this is my first official, professionally mastered release as a musician. since i was a kid, i've wanted to release something musically i felt proud of, something that communicated aspects of myself and my life - and hopefully, the world around me - that either go unexpressed in the day to day, or cannot be expressed in speech or words alone.

the songs on this album are ruminations on a variety of things in my life i've experienced or felt or thought, mostly sad and bittersweet things about childhood, trauma, being homeschooled. growing up in a conservative white Christian suburb in relative isolation from others. gender identity. living with the feeling that you can't belong and that you're enwrapped in an endlessly dehumanizing capital-driven machination with no exit. substance abuse. regrets over wrongs committed due to said substance abuse.

but i also wanted there to be light and joy in these songs as well. i can't stand uniformly hopeless art or ideology. i still believe in life. most of all i wanted to offer some comfort or sense of affirmation, of belonging, of compassion to people who probably like me, have largely felt an absence of the sort of support and love needed to lead a fulfilling existence.

i took the album title from a song by one of my biggest inspirations, robin guthrie. 'some sort of paradise', paired with the album art, is meant to be an exploration of what paradise is or has been defined as, or what it can be or whether it can exist at all. i lived a large portion of my life only experiencing brief glimpses and snapshots of paradise vis a vis screens - the television, computers, phones I suppose. those digital and technological mediums offered me outlets into the healing and joyous world of art, anime and games specifically, where i felt validation of feelings and who i was in ways i seldom (if ever) experienced elsewhere. in a way, this album is a homage to those art forms. still, i've found there's no stainless, problem-free or All-Encompassing paradise anywhere. a television or laptop or iphone or a game console certainly isn't paradise in the most fulfiling and necessary sense of the word. i don't know. in the end i just hope i can communicate something beautiful to others. hope you enjoy this release. <3