Sketchbook of a Daydreamer is my debut album. I used to have a lot more to say about it, but I’ve spent so much time writing paratext for it during it’s release cycle that I’m a little exhausted by it. So instead, I’ll share that text with you here.
The very first part of the project that was fully realized was actually the music video. I created it in April of 2023 as a final project for one of my photography classes, and the song I used was originally created in the span of one hour as part of a weekly beat battle
some friends and I do occasionally. The prompt for that song was ambient jersey club
, so what I essentially ended up doing was taking some stems I’d rendered from a previous song of mine, slammed entirely too much reverb on them, and added a jersey club sidechain pattern, even though there were no drums. This was an early version of what would eventually become There are moments I wish could last forever…
, and you can listen to that original demo here.
For that photography project, we were also required to write an artist’s statement citing a source of inspiration for the video, so here is what I submitted:
Anyone who knows me knows that I basically live and breathe music. It’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember; I used to listen to Baby Mozart CDs before bed when I was a toddler, I’ve played piano since the first grade, I’ve played percussion since the 6th grade, I was the front ensemble section leader for my high school competitive marching band, and starting a year or two ago, I’ve begun writing and producing my own music. It’s been a wild journey of creative fulfillment and personal growth for me, and I love it more than anything. I don’t consider myself as confined to one genre of music either; I love learning and studying the techniques of many different styles, and ambient music is one of my absolute favorites to write at the moment. There’s something so soothing about lying down next to my laptop at the end of a long day and just creating soundscapes. This song will hopefully be a part of an upcoming ambient album of mine, and I wanted to create a music video to go with it.
Inspirations for the music video were drawn from AJ Dispirito’s music videos for their cover album Star Stories, which consist of static shots of various locales throughout the video game Super Mario Galaxy. The song I had written was a lot more grounded than the more spacey feel of that work, so I wanted to do my best to put the viewer in the places that I visited for the landscape shots. That being said, I also wanted to convey a sense of longing for these places, which led to the hazy, desaturated coloring I did to these scenes in post-production. The song was inspired by the ambient work of Au5, an artist primarily know for his EDM, but whose soundscapes are otherworldly. Cosmoscope, The Void, The Cliff, and Etheros are really the only completely ambient pieces he’s written, although traces of it can be found throughout his discography, especially among the downtempo album Alchemy. Much like the music videos for Star Stories, his songs are usually much more synthesized in nature, and mine more tangible (for lack of a better term), so there is a difference in that regard.
Over that summer, I began officially planning that upcoming ambient album of mine
, and worked on it throughout the rest of the year, finishing in December. I spent most of December setting up promotional materials for the release and the physical CDs, as well as figuring out how to distribute the release to platforms. I finally announced it in January on my personal Instagram alongside the Dawn of Apples social media accounts. They were basically the same posts, but the one on my personal account included this letter:
Some of you know that I write music, but probably have rarely heard me talk about it. In fact, I’ve technically been writing since 2016, but I’ve always felt really insecure about sharing it with others, particularly because I don’t fit into any of the boxes people tend to think of when they hear "independent musician"
I’m an EDM fan at heart, and it’s the kind of music I’ve always wanted to make. I love progressive house, I love synthwave, I love dubstep, I love drum ’n’ bass; pretty much anything under that umbrella. It’s not a niche genre by any means, but it’s definitely one people have their preconceptions about, which is one of the reasons I’ve had insecurities in talking about it.
Until now...
This is Dawn of Apples, a music project/alias I started around a year and a half ago, and I’ve done quite a lot with it honestly. A handful of original songs, some remixes, some collabs, some mashups, even a couple DJ sets. I’m really proud of the stuff I’ve made there, and if it interests you at all, you can follow me here at @DawnOfApples, or pretty much anywhere else under the same name.
That all being said, I can’t think of many people I know who would enjoy sitting through an entire dubstep drop, or a 5+ minute prog-house tune. Even in its more mellow forms, it isn’t for everyone, and I totally get that. That’s the whole reason I stayed quiet about it.
And that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to make this album; to give myself something I would want to share with people in real life, and to finally bridge the gap between these two sides of my life.
