“season of pain” was born and developed in late 2020 amidst, well, a season of pain. said season really began early last winter, as the world began to slip from being the ““normal”” amount of terrible to being viscerally, immediately, and incessantly terrible. more than ever, we have been forced to contend with and feel our world in which every second is laced with horror, every moment rife with pain. the operations of death, violence, and oppression, which of course are always working in our world, have been so massive and brazen this past year. it is overwhelming, exhausting, hopeless, and near impossible to process on any level, and that’s even within the fairly lucky and privileged position i have been in amidst all this. if that is the season of pain as created by the external world, the fall brought the personal season of pain in the form of a dissolution of a long term relationship. under normal circumstances, a bad turn of events, but within nightmare world 2020, an Extremely bad one. if i was peering into the void from its edge before, the fall months essentially kicked me off into the abyssal free-fall from which this album was born.

the bottom line is that i have been having fucking terrible time these past months lmao, and i suppose that is what this album is ultimately about, in all the different ways something can be about that. its a bit of a breakup album, a bit of a political reaction to the horrors of this past year. mostly though, it’s just a collection of tired, intimate, broken, and sparse songs, made at one of the most tired and broken times of my life, an attempt try to pull myself out of the exhausted, world-weary hole that this past year of pain has shoved me down into. these tunes are rough, imprecise, mostly just guitar and vocals, and mostly just single-take recordings. a few (no poetry and why?) are older songs, but felt at home in the context of this project.

that being said, i am happy with how these turned out, despite (and maybe because of) their roughness. i think they capture my headspace and struggle during this time quite well and making them really helped to keep me going throughout all this. these are intensely personal songs, but i hope that the sentiments, frustrations, struggles, and pain within them might resonate with others amidst this mass season of pain we are all embroiled in. idk lol. stay safe, stay sane, and stay together. i love you all.

thank you to my friends, whose company has kept and keeps me moving throughout this nightmare. special thanks for ty for mixing advice and for lending a set of ears to some of these tunes throughout the recording/mixing process.

and as always, eternal thanks for listening!!!
please be kind to one another. please love one another.