// just like a balloon, letting go was the only way to fly //

Over The Moon is a song about knowing of a love that has been there since the beginning of time, the type that showed you strength and held you grounded in the moments you needed in order to grow. The music is a mix of melancholy and hopefulness, expressing the tension and fear of leaping into the great unknown. It feels like you're losing grip of a memory that was once held so tightly, and floating into a world of new possibilities.

music and lyrics by Claire Gohst
produced by Claire Gohst, Sutter Hellwarth & Ainjel Emme
Engineered by Sutter Hellwarth
Mixed by Andreas Sandnes
Mastered by Michelle Mancini

Heart On Fire

Over The Moon

American Song

Claire Gohst on violin
Chris Potter on keys

Maps Instrumental

Car Stereo was loosely written on guitar by a bonfire with friends on Dockweiler Beach. After that night, I dreamt of it, woke up and created a demo using Garageband on my iPad while on the road 🚗
This song not only celebrates the little things, but also one of the greatest joys of life, friendship, because we could all use a little help sometimes. It takes a lot of courage to lean on others when we need to. This song is a reminder to live life like my car stereo, TURNED UP LOUD!!!

© 2024 papercitizen

Car Stereo

Breathing

Defuse is about the breaking point we all face. It comes from a place of survival, but also from a place of connection.

DEFUSE

Official theme song of Savae´ and Awakening of the Starborne, by author Louve-CH

This song is for the ones who survived
For the ones who rose anyway
For the ones who found their power in the dark ✨🖤

Her Darkness

Her Darkness (from the novel Awakening of The Starborne)

Released Aug 1, 2016. 

Written by Claire Goh 
Arranged by Paper Citizen 
Produced by Claire Goh, Bill Dunphy 
Engineered by Claire Goh, Bill Dunphy, Ally Gecewicz, Sutter Hellwarth, 
Mixed by Claire Goh 

Claire Goh: Lead Vocals, Guitars 
Bill Dunphy: Guitars, Background Vocals 
Katie Henkel: Keys, Background Vocals 
Sean Collins: Bass 
Francesca Impastato: Drums

Postcards In Transit

Anywhere We Want To [Single]

Postcards In Transit EP now available for download at papercitizen.bandcamp.com

Recorded in 2016. Released 1 Sept 2016

I Don't Know

Postcards In Transit EP now available on at papercitizen.bandcamp.com

Recorded in 2016. Released 1 Sept 2016.

Right By You

Postcards In Transit EP now available at papercitizen.bandcamp.com
Recorded in 2016. Released 1 Sept 2016.

Ocean

Slow Motions

Quirky indie-rock that's looking back at the past with a little bit of humour.

History

The last song of the EP, it comes back around to the madness and sadness that was derived from the sudden end of a relationship, caused by undercurrents of discontent, jealousy and anger. These feelings were left unaddressed from the inability to communicate, and as a result, I faded into a dark period of time. This recording tells my side of the story - the internalization of the events that took place, and the downward spiral of my mental health. 

This recording has been inspired by some 80s synths & 90s grunge-rock and with its guitaristic progressions and choice of instrumentation. Its harmony is dense, tense, and constantly moving

Distraction EP

The River's Blue

I was raised in an extremely religious christian family. My father was a preacher and my mother had strong faith. I attended sunday service all of my life, participated in religious retreats abroad, and even attended an all-girls protestant school for 10 years. 

The biggest disconnect for me began when my parents threw me out of home at 17 after they found out I was a lesbian. Until today they do not acknowledge this as a part of who I am, and hope that I will be able to change through prayer. The hurt I felt and still feel today, will always be challenged by how my actions have hurt them and their beliefs. 

Left alone, I threw my new found freedom and youth into making ends meet and finding my chosen family/community where I’d feel loved. I know I am not alone with this ordeal, and I wrote this song with that in mind. Download is a painful recount and empowering realization that the search for truth can be a lonely one, but worth every minute when you find love in its truest form.

Download

The title track of the EP, Distraction is the overarching influence of all five songs in this album. Angry and devastated over a recent breakup, I wanted to turn over negative energy and emotion into something I would begin to feel empowered by. 

I’d written this song on guitar. I added a little swing to it, kept it at a moderate tempo, and picked a harmonic progression that didn’t hold too much tension. The lyrics are honest, matter-of-fact, staying away from too much emotion, trying to adopt a pragmatic approach to how I would like to turn my present life situation around. 

One of my favourite parts of this song is the bridge - a momentary “scream-into-a-pillow”, “plate-smashing” explosion of emotion that provides catharsis, before quickly simmering down to its level-headed surface. The string arrangement tries to accentuate that, dramatizing the release in a way that breathes and to feel alive.

Distraction

Clockwork Reasons is a song about “what ifs” - a cyclical kind of thinking, something I tend to be guilty of, which I think is caused by the fear of uncertainty and factors beyond my control. 
Its lyrics were written through a lens of worry - a conversation I had with myself in the late hours of the night; sometime in the winter, while the city is fast asleep - bringing out emotions brewing underneath the frozen exterior. 
I felt like my mind go back and forth with these “problems”, and its solutions were always met with impatience and excuses. 

It feels like an introspective composition. I understood it as a moment of anxiety and I tried to reflect the persistence of that feeling by coming up with a piano riff that became a loop. I continued to build on the track in this way, thinking of parts that were cyclical - in doing so, I began to find a lot of comfort in understanding that everything in this world comes back around.

Clockwork Reasons

Love is Love. 

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 

SHKN was written after I decided (yet again) to try online dating. My experiences with modern matchmaking apps were bittersweet, with its fair share of great and not so great dates. Still, this mobile option presented yours truly with more opportunities than my reclusive, daily routine of writing and playing music 🙃 

You know the feeling you get when you’ve met someone you really like, but you don’t wanna give it all away so you keep it to yourself? It’s exciting yet almost unbearable! After a month of dating, my partner said to me, “You make me feel like a shaken bottle of soda!”. 

Inspired by her, and our love for late 90s pop/rock melodies and instrumentation, SHKN throws in a modern twist with its lyrics, harmonies layered with bright textures, biting electric guitars and an irresistible summer-y head-bop. It expresses the emotions and feelings you feel when there’s undeniable chemistry between two people, and how wonderful it is to fall in love.

SHKN

I’ve often found myself holding on to someone who has already let go of me. Maybe it was the idea of who I wanted them to be. Maybe things could’ve been different. 
We constantly evolving the way we view ourselves and the vision of who we want to be - sometimes this change is met with resistance from those closest to you, but welcomed by strangers or people who have just gotten to know this new version of you. This feeling of new-found empowerment begins to seesaw with feelings of self-doubt.

Hands Dirty tells a story about the perspective gained from a distance, the love that always remains, and the lessons learned through the passing of time.

Hands Dirty

Paper Citizen - Hands Dirty

Paper Citizen covers Savage Garden's 1996 hit for of the compilation album titled "Power To The Queer Kids" https://powertothequeerkids.bandcamp.com/

Eight queer musicians cover songs that are meaningful in regards to their queer identity. 100% of proceeds from Bandcamp will go to The Trevor Project, an organization that provides resources, like crisis prevention and suicide hotlines, to LGBTQ+ youth.

Paper Citizen

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