TLDR Version: The new Purge album will be released one song at a time, starting in October. Each single will be released in the order they will appear on the album and the final song will be the title track. Each single will be released roughly every 2-3 months. Each release will also have at least one remix or bonus track alongside it whenever possible (with the album’s one cover song being a possible exception; I might wipe that one after the whole album is released to avoid double paying the mechanical royalty maintenance so I don’t think I want to attach extra stuff to that release). I’m pacing this so the album’s final reveal will be around February or March of 2020.
I’ve had a very exciting summer…
The Purge, since I started it, has always been about exploring really personal and painful things for me. Sometimes it comes from a genuinely reflective place, and I think one of the reasons why I’ve been so proud of The Bad Ideas We Build Worlds is because, at least in terms of where my lyrics are coming from, there’s a balance between a state of tough reflection and being caught in the pull of urgent emotion. In songs like Faith & Trust, The Danse, Something That Isn’t Me, and What’s Best Is Best, I found myself taking a really scrutinizing gaze on myself and trying to name the patterns and impulses I’ve developed over my life. But it also has songs like Only Black, It’s a Bad Idea, and A Pain That I’m Used To on there. Those were songs that I produced very urgently in, or right after, a moment of overwhelming emotion.
It’s not a secret that I was in a relationship for 7 years that disintegrated and then ended very painfully. At the time I am writing this, I just began a real therapy option for the first time since everything happened and it’s a big deal to me that I’m doing this.
All last year I’d pretty much thrown my overflow of emotional distress into rehearsing and performing shows. It provided a really great outlet for me (trust me, there’s often a lot to feel upset about at the end of the day when you work in Education) and I think it will continue to be and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me using it that way. But by itself, I’m not sure if it’s enough to get me where I think I can start feeling okay with my life.
I’ve needed to talk to people about some of the things that have happened to me and what I’m going through. Unfortunately, and this is coming to me right now as I reflect and write this, I feel as though one of the more unhealthy relationship patterns in my life is that I almost always try to reach out to the wrong people at the wrong times. Some of my Faith & Trust lyrics are coming back to me with different connotations right now, actually (songs sometimes tell us different things at different times; that’s partly why I use my abstract and blurry aesthetic with The Purge artwork). Point is, I’ve needed professional help for a long time, have opted to look for help in almost exclusively the wrong places without it, sometimes entered into really toxic situations or sabotaged otherwise healthy relationships because of that, and I’m about to start getting better help (like, literally. My first go at this therapy thing is through BetterHelp).
And so that brings me to what my summer has been like. I actually finished enough material for a new Purge album and it’s strong. I even have the track listing settled in now. It’s 9 songs and, with maybe one exception, they’re all more urgent and “in the moment” sounding than what I did with The Bad Ideas We Build Worlds. I’ve listened to it in its current form probably well over a dozen times now and, now that much of the excitement in my life has started to resolve and I’m genuinely reflecting, I’m shocked by how carried away I let myself get (“Carried Away” is one of the songs, actually).
With my career as a teacher about to go into overdrive when the summer ends, I’m really concerned about how much time I’ll have to actually write new material over next year. As excited as I was by the idea of releasing three albums in one year (my industrial side project, Nur Black, has an album release scheduled for the 21st and a big show in Charlottesville VA planned that night and you should totally come if you’re close *wink wink*), I’m realizing that maybe that was just another part of how much I was losing control of myself in the moment.
I don’t think I’m doing myself any favors by rushing this thing out now and trying to promote, yet another, album while starting my teaching career in full swing. It honestly wouldn’t be fair to The Bad Ideas We Build Worlds. Those songs still have a lot to teach me and they need time to breathe. *I* need to make time for myself to breath. The fact that I was so eager to do all that to myself has me concerned, actually (again, starting therapy).
I don’t want to feel like I’m sitting on this stuff forever though, and, given that I might not be songwriting as much until next summer (if I can tour like I ought to then maybe I still won’t be then), I’m planning to release the new album piece by piece. I think I need to do this for me.
So for each song, I’m planning on writing a personal essay to go with it for my blog. This will also give me almost 9 times as many opportunities to have fun with this photography style I’ve been using for my artwork (I like zooming in and taking macro shots of things with my phone and then abstracting them with blur and desaturation for most of my album art).
I produced this next album so fast it’s actually kind of ridiculous to me and I was really lost in myself while I did it. The first song I finished was a cover with Samantha Darkly (I think she’s starting a new project called Darkhouse now) and I just looked up the date on the selfie we took after recording it and realized that was only 5 weeks ago. This means I wrote, produced, and finished almost two songs every week and had an album ready. While I felt like the act of finishing The Bad Ideas We Build Worlds was, in and of itself, a very self-reflective act, this new album just isn’t that at all.
I’d made a post about dropping a single on the 31st. I need to dial things back and not do that. I’m going to wait until October to start rolling these songs out (hard to be a goth artist and not do something special in October). I tried to listen to the album again the morning before I started writing this and I felt, with some horror, that I maybe didn’t know who was singing these lyrics.
It’s really important to me that I give myself some emotional distance from this work because it burns to the touch right now. I need to explore the songs and explain them to myself before I just put it all out there and start playing them.
I’m going to try and roll these out kind of slowly because I’d like for next summer to be the time when I hit the road to try and get The Bad Ideas We Build Worlds into some new ears & hands, and I like the idea of spicing things up with a remix or two to go with each release when I can actually make that happen (hit me up if you’re into doing one). My plan is to pace this out with a new single every 2 months or so. At that rate, with October being my first release, it means the whole album will be fully revealed around February or March of 2020. Maybe that sounds like a really long time away, but I’ll get to do something interesting every few months and it sets me up pretty well to spend the summer after next promoting a full Purge release.
So yeah, if you read all of that, thank you and I appreciate you.
I’ve had a very exciting summer.
The Purge 