A new tune I'm working on...no vocals. Oh yea, I'm in a new band and we are working on a very loud version of this. The Dagger EP out soon. Stay tuned. Oh yea buy "Into the Fray" on Itunes and support local music!

The Illusion Of Separation

So I had to redo some lyrics. My teachers do say I sometimes have a problem with finding the right words (and consistently use the wrong ones XD). So after listening back again and again, I made some corrections and found a stronger way to get my point across, at that. I like having full control over my music. You can't do this kind of stuff once you put the album out, fully pressed and distributed. 

Basilica [Lyrics]

I can't understand
How you have found that
Separation is the way to a higher plane,
I am dumbfounded,
I can understand that all I see
Is a severed family
Dysfunctionally following a fall
From grace
I pay a price to qualify
For the "Holy Commodity"

Swallow your pride!
Don't leave a soul behind!
We are no more than
Humans within
This great design

Don't cut...
Don't cut the line between us!

I can't understand
How you baptize yourself
In illusions of separation
You cast us down so eagerly
Cascade,
We fall!

Pandemonium
I'm alive, yet somehow, your judgements
Deliver me there 
Long before the courier carries me
I don't know how you sleep at all
And I can't devise how this scheme has lasted so long
I don't know how you sleep at all

Swallow your pride!
Don't leave a soul behind!
We are no more than
Humans within
This great design

You are
So ready to cut the line between us
If you are who you say you are,
Must there be a price between us?
Don't cut...
Don't cut the line between us

Swallow your pride!
Swallow your pride!

Swallow your pride!
Don't leave a soul behind!
We are no more than
Humans within
This great design

Basilica [Revised]

This is nothing, but a fun lyrical exercise. I loved the song so much that I wanted to sing over it. All the rights, of course, belong to Tides of Man. None of this is mine, except the lyrics. All that legal bull and what not. I was just truly inspired by the music and composition.

Planks (Fun With Tides Of Man Songs)

Black Holes [Sample]

Sleepless Sadness

Some rough tracks...hope to be back in the studio this summer. 

#kingthecosmic

New Shit

Get Loud

Unilateral v.5

This was my Rock and Roll take on #blacklivesmatter. It's not meant to illustrate any harm toward anyone. I wanted to give a perspective of the pain, agony, and fear in being Black. I thought it could've been a great way to bridge gaps, as most of the music on the subject rests within the arms of hip hop/rnb. Not a lot of conversation can go on if things aren't translated over to different 'bubbles' -- like genre and who is expected to listen to that certain genre. I like art that pushes me to think, and I'd hoped this song could do that.

I think it is one of my favorite songs I've ever written, as it details feelings I haven't been able to articulate. The black perspective isn't typically easy to share, no matter what my friends look like. And I love my friends and family, dearly, as they are whom I sing to.

The title is inspired by "Strange Fruit," sang by various black jazz singers, such as Nina Simone and Billie Holiday. I highly suggest checking it out on YouTube. That song is short, but deeply painful. Being that I am akin to peace, I wanted to gently respond to that conversation, as we are still having it in 2017. The speaker is the child who is agonizing about being the "1 in 3 (sic) black men that either die or goto prison." That statistic was thrown around so much, I had to write about it. My own father geve me those warnings very early on, before all this identity politicking.

I gave the arrangement an ocean feel to give it an "Odessey" like sensibility that went with the societal concept of being in 'strange waters.' I wrote this during the Trump/Clinton election, which was really stressful. In those recent years and up until now, the Western world has entered some strange waters, and I can only hope we can correct this ship toward better waters, and soon. 

- L, TTW

Strange Waters

This song was about my fears during Trump's rise to power last year. The seasonal imagery is definitely referencing the time period in which it was written, but also the the changing of the age itself. It's like it went from a season of summery hope, to a destitute, cold, and bitter fall. We, essentially, became 'splintered figures,' via a digital civil war, a cherry tree split up by a lie. 

Friends were lost over that election. Family members were being ripped a part because of some dude's rise to power; some dude that doesn't even know nor care for us. If the song was a person, it would be the herald on the street, screaming "The end is near! Do something!" 

So yea, it's pretty straight forward: Trump has been anything, but easy. We've become split, and the country is still heartbroken.

- L, TTW

Figures (With Vox)

This song is another favorite of mine. It stemmed from a conversation I had with a music friend of mine on the way to a Circa Survive show. We were speaking how the itch to play music, our dream to make it and all that, is a dream and a curse. The conversation struck me, since i never thought of music as a curse up until that point. However, he was right in a way. To live this dream of music or any other artistic pursuit is to live a curse to everything else. Some people can do it, but it's the sacrifice that matters. So, I wanted to give my band, musician friends, and any other artists a very loud "just keep swimming." Here's to the future.

- L, TTW

In The Near Future