TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY

TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY OUT NOW!

TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY

After releasing my debut album, I still had so much more I wanted to say..

I'm still on a learning curve and I don't ever really stop making music because I worry that I'll lose my momentum. So, after releasing Miscellaneous Observations, I kept pushing and evolving my sound. There was some feedback I got from other producers that listened to Miscellaneous Observations and they pointed out some areas in which I could improve my mixes and production techniques. I learn new skills best by doing it on the job, so I started making some beats in order to experiment with what sounded right. I built TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY out of a hunger to improve both my musicality, and to push myself even further than I did with Miscellaneous Observations. I am so damn pleased with how TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY has turned out. It is the first time, ever, that I have made something that I feel genuinely proud of.

I hosted a listening experience for the album on the 3rd of December 2025, the turn out was so massive that I kinda teared up when I got home because there were points during working on this project where I felt so isolated and I started to wonder if anyone really cared about my music. But people cared enough to come to the experience, and to stay and really listen through the whole thing. There were hardly any phones out, people were just living in the moment. Being able to share my music in a social environment and seeing people's faces lighting up when they heard certain sounds that inspired inspired them was truly the most beautiful experience of my life so far, and it reminded me of what I do this all for.

TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY: a deeper dive

by Henry Bowen

ARRIVE ALIVE

ARRIVE ALIVE originally started as an acapella, I just wanted to see how many vocal layers I could turn into a harmony. I recorded all the vocals to TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY on my phone because I realised that the mic on my phone works really well as a condenser, and my actual mic (the one I used for Miscellaneous Observations) broke after I tried recording screamo vocals on it. I always say to people that it doesn't matter what you record vocals on, it's all in the mixing. I recorded the vocals on my phone in my untreated bedroom but after I added compression, reverb and a noise gate it sounded great. Sometimes I use the actual acoustics in a room to make my vocals fit in with the reverb on a song. I've recorded vocals in my bathroom before because it echos, and that's perfect for a big cinematic sound, such as the vocals I recorded for GOTHAM IS BURNING. I made up the lyrics to ARRIVE ALIVE on the spot, in order to make them sound more natural. When you freestyle lyrics, you are saying what you truly feel and what your soul is trying to tell you. I don't have a partner and I spend a lot of time alone, I like to keep myself to myself, but that sometimes makes it difficult for me to find inner peace because I don't have many people to fall back on when I need help. The more I thought about this, the more I realised that so many other people must feel this way too. As a society, we are so well connected, but yet we still find ourselves lonely and unfulfilled. Relationships with other people feel distracting, we are encouraged to think for ourselves and to improve ("lock in") constantly. Especially after the Coronavirus pandemic, my generation have very little understanding of socialisation, and attachment feels too risky. Whilst I conceptualised the album based around themes of falling in love, I think it actually reflects even more, the collective apathy we feel for each other. So the main motif of the project is "when is somebody going to care about me?" because it perfectly sums up the selfishness we all feel but have no choice but to succumb to. People are too busy to care about you, you have to care about yourself, right?

After recording the acapella for the track, I wanted to see if I could maybe lay some instrumentation underneath it to give it some punch. Around the time period where I worked on this project, I was (and still am) really into electronic music. Specifically avant-garde synth pop, witch house, digicore and deconstructed club. I love stuff that sounds dystopian and matches my moods on late night walks when there were hardly any people around. I will be out super late just wandering the streets and listening to SOPHIE, Eartheater, Sega Bodega, FKA Twigs, Zheani, White Ring, etc. I go deep into genres that are production heavy because that inspires me to produce sounds that are more interesting. I was listening to a lot of experimental hip hop when I was making Miscellaneous Observations but my taste has shifted, and therefore my musical style. The main thing I noticed while listening to artists such as Crim3s, for example, is that a lot of electronic music is heavy in reese bass and 808 beats. So I started using more reese bass in my beats to give it that deeper sound that hits on a different level when you verb it heavily and give it some breathy vocals on top to match. The instrumentation on ARRIVE ALIVE is super bass heavy, I made this drone of bass and synths to give the track a super tense feel. After I reached the end of the vocals I started to think about where I could take the track next, by this point I had established that the track was going to be the intro to the album that I had already started conceptualising. However, I didn't know whether I should round up the track and leave it to resolve the next, or to do the predictable move of letting that tension lead to a beat drop of some sort. Up until this point there had been no drums in the track apart from a spaced out kick. So I figured that adding some drums to the end of the track would've really worked.

Oxymoronica has been a close friend of mine for around a year now, and a huge inspiration. She's a true artist, and I admire her courageous experimentation towards making music. Blurring the line between music and art is a fine balance, but Oxymoronica has been a master at it for as long as I've known her. She's also a wicked producer, and we recently worked together on TOO LATE, which actually has gone off like a bomb in the local social circle since it came out, it's somewhat of a cult banger or something, I guess. Oxymoronica and I are both part of K86 so I often reach out to her if I need advice or music recommendations. I sent around the demo of ARRIVE ALIVE to a few different people because I wanted to know if I was going in the right direction or not, and Oxymoronica was the only person who really saw the vision, and also offered to pitch in with the rest of the production on the track. She took my vocals, and chopped and distorted them, and also added the drums. I then felt inspired by that, so I built some synth layers around the drums. The end result was perfect, I was very happy with it. Just shows that collaborating with people can open doors that you didn't know were even there, so you should often try to collaborate with as many people that you can, because sometimes you can hit gold.

Lyrics:

When is somebody going to care

About me, the way I care about my self?

When am I going to realise

That I will never find the truth inside of her?

When are you going to come to life?

I'm waiting for the day to arrive

Arrive

And I feel lonely tonight

But I let it eat me alive

Alive

I WANTED MOREEE (feat. honey girl)

I WANTED MOREEE started off as a riff I came up with whilst I was playing around on my guitar. Using my electric guitar, I record it into my computer before I forget, but I crank up the gain on my audio interface all the way, because I love the fuzz that I get out of it. I figure out the tempo and then I lay down the riff, double track it, and then I use my acoustic guitar because I like how it fills the sound. I play my acoustic more than my electric because I can feel it going through me and I love that. I looped the guitar tracks and added distortion, wah, and reverb to them. On top of that, I then added drums and bass. After that, I figure out a vocal melody to go other the top, then I sing it into my phone mic and stack the harmonies a little. The vocals are mostly carried by reverb and vocal doubler. It ends up being quite a good demo, I left it for a while, and then I mixed it. There's a little bridge section where I take the guitars off, leaving just the bass and the drums. I like playing around with dynamics, because it adds variety to the volume of the track, stopping it from being monotonous. I liked the bridge section but I didn't know what to do with it.

