Terrene: Music

Tell Them (2010 Demo) - v0 mp3, ~7MB

A starry goodbye song. Home-recorded and somewhat lo-fi, a very demo recording with me on all the instruments. My drumming is kinda embarassing. Features Sherah on harmonies!

Individual tracks are downloadable below. You can also just click here to download the whole record.

Other options: Amazon/Amazon MP3, CD Baby, eMusic, Rhapsody, YouTube, iTunes

1. Fifty-One
2. Andromeda
3. Makr
4. What We'll Never Be
5. Stereo!
6. "regret"
7. Media Sift (Through Heart Rises)
8. "enemy landlord"
9. Unwelcome
10. Fixed Up
11. The Spirits on the Shelf
12. "the indifferent universe"
13. Mermaid (Lost At Sea)

Artist's statement: The Indifferent Universe is an honest, sad, thankful tribute to my youth. Written primarily in the 90s as a teenager, then recorded with producer Phil Ek (Built to Spill, Band of Horses, The Shins, The Dodos) from 2004-2007. I toured the United States solo for six weeks in support, using a laptop and an array of guitar amplifiers that received discrete signals to recreate the record's big wall of sound.

The Indifferent Universe compiles my simplest and earliest material, that I fondly remember writing in hopes of being "discovered." In my case, "discovered" simply meant understood and appreciated by whatever audience I could find -- even though I was living in the Bible Belt, a place that didn't understand me, and to which I never truly related. All of my early-life obsessions, from the longing for the simplicity of childhood, existential "epiphanies," then-nascent rejection of religion, lost (and/or dying) loves, and fear that I'm getting closer to dying, are covered. The most common theme among them, and the one I chose for the album cover, was simply a feeling of loneliness and displacement. A need for connection.

I had about 40 songs that were in consideration for putting on the album, but I just thought that latter-day material (from 2000 on), was decidedly more complicated musically and in theme, and just didn't feel right to use on a first album. I also wanted to give myself time to progress as a recording artist, as much of my stuff before Universe was done quickly and amateurishly.

Alas, Universe, which I recorded with a band that split up before the album's street date, was released on fledgling label Wax Orchard in 2007, and the label (fraught with financial difficulties from other artists' sales) folded in 2008, just a few months after the video for "Unwelcome" received airplay on HBO and MTV2, and won "Best Indie Music Video" at the 2008 Yahoo! Video Awards.

How I feel about it now: Well, the album itself, I really stand by. It's a wonderful record that captures the songs really well, has a meaning to me that is very powerful, and sounds great. What's more, I think all the takes on there from all the musicians sound great, and Phil Ek is and was a tremendous producer with a gift for placing overdubs into a lush aural plane. I really wouldn't change a thing about the contents of the record, even the artwork.

I don't think many people really got what I meant about searching for a connection from a place of isolation, and it was discouraging to see it labeled as being "of its time and place" (meaning 2007/Seattle) even though for most of the songs, the time and place was in the 90s in Oklahoma. I also feel sad that all the support for the record dropped from under my feet, as I had planned to do 3rd, 4th, and 5th videos after "Unwelcome" and tour with a real band. 

But all of these things were out of my control, so I refuse to be bitter about any of them. I didn't lose any rights to Universe after the label died, so I have reissued it with no fuss or muss, and posted it for free here as part of the open source initiative, where it has been downloaded several thousand times. It is truly a time capsule for me, because it's a reminder of people I don't get to play music with anymore, playing songs about a life I don't live anymore -- the drawing/painting on the cover is even by my then-girlfriend. And there are no hard feelings anywhere. Everyone in the old Terrene lineup moved to different states (in three cases, different countries), all because of seperate life events. I'm free to do as I please as an artist, and feel great about moving on, knowing that an album as beautiful as The Indifferent Universe awaits people who will discover Terrene later - as I hoped they would when I wrote "Andromeda," 14 years ago.

- posted by John Dylan, February 2, 2010