slow and
Open our eyes into the

Cotton candy trees 

Lucille, Lucille step to the side
Lucille, Lucille turn, kick ‘n’ glide, 
Lucille, Lucille clap, spin and twist
Lucille, Lucille well it goes like this

Brown butter floss
And blueberry chai
Bubblegum pink and sugar cream pie
I slipped outside of my mind
To stop looking for what I could not find

Trick mirror says I look so good
Trick mirror says I never could
Trick mirror won’t you let me be
Trick mirror cracked now I feel free

cloud design for Cotton Candy Trees by Sleepless Mindz

Cotton Candy Trees, the second single from LoZ is now streaming on all platforms!

This one might feel like a bit of a left turn from Castle in the Sky but it all came from the same intention—to create an album of “floor-fillers,” as BBC funk and soul DJ Craig Charles likes to say.

On Friday I’ll release the Song Breakdown for Cotton Candy Trees and talk about how Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind, Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, and Sam Cartwright’s greasy drum groove, all helped to glue this song together.

Three other tidbits…

• That’s Dani Fuentes singing lead with me. She is one of the greatest singers I have ever had the pleasure of singing with. She always manages to make me sound better.

• This song started from a new scale I learned. Scales! Yes, they can be fun too.

• I can’t envision having built the sonic world for this song with anyone other than Jonny Tobin. His sense for adventure, quirk, and grease helped us to create this “psychedelic schoolyard” and we had a blast putting it together.

Stream Cotton Candy Trees

❤️ dW

ps…

If you are independently releasing your own music, you are called on again and again to describe your music.

Submitting to a Spotify playlist?

Is this song: chill, happy, hype, sexy, sad, romantic, or meditative?

Can it be all of those things?

No. It must only be two.

Hm. Okay. That’s tough. Are there any other options?

No.

Okay. Ummmm. Hype and sad, I suppose.

No. That’s not how pairing works.

What do you mean?

A person cannot be extroverted and introverted and extroverted, just as a song cannot be hype and sad.

Right. Okay. Well, I guess, sexy and chill then.

Thank you for submitting to Spotify. We’ll make sure your song gets to the correct social, cultural, religious, and economic demographic.

I kid 😜

How would I describe Cotton Candy Trees?

Equal parts Funkadelic, schoolyard jump-rope song, and pop banger. Oh, and, hype and sad. 

photo used on the cover of Castle in the Sky. 📷 Alexis Townsend

"Take root in the ground, live in harmony with the wind, plant your seeds in the winter, and rejoice with the birds in the coming of spring." Miyazaki

Inspired by a line from Japanese animator/director Miyazaki's, Laputa, this song is about the power, vulnerability, and beauty in sharing our dreams with one another. Dreams that run from the personal to the collective. Dreams that keep the grounding forces of nature, love and mutual support at their centre.  

Stream Castle in the Sky

A still from a camcorder by mom

🎵 MUSIC

The Seed - If I need inspiration, it helps if I mix up my writing process. My usual start point is the guitar, or, random vocal melodies I will record on a walk. To shake it up, sometimes I’ll start by writing on an instrument I don’t have the same proficiency with as I do the guitar; sometimes I’ll start with a piece of poetry; sometimes a title. Quite a few of the songs on this album started from a bass line, like this one.

Stream Castle in the Sky

Electric Pagoda

I wrote this in Bristol where I was living off and on, pre-pandemic 2020. Stoke Park is a beautiful spot close to where my apartment was in Eastville. In the park, there are a couple of high look-out points, one of which is topped with an electrical tower that was designed in the 1970s to look like a pagoda. Yes, a pagoda—the ancient, usually religious-functioning, tiered towers common to Nepal, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam—in the middle of the British countryside.  

These look-out points reminded me of scenes from Laputa—maybe the electrical pagoda pushed my mind to make the leap into Japanese art films. 

Standing on top of these hills you are so exposed to the elements that it can feel like if you “lean into the wind [you’ll] make for the stars.”

Lyrics

Trailing purple, blue and green
In our skyward smoke screen
in the dark

You and i could go
Dancing on the hill in the dark
Just before the dawn
We’ll lean into the wind and make for the stars
Here comes our part

You’re with me now
Please don’t go leaving now
Clouds are breaking now
Can’t you see it now

We’re headed for our
CASTLE IN THE SKY
Bathe us in
Electric blue light
I wanna show you what I
Dream of every night
So come a little closer girl and
Plug into my mind

Come away with me
We’ll climb the tower by the tiers at dawn
Can we see from here
What we lost in the fires of a shaping fear
And see what isn’t clear 

You’re with me now
Please don’t go leaving now
Clouds are breaking now
Can’t you see it now

We’re headed for our
CASTLE IN THE SKY
Bathe us in
Electric blue light
I wanna show you what I
Dream of every night
So come a little closer girl and
Plug into my mind

Can we grow from here
My hands in yours from here
Reach the stars from here
Our hearts entwined from here
Am I wrong down here?
I’ve been too long down here
I wanna keep the wind
And reach the palace within

…

Trailing purple, blue and green
In our skyward smoke screen

Castle in the Sky, the first single from my new album LoZ hits streaming platforms today.

Pop the champagne, bring out the good cheese, fire the confetti cannons.

That is what sharing something that you’ve worked hard on and are proud of should feel like. It should be a celebration.

But to deny that it is also anxiety-inducing would be untruthful. Something once so private is now exposed. Something you’ve been growing in a dark, windowless laboratory now greets the light - you lovingly toss it into the wind and it either takes flight, or gets stuck in a tree and forgotten with the neighbour’s cat.

Before I had finished the record I received a beautiful, simple wish from someone I greatly admire: “…I hope getting the album out is pure fun.”

That is what this will be, here with you. We’re going to have fun together.

Next Friday I’ll release the first of the Song by Song Breakdowns.

If you have any questions, comments, or want to get into a spirited debate over the top 10 best anime, you know where to do it. 👇

I look forward to digging into things with you.

David

P.S. Cats are resilient creatures. Don’t feel bad for the imaginary cat I put in your head. Since last Spring it has gone feral and now prefers living in the trees.

Cloud by Sleepless Mindz

Titling by Sleepless Mindz

It’s happening. We’re dropping the first single from my new album, LoZ, April 1st 2022.

I can’t wait to finally share this with you.

I don’t remember ever having been as intimately connected with the minutiae of one of my albums—a gift (and admittedly, sometimes a curse) dictated by the constraints of the pandemic. While I worked closely with two wonderful producers, I also spent many, many days alone in a room with this one.

I’m doing something with this one that I’ve never done – a song by song breakdown, . And it'll be exclusive to Adjusting the Dial. Every month I’ll write about the single being released.

In the past, I have wanted people to have their own experience of my songs without my personal dissection and analysis getting in the way. I think I’ve let go of that now. As a fan, I know I’m always curious to get more insight from the songwriter.

So I will provide this, and you can come to your own conclusions; make your own connection with it. Maybe you can let the song simmer with you first before reading these.

photography Alexis Townsend | layout + design Catriana van Rijn | cloud design + layout Sleepless Mindz

The first listen for the first single, Castle in the Sky, will be March 31st on Episode 3 of Station 234. We will be premiering all of the singles and their accompanying music videos on the show.

As I release these breakdowns, if you’re curious about anything I haven’t touched on, feel free to ask me in the comments.

Look forward to getting into things here with you.

❤️ dW