Bandlab is a very usual DAW because it gamifies the social aspect of making music. It has a page that's almost like Instagram, but exclusively for music artists wanting to promote themselves. A lot of the music that gets posted on Bandlab is utterly garbage, I can't lie, but sometimes interesting things pop up from time to time. I was flicking through various posts and listening to music on Bandlab, and a song came through on autoplay that sounded really unique. Like genuinely bizarre and arty. The song had super experimental production but I recognised the instruments and plugins from Bandlab, it had a female voice talking over it. She was reading some sort of poem. It was like spoken word with experimental hip hop production. The artist is just called honey girl, and I flick through her page and listen to more of her songs. I find out that she's 19 year old student from Canada, and she started making music through writing poetry, just like me. I locate her Instagram through her page and send her a DM, because I already have a good idea with how I could use her talents. I'm listening back to I WANTED MOREEE, and I envision her vocals over the bridge, it works. I get a response back from her, we talk back and forth, and then I send her an invite to the project on Bandlab. Easily the best thing about Bandlab is the collaborative compatibility, you can actually invite someone on the platform to edit the project file, like a spreadsheet. It's really cool. After a while, I get a message from honey girl that she's laid down her vocals. I give them a listen, they were perfect after I'd mixed them slightly. The way she writes lyrics is really interesting, you kind of don't know what she's talking about but it's also super interpretive, like Shakespeare.

I remember I was talking to this girl once. I was into her, but it didn't work out. I remember once, that she posted a Tiktok to, I guess, a sped up version of Today by The Smashing Pumpkins, the part that goes

I wanted more

Than life could ever grant me

Bored by the chore

Of saving face

Obviously, the trend on Tiktok focuses on the line "I wanted more" as a way of twisting the romantic aspect of chasing after somebody, or a feeling. It's actually how I felt about her at the time. I wanted more from her, you know? I wanted a kiss, a dance, a date, I don't know. Either way I thought a lot about that line, and the many ways it can be twisted. I thought it was actually really poetic. So I set about writing I WANTED MOREEE as a longing kind of song. It felt right considering the kind of relationship I explore on this album.

It's kind of a TMA part two, it feels like chasing after someone at a party. About being so torn up about something that looked bad on paper, but felt so good in real life, or the internet.

Lyrics:

I think I feel it

Don't leave me bleeding

I want the real thing

I wanted more

I think I had it

But it was a hazard

Nothing else mattered

Nothing else

Lost in time

Missing you is a crime

No more crossing lines

Are these powered lies or powdered lines?

This ain't cherry wine

Just tryna pretend I'm fine

Can you do the same?

Or are you caught between the rock and the flame?

Just come over my dear

We'll make it all disappear

I swear it doesn't have to hurt this much

I'll pour you up some rum punch

Déjà vu

I'm in a time crunch

I think I feel it

Don't leave me bleeding

I want the real thing

I wanted more

I think I had it

But it was a hazard

Nothing else mattered

But -

LOVE.BOMB

I met a dude at a gig I went to in Colchester at the Three Wise Monkeys. We matched each others energy for real. It was crazy. He pulled out some old ass Nokia phone and we just started freestyling over beats he had saved onto it. We ended linked up a few times over the summer, just trying to cook up some music together. We used to meet in a coffee shop and I'd cook up beats on my laptop in there. One day we were in there and I was working on stuff while I was waiting for him, and I ended up cooking an insanely groovy drum pattern that reminded me of MODERN JAM by Travis Scott after I put some club drums on them and ran it all through some verb. I build some melodic ideas around the beat and really just experimented with the idea of making something slightly disorientating. I think I cooked up the majority of the beat for LOVE.BOMB in about half an hour with an overpriced coffee in my hand, it's crazy. Most of the beat is quite repetitive so I decided to see what would happen if I laid down some reese bass, and some kicks over a section of the song, and it worked really well for some reason. It hit really hard, and make a huge difference to the vibe of the track. I then built even more on that idea later on in the song and realised that I could tie it into PDA, which I had already been working on by that point, by using the same instrumentation. However, I had no idea that the actual melodic ideas would tie together so well. Basically, the smooth transition between LOVE.BOMB and PDA is actually mostly unintentional. I was so surprised when I played it back for the first time.

The more I think back to how I made this track, the more I realised how lucky I was that everything just fell into place. Sometimes, you make songs that just piece themselves together, all the ideas come together so naturally. It's a beautiful feeling. I came into recording vocals for this track with absolutely no idea what I was going to do. I went and sat in my garden shed, because the house was too noisy, and I played the instrumental back to back as I sort of brainstormed some ideas, and then I just pressed record and started freestyling some of the ideas I had. I got super fortunate that the recording environment happened to be perfect, the acoustics had an incredible resonance that suited the track so well, and I literally mixed the vocals as I went along. I played around a lot with delay, and that gave the vocals so much space. LOVE.BOMB was my favourite song I had ever worked on for a while after I had mixed it, and it really feels like God gave me the win on this one.

Lyrics:

Love bomb

Love bomb (He don't love you anymore)

Love bomb (If he don't love you walk out the door)

Love bomb (He don't love you anymore)

Love bomb (He don't love you walk out the door)

Love bomb (He don't love you anymore)

Love bomb (If he don't love you walk out the door)

Love bomb (He don't love you anymore)

Love bomb (If he don't love you walk out the door)

(door)

Tell me that this ain't just another lie

Tell me you being out wasn't just an alibi

Tell me why we're at the table with another guy

I want to be your ride or die

Your love bomb

Your love

Bomb

And I'm boutta go off

Ah, I don't trust you

You're too good to be true

I don't trust you

How the hell

How the hell do I know what you been through?

