Bringing to you another video, this time in 4k. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything anywhere, but I’ve hardly been idle. There have been many and sundry little things taking my attention away, and in this video I chat about what’s been occupying my time. Like writing new songs, for example. I realize I just put out an album (that was long past its due date) and I’m supposed to only be focused on talking about that, but I’m not a conventional artist in any sense of the word. “Swallow” was conceived in 1995 as an album that would explore five different sides of a woman’s personality, with “Swallow” being the main character, and the one who has had to swallow her feelings and circumstances in order to survive. Clearly, that’s not the album I ended up making.
Nor is am i me/am i not?, though I suppose in a way I came slightly closer.
As a point of curiosity, it seems that Tori Amos made that album, in a way, when she put out American Doll Posse, an album that put me off entirely for years due to the artwork and the fact that it seemed like Ms. Amos simply wanted an excuse to wear as many different wigs as she could to disguise the fact that she was losing her hair. It had finally become noticeable on To Venus and Back, which is why, I think, she had wigged artwork for Strange Little Girls, which I thought was a great album of covers. In fact, I only picked American Doll Posse up a couple of months ago after hearing Bouncing Off Clouds on The Graham Norton Show on YouTube. It’s a solid album. I don’t think it needed the concept. I think it was a ruse to hide her hair loss. It happens to women just as it does to men, and it’s horrible and embarrassing. She probably had to have a scalp reduction surgery that took years to heal, and that’s probably why there are so many fans that say she looks different now. Her eyebrows have literally moved. Please don’t hate on me for this: I adore her work.
Yikes, I’ve hung myself out to dry now. Um…moving right along.
All of the material from Swallow had been written between 2010 and 2012, and was pretty much complete by 2013. At that point, life circumstances became too pressing for me to move forward on the album and it had to wait. The release itself has been quiet, though I’ve gotten great feedback, and I’m pleased with its performance thus far. Having not written any music since 2012 and getting back into after all these years feels exhilarating.
Oh, and I chat with a sparrow for a moment. In the video, I zoom in close so you can see her clearly, but I realize that some folks might think I spliced that Very Mary Poppins moment in. Sadly, you’ll just have to take my word for it, because I imported the video directly from Quicktime to Premiere Rush without saving a copy, and once it’s rendered in Premiere Rush, it becomes uneditable.
I’ll think about saving a source copy next time. It’s not like I don’t have a terabyte of cloud storage or anything.
Two things of note here are that I’m now on Patreon, the address is (predictably) https://www.patreon.com/auryaun. I originally had Tiers there for both music supporters and tarot readings, but the way Patreon works made it too difficult. You can only offer either Tiers that are paid monthly, or “per creation”. I don’t see how I could satisfy my music fans in this way, plus I’m giving access to my Discord server, and how would that make sense? So I removed the tarot reading portion from my Patreon and only have monthly music fan subscriptions available that come with access to Discord, early access to new tracks, special swag, and more things as they happen.
For the tarot fans, I’ll be offering readings through a different avenue and most likely will use PayPal. In this video, I offer my first 150 Subscribers to my YouTube Channel to a free, single card reading, just for becoming a sub of my Channel and liking the video. Then, all you have to do is DM me your question. Super simple!
If it goes really well I might extend it to more subscribers. I’ll be setting up a page (probably here) for tarot readings. I know I can help a lot of people with my readings, as I’ve been doing them for so long. I’m excited to get going with these.
auryaun music 