Hey everyone, I'm happy to announce "Saturnine!" This album continues a trend from a previous release, "Soporium," but in a refined and a more distinct direction. This music is very heavily influenced by European gothic metal from the 90s and the 00s but with a uniquely Americanized reimagining with elements of New Age, Hip Hop, Alternative rock and digitized Amerindian folk music. This is also the first release I've done with "generated" assets in the audio with what I would personally assess as decent results. "Asphodel" is a dramatic cinematic song that draws on the "Trouble in Paradise," trope. It portrays the haunting realization that something utopian that was so hard earned through struggle that once was thought to be a perfect solution to solve all problems and worries, in the end, it's not really bringing you happiness or bliss as you thought it would've, and its not known what is to be done since life feels so empty after the pursuit of something that turned out to be unsatisfactory.more

I always thought my friends and I would be together forever; I couldn't imagine life without them! I thought we'd somehow move into our own houses and be next door neighbors, and we'd still see each other regularly at church, or getting together to play video games, or going out to see a movie. We'd raise our families, and our kids would become friends too! But, it seems everyone has their own unique path in life, and those paths don't always go the same direction. As I got older, my friends seemed to move away one by one, whether for career endeavors, family reasons, or just because they had the opportunity to do so. And here I was, seemingly stuck in the same place. While there are certainly times I feel quite lonely, and miss the close friendships I had, there's been a lot of blessings in my life over the past several years. I've had a lot of opportunity to invest in myself, overcoming personal challenges, honing my craft, and becoming more and more prepared to pursue my dreams. I've also come to realize that while I might not have my childhood friends with me anymore, there are still many people in my life who love and support me. When I originally wrote this song, I had just recently discovered the band Between the Buried and Me, so this was just me trying to recreate their sound and style to better understand how to write music like that. When it came time to writing the lyrics, it was a bit challenging because the music starts off so triumphant, but later takes a dark turn and has something of a "tragic" ending. What could I write about that starts "happy" and ends "sad"? I thought about my friends moving away, and it seemed to be an appropriate topic for the tone of the music, expressing how we seemed inseparable in the beginning, but gradually divided over time. We're still friends; we still love each other, we just don't see each other much these days. It's kinda sad, but at least we have some joyful memories to look back on. more