How the hell

How the hell do I know what you're gonna put me through?

How the hell do I know?

What am I supposed to do if you

If you do me dirty like the last one did

How am I supposed to know?

How am I supposed to trust?

How am I supposed to feel?

If I don't know what's real

Why don't you take off the VR and show me you are

Real

Love bomb

It's like I hardly know you

But you know everything about me

And you're determined to tell me that you love me

And that we're gonna be a thing forever and ever

But this is ridiculous

This is

This is not real

This can't be real

Because if it was real, then you wouldn't be acting so fake

PDA

PDA was also recorded in my shed, I initially wanted to record some screamy vocals for the track, but I decided to go for something more melodic. I had already written the lyrics to the track before I recorded it, and this was right after I had record the vocals for LOVE.BOMB, which went amazing. So I was riding on a high and I thought that PDA would be light work, I was wrong. It took me about 20 takes before I even figured out what sounded right, and even then I thought it wouldn't work. Eventually I figured something out, and the rest of the vocal tracks really flowed from that point onwards. Structurally, it's actually a really unusual track, it's technically a chorus, bridge, interlude, chorus, and then the chorus again, but slowed and pitched down.

The beat to PDA might be my favourite beat that I've ever made. I was trying to find a balance between something synth heavy, with punchy bass. I love rage music, it's trap that is super production heavy, so it's a perfect storm. I wanted to make something inspired by that. For fun, at first. Most of my beats come out of a "what if?" or an idea I want to experiment with, and then I build it from there. I didn't want the beat to sound the same the whole way through, so hence, I through a couple of switch ups between different sounds. I decided to lay some guitar over the softer section of the track, and to harmonise some airy vocals to give it a floaty feel. I wanted to really show off my production skills and throw everything at the wall. It all came together to form a picture of how I felt at the time about myself and my trust issues.

Lyrics:

She won't give me no

She won't give me no public display of affection

Which means I am just another one in her collection

When I buss it open I'm expecting perfection

And I'm going crazy hard, I need no protection

Red lights down the boulevard, I run the intersection

What they talking 'bout on my name

Imma have to sect them, dissect them

I wreck them, and then put them in a pot

Cook 'em with some stew

And then I'm going to your spot

All the lights

In here

Are too bright

I'm afraid of everything

Why I'd hide away

She won't give me no public display of affection

Which means I am just another one in her collection

When I buss it open I'm expecting perfection

And I'm going crazy hard, I need no protection

Red lights down the boulevard, I run the intersection

What they talking 'bout on my name

Imma have to sect them, dissect them

I wreck them, and then put them in a pot

Cook 'em with some stew

And then I'm going to your spot

She won't give me no public display of affection

Which means I am just another one in her collection

When I buss it open I'm expecting perfection

And I'm going crazy hard, I need no protection

talking about girls

Remember the guy I was talking about, who I met at the gig. Well, he's back. There was this time where we met at the coffee shop, and I had cooked up this super hard beat for us to freestyle over. We hit a remote location where nobody could hear our wacky ass freestyles and we just spat bars for like two and a half hours over the same beat. I started voice recording the freestyles, so we could hear them back and improve our techniques. Eventually, we kinda burned out and run out of ideas, so we took a break. We started talking about random stuff, and I can't remember how we got to this point, but we started talking about girls we were talking to at the time. It sounds weird out of context but we started playing a game where we started talking about each other from a swapped perfective, like freaky Friday, I guess. Just to see how much we could remember of what we told each other. He told what I told him, from my perspective. I told him about a girl I had been talking to at the time. I cut it off but I don't wanna say her name just in case it gets specific. Anyways, I was on some down-bad Snapchat adding during the summer. Just chatting to tons of girls to see if any of them were down to link or whatever. It gets to a point sometimes, where you just start trying literally anything, you know?

Anyways, I added up this one girl and she was insanely keen, to the point it had me tripping. She was really pretty too, I figured she was a promiscuous person after about five minutes of talking to her. She was mad freaky, but I rocked with that. She followed my Instagram and bumped my music, and that's where it became kind of problematic. At some point sown the line, I got attached. I was, like, so down bad to the point that I was practically clawing at my phone, you know? She explained that she lived in the US. That messed me up, because our vibes matched but I knew I'd never meet her in real life. It wouldn't be worth it, and I also felt like I wasn't good enough for her. It would've been fine if she lived in the UK, I could've gotten a train somewhere and seen her, but this was obviously only temporary, and I wasn't going to save up an enormous amount of money just to fly out for a fling. The other thing that I unfortunately realised is that I'm a massive paradox of a person. I want to engage in a party life and participate in as much sex as possible, but I also want to feel the presence of God and become a better person, so I was on the fence. I came to my senses and blocked her to protect my peace. She wasn't really the person I saw in my head. It hurt, but you gotta let stuff go sometimes. I have attachment issues and I thought I was invincible but she proved me wrong. A lot of the inspiration for this project comes from stories like that. I wish I could explain how I feel better but I hope this makes sense.

On the way home from seeing my friend, I realised that I had been voice recording on my phone the entire time. I listened through it and I realised that I had recorded him talking about the girl I was still hung up over. I imported it into my DAW and I started scoring it. I was in a certain mood and after I finished it I went to bed and forgot about it. When I woke up the next morning, I was trying to find a file on my computer when I remembered that I had the conversation saved in my folder, with some music over it. I was surprised how well it worked. I like scoring over voice memos or dialogue sometimes because I think its powerful. I got the idea from The Miseducation Of Lauren Hill, all the little pieces of dialogue on that project really carry it so nicely and give it a laid back vibe. I decided that It would work perfectly as an interlude for my album, I finished it off by harmonising along to the instrumentation on the track, and then I mixed it. That's how "talking about girls" came into being.

Lyrics:

I met this girl on Snap

And she's really nice

But she lives in Arizona

And we haven't met in person

But you know, I think it's going pretty good

Although sometimes she leaves me on read for a while

And like

I dunno

'Cause like

Sometimes she's

I dunno, sometimes she's so nice

And then other times like

It's a bit like

I dunno

I don't know

I don't know how to describe it

You know what I mean?