It’s an instrumental/ambient album, one meant to be listened to while relaxing or falling asleep, and there’s a lot of inspiration pulled from my own personal life and childhood. Growing up, I used to get distracted a lot, and to be honest, I still do. If something doesn’t interest me, my mind tends to wander, and I get lost in thoughts. When I was younger, it would often take me places I’d never been before, some more familiar than others. Nowadays, I usually get lost exploring questions, about myself and about the world.
It’s through this collection of songs that I hope you can explore these places, questions, and thoughts with me.
Thank you for your time, and I hope you look forward to Sketchbook of a Daydreamer.
A week or so before the album was set to release, I posted liner notes for each of the tracks in order every day leading up to release day. These detailed the inspiration behind the songs, as well as the significance they have to me.
Mixing aside, I wrote this song start to finish during the last hours I was able to spend with Smudge. It was peaceful.
He was a great cat.
Very loud.
Very large.
Very funny.
I’ll miss him.
A year or so ago, I spoke to a childhood friend of mine whom I see every now and then. Growing up, we’d occasionally end up having pretty philosophical conversations about our lives; or at least as philosophical as children can get. We’re much older now.
If you happen to read this, I hope it isn’t too weird that this moment stuck with me in the way that it did.
Often times, the childhood memories that stick out in my head the most are the ones that take place almost entirely within my own head, whether it be as a daydream, a real dream, or just a bored musing while waiting for something. This one was at a wedding.
Being a kid at a wedding is very boring.
It’s strange. I don’t remember any of the actual places or events from the wedding. Only this one I discovered on my own.
This is technically the oldest song on the album, dating as far back as October, 2022. It’s been polished up since then. SVREN’s contributions in particular inspired me to take the piece in a very different direction structurally, and I’m very grateful for that.
This song happened on accident one night.
It was a very busy week for me, for school and music. I was about halfway done with a much sillier song I was working on with a friend. It was for an online "make a song in 5 days" event. For some reason, whether it be creative spirit or an insomnia-induced delusion, I felt compelled to start another one.
When I opened the project file the next morning, all I found was a sine pluck set to play random notes from the chords to a Mario Galaxy song.
As it turns out, stars come from the night.
I like abstraction. Can you tell?
Abstraction, by its very nature, lies in the realm of the unknown, but there’s something almost paradoxical about the idea that knowing less about something helps us understand it easier.
I believe those who are able to harness abstraction and their subconscious in their art can reach the closest to the soul.
Caves are really interesting from a structural perspective. Being surrounded by rock on all sides extends traversal to the 3rd dimension. Passageways can rise, fall, split, merge, loop on top of each other, and can even form completely vertically; not to mention the bodies of water, mineral formations, and wildlife you can find there.
I visited the real Mammoth Cave a long time ago. It was neat. Don’t really remember much.
This song is about indoor water parks. Massive, abstract steel structures that serve no purpose other than to transport water in bizarre ways and echo their splashes throughout.
This song is also about pool mushrooms. It’s extremely isolating sitting alone under one. The torrent of water rushing down on all sides blurs your vision as well your hearing. For someone who is often distracted by the sights and sounds of the world around them, it’s nice to be able to listen to your own thoughts.
It’s as the title says. One night I woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn’t fall back asleep. So I got out my laptop, opened up a piano, hit record, and played for about 12 minutes. Towards the end, though, there was one idea I just couldn’t let go of.
The next morning, I started fiddling around with that riff, and eventually wound up with a whole other song. I did my best to make them transition seamlessly from one to the other on streaming platforms. I hope it works.
Transience, by definition, is to last only for a short time, or to be transitory in nature.
It is human nature to fear change, whether it be personal, environmental, or societal, but I think what we really fear is the space in between. A liminal state of being neither what once was, but not yet what will be. That’s how I feel about it anyway.
(For context: the album released on my birthday, and I was too busy celebrating to write anything for the last song, so this bit was taken directly from the artist’s statement for the music video.)
I hate to be all, Society, huh?
but the world really does move faster than we could ever hope to process, especially with modern technology. It’s easy to be swept up by the river of time and lose yourself in the process. But it’s also important to look forward and not dwell on the past, because at the end of the day, things aren’t the same as they were back then.
That being said, though, there are moments I wish could last forever…
Then the album came out. It was pretty cool to be able to see my music on major platforms. I’ll hopefully have more to say about a related project soon…