letter 020: on the hillside
dear junk mail club,
i can’t believe we made it to twenty of these.
hope you are all doing okay :) my new song “On The Hillside” is out now! you can listen here and watch the video below.
i’m not actually sure how this song started. i wasn’t there for the inception of it. you must be confused now. it was the fall of 2021, my friend lucian was visiting from new zealand, and we went to new york to go visit some friends. we were staying in some dingy air bnb with a floor and ceiling that were slanted and downhill towards the bathroom. a hydro flask could build up some serious speed when knocked over at the wrong side of the room. on the first morning there, i remember going through a folder of ideas on his computer and coming across one and asking why he hadn’t worked on it more. he said he didn’t like it. i said you are dumb for that. that’s called friendship.
i had brought headphones and a microphone, and so, sitting at the kitchen table, at the lower end of the tilted floor, of course, i first started messing with the idea and recording demo vocals for what eventually became “On The Hillside.” for several months this song lived on as a demo titled “lcd” after lcd soundsystem because the piano that comes in the intro always reminded me of “all my friends.”
however, i don’t think anything on my song now resembles lcd soundsystem. and if you didn’t know that song, i hope your life is changed forever.
i ended up writing the lyrics for the song in bed one night in san diego when i was living at home — my apartment had flooded in LA and i had to move out. i remember staying up late many nights, and trying to delusionally write songs right before falling asleep. well, this was one of those. i don’t do that very often at all, at least not successfully. i already had the concept of “a light in my life” from the voice memo prompt that many of you submitted to years ago — that will come into play shortly, and you might have noticed the tease of these voice memos at the start of the last two music videos.
when things are going good, you won’t even be thinking about it, but when things start going wrong, it’s easy to lose sight of the possibility of there being something better to come. the light motif is more apparent in the middle of the song with the lines, “balanced on the fringes of our silhouettes, you’re sinking in the shadow’s end, but if you circle around you’ll see that’s only half of it.” one side of a silhouette is always a fully blacked out image, an outline of darkness, while if you looked at it from the other side, it would be in full, bright light with no shadows at all. this song is about acknowledging both sides.
the idea of the building the “kite envelope” came about when i was in living in new zealand in december and i came across an image of cocky eek’s “wind dress.” it is a really stunning piece that impacted me a lot when i saw it. it’s the main reason why i went through all the work to make the “kite envelope” even exist. i could make up a back story for it, say that me repeatedly fighting the uphill wind is supposed to be like sisyphus, that it has a deeper meaning, but to be blunt, i just love how it looks. there’s a freedom in the way it flows and undulates in the breeze. the process was a tedious few weeks of sewing — even up until the night before shooting i was still making little adjustments, hoping it wouldn’t just fall apart. you can watch the process of making it below.
i can see myself delving into making larger physical works more and more as i get older. i don’t know much about that world, but i’m so intrigued by it and the impact that huge physical pieces and exhibitions can have. i recently had a friend tell me about an artist duo they love and thought i’d like, and after exploring their work i have a new idea already for something large scale down the line. an extension of all this light actually.
my ideal still is very simple — to get a home with big open space, a nice garden, maybe some roses, too, and if making music and other art is what allows me to live like that, it’d be a dream. maybe it’s not as simple as i dream it, but it could be. a little life for a couple friends and i, and a whole lot of making more random stuff.
yours,
garry