(Yeah)

Obviously

Yeah, no, she likes my stories and stuff

I mean, she's been good for me

'cause I think it's motivated me to do more

And post more on my Instagram

So, I don't know, she knows I have a life and stuff

But

I don't know

'Cause I don't know how she feels about me though

That's the thing, 'cause

I mean, one time I did post something and she said

But I left her on read because I don't know

Like, I don't know, man

I mean, I like her though

I really do

She's really nice

And she likes my music

I just

We're not going to be able to meet up

'Cause she's in Arizona

And I don't know, man

'Cause it's terrible because

She's the perfect one for me

But, then again, I don't even know if she's talking to other guys though

That's the problem

'cause you know how girls copy paste messages?

You know what I mean?

Yeah, so apparently,

Maybe she's just copy and pasting with me

You know?, and just playing with me

And I don't want to get played

So I've been playing harder to get as well

Just if she's one of those girls

'Cause I know you don't like those kind of girls

But, I've met some people who are like that, but are really nice

So, I mean, that's my story

What's yours?

AIRPORT CRUSH

I was on a plane, on the way to a vacation over the summer. It was a family trip kinda thing. We all got given random seats on the plane, so that meant we were all going to be sat next to, or in between, strangers. I remember just praying that I didn't have to sit next to someone.. unfortunate. Well, as it turned out, God had a surprise in store for me that I could've never seen coming.

I find my seat and plonk myself down, I happen to be next to a girl who appears to be the same age as me. She's pretty too, with dazzling green eyes that looked at me as I fumbled around for my seatbelt. We spend most of the flight, in silence, I listened to a couple albums back to back while she watched a film or whatever on the entertainment system. And then, about an hour from our destination, we end up having a conversation. It was good, great even, we clicked, you know? I can't even remember what we chatted about, but we kept going back and forth until the plane touched down on the tarmac of a runway in Atlanta, which was my stopover before I would get a connecting flight to Florida. The girl I talked to on the plane had a really strong Gerorgian accent, she explained that she lived on the outskirts of Atlanta. She was only slightly older than me, with similar interests, and a really good sense of humour, She was bubbly and smart, the kind of girl I could get behind, I guess. Well, obviously, we told eachother fairwell because we had to go separate ways at the airport. I watched her go through customs, and I haven't seen her since. I thought about it a lot. Imagine if we never got on the same flight or, yet alone got sat next to eachother. It really made me think how, sometimes, it happens to be the people that change your life the most that just kinda come out of the blue. Most relationships start with a small interation, and then it usually escalates from there. That's what inspired me to write AIRPORT CRUSH, because I feel like fleeting moments like this happen the most at airports. Everyone from anywhere are going somewhere, and it all becomes a game of probability that you might meet someone special, and then never see them ever again. It's a weird thing to think about, but it's also quite beautiful. I love being in airports and looking at the information boards with all the flights destinations written on them. Like, those are all real places, with populations of people, and those flights have real people on them, travelling with real purposes and hopes and dreams.

So while AIRPORT CRUSH is a self explanatory song apout brief flings and interactions with people whilst travelling, it also covers everything outside of that. In a way, life is an airport, we're all just waiting for something, to go somewhere, to meet someone. We arrive, and depart. Some people earlier than others. All the people that we meet happen to be in the same situation, and everything is down to fate and chance. Your soulmate might just pass you by, and you'd never know. You might see them, bump into them, or find yourself sat next to them. All the choices that you make lead you down different paths, you are one short conversation away from a completely different life.

When I was making the beat to AIRPORT CRUSH I had Tyler, The Creator on my mind. I really enjoyed CHROMAKOPIA, and I thought the production was really interesting. He purposefully makes his drums sound slightly scruffy and it adds a level of humanness to his mixes. I recreated this by using bitcrusher and balancing it with the EQ settings in order to make everything sound slightly aged. I like making my songs sound like they've been ripped from a cassette. Most mixes in songs now sound too clean, and I find that slightly dull and repetitive to listen to. Now, more than ever, it's important to make imperfect mixes to songs, or to make unconventional production choices, because that's the only thing that can truly differentiate us from AI music. So far, AI software can only copy what's already been, and you find that a lot of AI music has clean mixes and masters. Don't be afraid to make a mistake, that might just save you from being put back into the pile of slop, you know?

I also played with structure during this track by adding in lots of different sections. AIRPORT CRUSH is my attempt to make a slightly poppier track. In fact, I almost ditched it because it sounded too happy. I think it's borderline goofy, but that might just be me. Either way, I decided to put it in the tracklist because it covers the importance of romantic destiny in a fast-moving world.

Lyrics:

I was at a cross roads, at a terminal

We cross paths, I play it cool

There's this super fly girl

Is that her boyfriend?

I couldn't tell

It's plain to see that I was gonna go right over her head

I try to wing it, but I chicken out instead

I'm heading through arrivals, she's going towards the gate

Now I'm making calls, that will calculate my fate

Do I go up to her and ask her on a date?

That's crazy

She lives in a world I'll never see

Where everyone will notice me

Where my icy heart will turn to slush

Keep it on the hush

Airport crush

Did you notice me?

You finna make me fly out

What's your tail number?

Blah blah blah

Etcetera etcetera

What's this all about

You dumb and I'm dumber

We couldn't figure it out

(We couldn't figure it out)

Blah blah blah

What we did was like a seminar

We coulda built a repertoire

The past is repeating on the regular

Everything is familiar

Just tell me what we are

Tell me you're not just another

Airport crush

Did you notice me?

WHEN?

I remember when Mac Miller's family and record label announced that they would posthumously release Baloonerism. It was beautiful being able to listen to it in full, but obviously very melancholic because it continued to remind me of the light he was, and how his battle with addiction kept him in the dark. The second track on the album is absolutely incredible. It's called DJ's Chord Organ and it features these super airy vocals from SZA over a drone made by a organ of some sort kind of melting into a soft ambience, it then builds into a cresendo of colour and light. I remember really wanting to make a track like that. So I sat in my room and played around with a virtual piano on my laptop and I came up with some chords, which I then transcribed over to a harmonica plug in that I use a lot because it's got a super rich feel to it and it sounds like an organ when you play chords on it. I played the chords in and mixed them with enough reverb to fill up a church space, before then adding sub bass and pads. After that, I layered vocal harmonies on top in order to build the texture of the melody.

