This is a 3 track record. The title track is a semi-composed free improvisation that was intended to be a Yak Strangler release. Rylan had approached me with the concept after coming across a robin's egg that had fallen from a tree and onto his brick patio. He showed me a picture, which I don't have, and we talked about how beautiful the blue color and how the imagery made me us feel. It was gorgeous, but also saddening. "Blue" is used to describe a particular melancholic feeling associated with music. This is present in blues, jazz, and other African Diasporic music. Robin's egg blue to us was meant to be representation this difficult-to-describe emotion through the lens of life in the southern Appalachian region of East Tennessee.
From this conversation, I went home and opened the window of my then townhouse to listen to the urban-Appalachian sounds that heard. I heard nature: cicadas, dogs, and birds. However, I also heard tires on pavement, distant car horns and the hum of streetlights. As I contemplated urban-Appalachia, I think of beautiful nature scenes, but also dilapidated buildings and potholes. I think of groundbreaking laboratories and ivory towers, but also a devastating opioid epidemic and an ever-growing homeless population.
I think of loving families, acceptance, and joy, but I also see loneliness, sorrow, and suffering. It's been a year since Rylan succumbed to his depression. He never got around to writing his drum parts to "robin's egg blue," I've thought about this concept for a while, and as I approach the anniversary of his passing, I was inspired to improvise two other pieces with the same emotions in mind. I hope you find these songs intriguing, beautiful, or at the very least, weird.
1. robins egg blue 05:54
2. k0pRh3@d 04:40
3. rediscovery 06:15