I met CyRuS through my ex girlfriend about a year ago. He's got a really strong alto voice, so I've been wanting to work with him on something for a long time. I kept on sending him beats throughout the year. He recently hit me up saying that he'd be down to do some vocal work for me if I needed any. I sent him WHEN? for him to harmonise over, and he got back to me the next day with some vocal tracks I could add to the song. I added them to the mix, and they added so much to the track! I reused some of his vocal tracks on i tried too, as he sang in the same key, and it worked for that chorus harmony that Bella Ross did for the track.

Lyrics:

You are about to quantum leap

You are about to enter your comeback season

And come back so hard

You're going to shock the world

Quite simply

And here's the thing about quantum leaps

And here's the thing about breakthroughs

Is, you will always go through one final test

That will try to drag you down

When is somebody going to care about me?

The same test over and over, and over again

In every new frequency

Then it is a sign

That if you pass this test

This last test

This last karmic lesson

What is on the other side of this

Is so massive

It is not even something I could put into words for you

(Time up!)

COUNT DRACULA

I built this track mainly around a guitar riff that I made, similar to how I made I WANTED MOREEE. I was playing my guitar in my room when I came up with the idea, so I laid it down into my DAW and I played around with it. The start of the song is an effect created by recording the guitar riff in reverse order, and then reversing the recording so that the guitar riff is actually now in the regular order but it sounds reversed, because the recording is, but the actual riff isn't. I recorded the majority of the guitar parts on COUNT DRACULA with my acoustic guitar because electric guitar can come across a little flat unless you distort it. The main distortion on the chorus comes from the sub bass, which I mixed through to create a burst of sound. After producing the intro and the chorus I think I ran out of ideas and kind of put the track to the side. I didn't really have any intention of finishing it, I laid it down as a fun idea but I wasn't serious about it.

I recorded Alan's vocals for i tried at Filip's place, he had a Shure SM58 which worked for the type of vocal work we were trying to do. Whilst we were waiting for Alan, we started making some beats. Filip laid down a really cool drum pattern on my DAW, and I saw the potential in it straight away. When I got home I realised that it was perfect for COUNT DRACULA!

I laid a bassline over the drums that Filip made and I then I harmonised over it, I reverbed the vocals so it sounded like I'm Every Woman by Chaka Khan because I love the way the harmonies on that song lift up a dance floor. There's a certain magic to it that I can't explain. One of the earliest videos my mum has of me was of me dancing to that song at a school disco or somewhere like that, with a girl. It just sounded so fresh, and then I proceeded to rap over it.

Lyrically, the song is purely just for fun. Most of the songs I write are serious and genuine, but sometimes I just let loose and write whatever comes to my head. COUNT DRACULA is all about money and success, which I haven't really got yet, but I'm manifesting it, I guess. It links to the themes of the album about people being selfish and purely chasing money and success rather than genuine relationships. I didn't write it this way, but subconsciously I knew I was aiming for that. It's similar to my first anicouturecopyrighttrademark mixtape, which contains lyrics that talk about a lifestyle of girls, drugs, and murder. It's a mirror reflecting what has been normalised through rap lyrics and the commercialised hustler lifestyle.

Lyrics:

I'm chequing out

When I look at my bank account

All of this paper that I cannot count

Had to open up another account

They said I'd never amount, to nothing

They must be bluffing, I feel like Buffy

I count it up, I count Dracula

Choking out when I hit your jugular

Jugging all this business on the regular

I speed dial them when I'm home alone

They don't even ID me, I just give them the D

I phone up the D and he run me the CBD

I'm really the best in my city,

How am I not in the GOAT conversation right now?

G.O.A.T

I be TT

I count Dracula

I love myself

I'm chequing out

smokin' drinkin'

Another song that started with a simple idea on my guitar, smokin' drinkin' is the calm before the storm. It's about the moment during a relationship where you stop to look around and think "wait, this is beautiful. I really love this person and they really love me. I'm finally at peace". It also explores shared substance abuse, and how it could be considered glamorous. Drinking by yourself is sad, but drinking with the person you love is romantic.

I used a large amount of bitcrusher to reduce the quality of the guitar and create a warm, fuzzy effect. The vocals for the song were originally recorded as a demo, but I kept them because I liked how warm they sounded. Similar to how I kept the low quality vocals on TOSKA for Miscellaneous Observations.

smokin' drinkin' is partially inspired by the works of Alex G and acts as a small interlude before the last stretch of the album. I used both electronic and acoustic elements to create a unique sound, and I'm obviously pleased with how it turned out. I've never made a song like smokin' drinkin' before and I think that it's highly likely that I won't make many more songs that sound like it.

Lyrics:

Smoking with my girlfriend

Because she's too cool to care

One hand on the roll up

And the other one in my hair

Drinking with my baby

Keep her lips close to my mouth

One hand on the bottle and the other one going down south

Throw away the key

Keep you close to me

We are one entity

But the pay off feels so free

Everything I do

Always feels better with you

Every single blunt

Puts you in the front of my mind

My mind

Every single drink

Makes me think of how you are so

Smoking with my girlfriend

Because she's too cool to care

One hand on the roll up

And the other one in my hair

Drinking with my baby

Keep her lips close to my mouth

One hand on the bottle and the other one going down south

GOTHAM IS BURNING

GOTHAM IS BURNING was mainly inspired by 2hollis's Boy Solider. I remember listening to that song and being completely blown away by how huge it sounded. It's like a power ballard but with that heavy electronic production that 2hollis has essentially mastered at this point. He's an incredibly tight producer and goes about creating such a unique sound that you can't help but stop and watch what he's doing, that's definitely what I did. I noticed certain techniques that are consistent throughout his sound and I pimped it to my own benefit. So when I set about trying to make a beat that sounded at least somewhat similar to Boy Soldier. I went down a rabbit hole trying to find bass sounds that sounded heavy enough to blow a speaker out, I found one, and then I proceeded to set about making it even louder. I wanted to play with the boundaries of distortion and see how far I could go before the sound became uncanny. My DAW has a drum machine with a certain snare sound that sounded really interesting, so I set about mixing that into the bass. After that I heavy reverbed both, so that it created this super large cinematic sound.

Another song that really heavily influenced GOTHAM IS BURNING was a song called Bound by Ic3peak. My drama teacher at college actually knows ball about music, and she often plays songs through the speakers in the rehearsal space to inspire us as actors.

We were all working on something one day, and my teacher was playing her playlist on shuffle. Some good stuff, but nothing that really caught my attention. Then, this song comes on and it's genuinely insane. The heaviest bass I've ever heard in my entire life pumps through the speakers, backed up with this giant kick, and topped off with a derranged sounding woman screaming in a different language. Everyone around me is like bumping their heads. I'm instantly in producer mode, I'm listening to the song closely, and I'm thinking "how?".

I didn't get round to asking my teacher what the song was, but the idea of it stuck in my head all day. I got home, and I genuinely looked through her playlist until I found it, over 400 songs and I found it. Грустная сука by Ic3peak, I go and listen to the full album. It's made by a Russian duo who make electronic music about their government. They're extremely controversial in Russia but they have an incredibly loyal cult fanbase, that stretches beyond Russia. Which means that their government can't imprison them (or worse) because it will look really bad on them. Their music is abrasive, and rooted in sadness. It's distressing to listen to, but it's also very well produced. Which is what drew me to listen to the rest of their projects, this is how I found Bound, off their self-titled 2017 album. Bound is heavy and hard hitting, with screeching vocals and heavy kicks. I love it, and I really wanted to make a song like it. This is how I got the idea for the drum pattern of GOTHAM IS BURNING.

I ran the bass and kick through a sampler plug in and pressed it so it sounded super heavy and hard hitting, I wanted it to be spaced out and for the reverb to do a lot of the work. I played around with this idea, and then I recorded it.

After this, I layered heavy synth melodies over the top, and I used bitcrusher to merge it all together. What I ended up with reminded me of the kind of music that gets used in dramatic movie trailers. That's where I go the idea of naming it GOTHAM IS BURNING, because I love The Dark Knight, and that's the movie that this song reminded me the most of.

I recorded all of the vocals for this track over the space of 2 hours and mostly improvised the lyrics about the end of a relationship and the stupid things you might do into desperation on order to win them back. Metaphorically, the love two people share for eachother is a city, and now it's burning to the ground. The question is, who actually set it on fire? The idea of the songs displays breaking up with someone an act of selfishness and betrayal. Is it?

I layered vocals on top of each other during this song and added, you guessed it, reverb to them in order to make them sound more dramatic.

On Teenage Soldier, I love the way 2hollis says

"I took her out for dinner, and she's crying on the way back home".

That really stood out to me, and I explored the idea that you can use the tone and dynamics in your vocals in order to give a song a climax. I always listen to Teenage Soldier waiting for THAT part of the song. My climax moment in GOTHAM IS BURNING is when I say

"I heard the forest is the only place to go, I hide the fire in my hurt".

I hold on to the "O" sound and glide it up to the "I" and increase the dynamics in my voice as the bass comes back in.

GOTHAM IS BURNING was my favourite song I'd made for a long time. I was in a zone when I made this track, and it came out as something really special and unlike anything I had ever made before. Mixing it was difficult because I had to make sure that nothing was clashing, and it came out of the master really heavily compressed. However, I'm still happy with what I achieved, and GOTHAM IS BURNING sets a blueprint for a new sound that I could work towards in the future.

Lyrics:

I play dead sometimes

You're the

You're the one I want

But you can't be mine

So what is the point in trying?

I'd be better off dead

(Time up!)

Who set Gotham on fire?

If the city was on fire and your arms were the only place I could hide

Would I be a liar for telling you to run and hide?

From me?

I heard the rumour that wasn't

True

I heard the forest was the only place to go

I hide the fire in my hurt

Fire in my hurt

I'm sorry

You lied to me

I'm sorry

You lied to me

I burned the whole place down to the ground

'Cos I knew you would come back around

And run to me

inappropriate

Before Bound by Ic3peak inspired GOTHAM IS BURNING, it inspired inappropriate. That's the reason that the two songs sound similar, inappropriate walked so that GOTHAM IS BURNING could run, even though they sound different, they are both at the same tempo.

I was trying to make a really hard 808, I used heavy distortion and then I ran it through a monitor into my mic, experimenting with different sounds. I ended up with this super fuzzy sound, that I didn't like at first. I added synths, and pads until it sounded more rounded. At this point I hadn't yet added drums. I really like Plastic Body by Edward Skeletrix because the drums don't kick in until later in the track, almost like In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Like I said for GOTHAM IS BURNING, I was playing around with the idea of witholding certain elements in a song so that they hit harder when they come in, and building tension in order to retain listener attention. So I added in the drums about half way through the track, it was interesting to see how they interacted with the rest of the mix. Because I used bitcrusher heavily on the bass and the synths, the drums added crunch.

Because both inappropriate and GOTHAM IS BURNING were at 60/120 bpm. I added a ticking clock (The same one used in HOURGLASS /ORIGAMI) to suit the theme of running out of time. GOTHAM IS BURNING is about a break up, and inappropriate is about having sex after the break up. I wanted to play with the idea of sex as a coping mechanism or a trauma response. At the end of a relationship, you are essentially running out of time to make it right. Either romantically or sexually, and the lines get blurred. We are all under the impression that we are running out of time to fix the world's problems, but we are too selfish to lend a hand.

inappropriate was really close to not making the tracklist, but I found that it was a huge part of the album's narrative. GOTHAM IS BURNING, inappropriate and NEVER LOVE are coincidentally a trilogy explaining the end of a relationship. Bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Lyrics:

This song is disgusting

How do I tell you I am a freak?

How do I tell you?

Choke me 'til I cannot speak

Cannot speak

I love you so much

Goodnight baby

Goodnight

We're about to do something inappropriate

(Just come here)

(Just come here and stick your tongue in my)

Pin you to the wall like the art that you are

Slit my wrist like it look like QR

Do you at work, make 'em call HR

Spread out, you look like a star

In the back of the car

Suck me sideways, like Tokyo Drift

Then I give that hoe a lift

Then I give her couple kids

Accidentally add her to the tally

She loves it

In the booth, and I'm going inappropriate

In your girl, and I'm going inappropriate

In the booth and I'm going inappropriate

In my own way, I'm going inappropriate

I feel nothing inside anymore

Just leave me dead on the floor

When you're done with me

I feel nothing anymore

Inappropriate

NEVER LOVE

I was laying in bed, unable to sleep, and I got the itch to make a beat. Like, I got this really amazing idea and I knew I had to actualise it, this urge to be creative. So I opened up my laptop and set about trying to make some sort of soft rage beat, inspired by vialice, who I was listening to a lot at the time. I was making a few demos for a whole different album project that I was building. So this beat was never actually meant to be for TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY, but after I wrote for the song I realised that It was perfect for the second half of the album. The concept album was scrapped, but this beat was too good to waste. I added a truckton of synth layers and patterns on top of eachother, added off-kilter drums, heavy bass and then I used bitcrusher to give it a slightly aged feel. I was trying to create the impression that it had been ripped off of a tape, I made a lot of songs to that effect whilst developing the album. I did a lot of research into harmonic saturation, which is a form of distortion that adds new overtones to a sound, making it richer, warmer, fuller, and more present in a mix. When used in tandem with a bitcrusher, the saturation smooths out and enhances the mix's overtones before the bitcrusher applies aggressive digital artifacts, resulting in a more complex, textured sound. I love it because it adds that humanness to what I'm trying to produce, and makes it stand out compared to other songs.

The lyrical content of this song is quite easy to interpret. I wrote this a short while after I blocked the girl I was talking to, from the US.

Heartbreak doesn't always come from something explicit, sometimes it roots in a misunderstanding, you know? We were just on different wavelengths, and it wasn't anyone's fault but mine. NEVER LOVE is not really about one specific situation, I drew from a variety of different situations that I've been in before. I've never written a song addressing one person, that's risky. I don't lie, I just stitch different truths together and present them as a fictional scenario.

Lyrics:

It was never love

(I'm lusted)

It was never love

(I'm lusted)

It was never love

(I'm lusted)

It wasn't love

I got what I wanted out of you

You know?

I'm sorry I lied to you

It was never love

I could tell

Did you really have to kiss and tell?

And tell?

I wish I never took you back to my hotel

My hotel

I wish I never took you home

It was never love

I could tell

Did you really have to kiss and tell?

And tell?

I wish I never took you back to my hotel

My hotel

I wish I never took you home

i tried

Every song I've ever made has started with a simple idea, which I then use as a foundation on which I build whatever feels right to the song. Sometimes the idea doesn't need much more added to it, but sometimes you just gotta get an opera to sing it to do it justice, you know?. There's a sixth sense I get that tells me when a project is finished, I manifest the finish line and I keep moving until I cross it.

i tried started off as a question in my head "can I sample myself, and get away with it?", it was like a joke, or a bet. I was really just playing around, with no idea what would come out of it. Around a year and a half ago, I released an EP called JUST GET IN THE CAR. It contained 5 songs, one of which was called The_Blood_Section. I was very proud of the song, it was one of the first I'd made where I purposefully added a pre-chorus. Eventually, I deleted JUST GET IN THE CAR to clear up space, I added the songs to a mixtape called unabridged, which is still on Soundcloud. I wanted to sample a song, and The_Blood_Section was perfect. It was made long enough ago to be a throwback, and it has a similar sound to that of TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY. I used deep reese basses and heavy kicks on JUST GET IN THE CAR, so it was really the origin of my love for that type of production. I took the pre-chorus from The_Blood_Section and I slowed it down, pitched it down, and then I added reverb and saturation. I then proceeded to cut it in a few places and drag those clips into a sampler, then I made a pattern. I laid that down, and took out the highs to make it sound floaty and washed out. After this I used synths and bass to fill it out, and then I took a drum loop out of the sample library on my DAW and laid that over the top. I figured out some chords on my guitar in the key of the song, and I recorded them using my audio interface. At first, I thought the chords were too random, but once I wrote to them and figured out a melody I realised that they were actually perfect for the sound I was now developing for the song. The rest of the song wrote itself and came together. I knew quite early on that this would be a good encore to the album and so I came up with the idea of "i tried" as a working title and I wrote to that.

I had written two verses and the chorus for the song. I left about 30 seconds, I knew I wanted a feature to give the song more variety. I met Alan TF through a mutual friend. He was relatively new on the scene and he had just released his debut album, which was mixed by Kinozolte. I really enjoyed the album, it sounded fresh, you know? The way he raps is super unique and playful, I knew that I wanted to work with him. I realised that this new song I was working on was perfect for him, so I hit him up and he came back with a yes. I was very excited about this, I love working with people, and I was really a fan of Alan TF so it was a privilege to have the opportunity to work with him.

I was at a show at the Arts Center when I saw filiprodak for the first time. He played a really good set, and I was in the crowd. I noticed how unique he was, being the only electronic artist that played that night. The show was called Mixed Frequencies and it was various local band acts, and a few solo acts too, raising money for charity. filiprodak had a sampler board and some DJ stuff, he played various remixes of his songs, which were all a blend of various EDM sounds. His stuff reminds me of a blend of Porter Robinson, Marshmallow, NCS, and Justice. I really messed with it, so I messaged him on Instagram after the show asking for a collab, I bumped into him outside first but he was super busy talking to other people. After I got home, I got a message back from him saying that he'd be down to work with me, and that he had a home studio that I could come record at anytime. He's actually part of K86 but it's such a big group now that I hadn't actually had the opportunity to network with him before then.

On a train home from London after a visit to the Tate Modern, I was scrolling my phone and reading the site for my local newspaper. I came across this article about a female singer my age, who had just played at Latitude. Which is a music festival relatively close to me, but it's big. I saw a picture of her playing the piano and singing, I was intrigued, so I read on. I learn that her name is Bella Ross and that she gigs a lot around the Ipswich area. I message Bella on Instagram, explaining how I had found out about her, that I had listened to her music and that I thought she had a very special voice. Then I wrote a couple paragraphs about myself, and I ended it by saying that I'd love to work with her sometime. To be honest, I wasn't really expecting a response because there was no way that I was of Bella's caliber, I thought my music was too weird, I guess. It was a nice idea though, so I left it at that. I was immensely surprised to see that she sent me an equally energetic response, Bella told me that she would love to hear what I'd been working on. So I sent her the demo, we talk some more back and forth, and I say that I'll sort out somewhere we could record vocals.

Now I have a dilemma. I've organised two amazing features, but I'm recording vocals on my phone in my bedroom. That clearly wasn't going to work. Luckily, I had a perfect opportunity to take up. filiprodak had offered to let me use his home studio, now I had reason to. So, I hit him up and tell him about that track and the features. He's still keen to let me work in his studio. I sort some dates where everyone is free. I book Alan TF and Bella Ross for different days, with Alan TF recording vocals first. So I head to filiprodak's place, he welcomes me in, we talk for a bit, and then Alan TF arrives. filiprodak shows us the setup, he has a Shure SM58. It's normally a handheld mic, but it's super dynamic and sturdy, suitable for many different uses. Bella found it easier to hold it in her hands, but Alan and I kept it on the stand in order to keep it steady, because rap vocals are less dynamic. I recorded my vocals in Filip's room as well so that the vocals were consistent, I lay down mine first before Alan's. It was a bit nerve-racking rapping in front of both filiprodak and Alan TF, two artists I have a lot of respect and admiration for, but I managed to get it done in few takes. Alan does his thing, and that wraps up the verse vocals. filiprodak offers to do the mix, because he wanted more experience at mixing something that wasn't strictly EDM. I accept the offer gracefully, putting my ego to the side, because it's what sounded best for the track, and I trust filiprodak.

A couple days later, I'm back at filiprodak's place and we're waiting for Bella. This is when I show him COUNT DRACULA for the first time. filiprodak had laid down the drums for that before Alan TF arrived, and I had produced the entire track between then and the day Bella came round to record her vocals. filiprodak gave me very positive criticism for COUNT DRACULA, and that gave me the confidence to release it as a single. When Bella arrives, we show her the song with Alan TF's vocals on it, and mine. I explain the structure of the chorus to Bella and we go over the melody. She practices it a few times, and then she sits on filiprodak's bed with the SM58 in her hand and runs the track a few times, testing the mic. filiprodak hits record, the room goes silent, and a few seconds later, Bella's vocals fill the room. Me and filiprodak look at eachother with amazement, I've literally never heard anything like it. Bella's voice sounded even better than I thought, and my expectations were already quite high. It's delicate, yet theatrical, and so full of soul. I nearly clap my hands together because it feels like a eureka moment. I had written that chorus for her, without even knowing it!

After that, we leave filiprodak to it. He sends me a demo mix a few days later, and it sounds phenomenal. I was in shock, I couldn't believe that I was part of making this song. Yet alone that I had produced and written for it. When the final master came through, about two days before I submitted the album I was absolutely certain that I had made the perfect outro to the album. It tied all the loose ends and finished everything so beautifully. i tried was my reminder that TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY really came out of a series of very simple, small ideas, that with a little ambition and dedication built a collection of 13 tracks that perfectly encompassed everything I wanted to express at the time. The pain, the joy, the fire in me, all in the space of 39 minutes.

I am really proud of TERMINAL PHILOSOPHY, what I have created continues to amaze me. I set out to raise the stakes, and break boundaries. In reaching for the sky I landed on the moon and made peace with the earth.

I finished Miscellaneous Observations with so much more to say, and at the time I didn't know what that was. But now I know...

Lyrics:

You turn your back and walk away

I don't wanna stay anymore

I feel so numb

What have I done?

I feel no outcome

There's nowhere to run

Anymore

I tried

I tried to act like you weren't gonna change

That you were gonna stay and that you were within my range

Within my sight

I tried to fight

But it tied me down, I lost the night

Woke up alone, I scrolled my phone

Tried to atone for not really being there for you

Or bear the fruit of my labour

And give it to my neighbour, walls kept us apart

But I climbed over, hoping to restart

Reset, but I bet, you couldn't let me in

The secrets you were keeping

Close to the heart

Most of the art, I made in order to dissect

The mess that I made

I confess that I laid around, slept with my demons

I kept coming back, looking for reasons

You were the Tegan to my Sara

The end of an era is upon us

I stay anonymous, to the weight on us

I shoulda known this in the first place

Elephants

Elephants in the room fill up the dead

If you try and you don't succeed

Was it worth trying at all?

The tree grew from a seed

But it died during the fall

It got me nowhere

But I gave it my all

It got me nowhere

But I gave it my all

I tried to overcompensate, tried to conversate

Another awkward date, add it to a calendar

So then I can hold her

Burn the candle to the holder, now you waxed off

At me, because our backs are to the scenery

There's more difficulty in monogamy

We play each other's monopolies

We gotta cut it off, like a hairdresser

Bit off more than I can chew

Using my teeth to undress her

But it's gone bitter, cold turkey

Now we got beef and she tryna apply pressure

But it will never get better, emotional turmoil

Bleeding with no tourniquet, turn a key

Bury it, six feet into the sand pit

With all the other toys, I tried to hide

It's deeper than rap if you gave me a minute

Hard to comprehend, my thoughts, they all vivid

I'm packing your bags, I'm calm and you're livid

You scream that head off, maybe you'll listen

Look through my heart, look through my keyhole

Locked from within, house that got repo'd

I'm bad to the bone, meat on a T-bone

The boy meets the world, feeling like Deno

I tried to get money, I'd fall for the cheque

It's all crummy bread, breakfast in bed

Arose from the living so I rest with the dead

Medusa is pretty, yeah, I fucked her instead

I said what I said

If you try and you don't succeed

Was it worth trying at all?

The tree grew from a seed

But it died during the fall

It got me nowhere

But I gave it my all

It got me nowhere

But I gave it my all

I tried

THANK YOU to every person that continues to support me and my crazy ideas. You are what keeps that fire in me going, feel free to come and toast a marshmallow on me anytime!

To every artist that has inspired me with their work, passion is a language, keep speaking it.

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