7/16/2023 - 1/1/2025
*/ (The Bleeding Heart,
And All The Things You Never See)
we built this garden,
but it's still standingi hope that one day
i can see you standingthere
?
click below!
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**this website may contain flashing imagery. viewer discretion is advised
Forever, For Now Retrospective
(please note, there's a handful of videos that have audio that you'll have to manually unmute to get the full experience. thanks!)
the cover of the album comes from a joke drawing panna did early on in our relationship (shown above)while the original drawing is silly, i made some edits to it while concepting the era surrounding the album, and stumbled across this:
the way i was basically erased from the frame, with my outline still being left immediately stuck out in my brain, especially as parts of the album revolved around disassociation, or the idea of a relationship being difficult for me, so much that i might almost "check out" in a way. i knew from that moment that this would be the cover
(original teaser posted to this website on launch)
potoo whisper is about the comfort you feel at the start of a relationship. the uncertainty, but the youthful experiences that come from first getting to know someone. my partner’s fursona is a potoo, so i wanted to have something on the album that predominately sampled one
the fear of flying (falling) sets up the narrative of the project, with the first words being spoken claiming that “I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO SURE OF ANYTHING IN MY DAMN LIFE!”
as people have commented, the sample does cut off intentionally, to convey this overconfidence, speaking about this certainty in the sample while the actual lyrics explain my uncertainty with falling in love, knowing the things i feel are genuine and need to be expressed, but pains from my past come back to bite, making it difficult to say how i truly feeli wrote and recorded this song in one night at my brother's apartment over easter weekend
unused promo material
alternative cover
first flight is about the first night i ever spent with my partner. we’d stayed up, looking through each other’s 3DSes (3DSi?) and i was invited to hang out in their dorm, as their roommate hadn’t moved in yet. despite having mandatory things to attend the next day, we stayed up till the sunrise, talking about common interests and realizing just how much we had in common. (i think we slept about 2 hours) i was a dork, and laid my head on their leg after asking if i could, and i think that’s where everything began really tbh
i was laying across them, and i suggested that instead of laying perpendicular, we should lay parallel
they had my attention since the first time i met them, but i really think i started to fall for them that nightthis instrumental originally started out as a little thing i wrote just to satisfy a specific emotion i'd been feeling on that day, was nearly passed to TENNSTARS until he decided not to use it, and then was expanded upon into the final result
alternative cover
falseness is a very interesting one for me
it only made the album because panna wanted it to be on there, i considered cutting it about a dozen times lol
the goal behind it was to write the corniest rap(???) lyrics that showcased this cockiness, this super confident sense of self and our relationship, with still a little bit of hesitancy but with the benefit of extra time (still taking time to acknowledge that there’s still healing to do)
i do love this song though, it was written pretty early on in our relationship so it definitely deserves its place on herealso the mix on this song is so rough lmao
it’s cute thoughone of the sounds you hear throughout (starting around 1:13) is actually theremin playing by panna, it crops up on a few other places on the album too (fear of flying and MOVE off the top of my head but i think there's a little bit of theremin in nearly every song)
relevant image
alternative cover
“in that same vibrant forest…” relates to my first album, Pocket Dimension. many sound cues, synths, melodic elements, etc are taken from a wide variety of songs from that project, it was definitely a stroll down memory lane for me
that album was written about a fictional world that me and a close friend, arguably my closest friend at the time would roleplay in during the era of the COVID lockdown
it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that person saved my life, they were really the only person to keep me sane during that hellish time in my life
it was arguably my first interaction with a healthy queer “relationship” (even if it was all digital) which helped shape a lot of who i am today (they helped me explore that realm under safe conditions)
so why include this on the album?
it’s a way to move on, almost
we don’t really speak that much anymore, but i hope they’re okay out there in their own sector of life, knowing that our time together shaped me into a better person, as i hope i did for them
!getting to work with Zelda proper for the first time was a super enlightening experience, we both bounced musical concepts and melodies and harmonies off each other constantly during the session and it was super pleasant
i also got to use a Rhodes piano and a Moog synth while starting this song, the recordings of those sessions crop up all over the project (and ones to come?)
original teaser posted to this website at launch (actually incorrect now as the verse was redone)
MOVE <><< (aka MOVE jesus fish in applicable situations) is about moving on from the past in a general sense
my life is full of a lot of regret, moving past that has been a large journey over arguably the last 7(?) years, and realizing i only had so much control or understanding of situations“hydrophobic
in the waves
melting into
colored raystook a portal
to my place
nothing physical
fry my veins”it's not really a song i like to speak on as it's really about a wide variety of Things, but that's the main takeaway
(original teaser posted to this website on launch)
current is about my parents
i feel like a lot people guessed this LMAO but that's what it is!
my parents have always supported me, though thick and thin
in a way it's also about my parent's acceptance of panna, which came very quickspecifically, it's also about a very specific place that panna and i would go to sit by the edge of a river, which is detailed in the single coveri love my parents, and i'd never really written a song about my appreciation of them before
so it was cathartic in a waysamples throughout are taken from assorted videos of me with
my parents, or panna with my parents / at my house
single cover
the song was actually incredibly different for probably around half a year, being much slower and more ballad-y? more focused on atmosphere and the vocals
overall i think i made the right choice for the album, but i still do love that original version
maybe it'll make its way out eventually...
alternative cover
“couldn’t you just fly away?” is a multi faceted song for me
i wrote it during the summer, when my partner had to return to florida
which nowadays, is not exactly the best place for a bisexual trans person
so part of this song’s meaning derives from a desire to see them Anywhere that wasn’t there
another idea behind this song stems from an uncertainty of self, wanting to understand why they wouldn’t just fly away from me, waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering how one could love so much even despite everything i’ve done and been through
of course, they didn’t, and i knew they wouldn’t, but when something is so deeply rooted inside of you, it's not so easy to just brush it off like that.
and, in typical Ima fashion, it's also about escapism. wanting to fly off to some fictional, impossible destination to escape the difficulties of the everydayi really wanted to something very atmospheric, with a four on the floor "euphoric house" type thing at some point but mostly focusing on just building that shape (paark and former hero both were massive inspirations for the ideas put forth here)
older video i took of my excitement over the original drop of the song (more minimal) (i still love this version of the drop and have it saved separately in case i ever want to have it make a comeback)
alternative cover
(depicting the earliest version of panna's fursona, and an imagined version of ima around the same time)
softer me (aka dandelion club) is about the theoretical idea of meeting someone you love when you were both much youngernostalgia is a big thing for me. i try to not let it be, moving forward and looking toward the future is so important but it gets the better of me sometimes
so i chose to write this song, to explore this idea of meeting panna before things happened in both our lives to, in a short way, make things complicated (not necessarily bad things, mind, but just the act of growing up)
every event mentioned in the song is related to a real life event, every sample is pulled from old videos of me when i was younger (ripped from old youtube videos, facebook posts, etc)
the chops in the last section are taken from an old build-a-bear my brothers made before i was born, their (very young) voices still existing on that old voice box
“hi baby jake, we love you! mwah!”the song was written over the course of one weekend, about a month from the album's release
it was the last song to be written for the project, and i couldn't be more happy that it's therefeaturing vocals from panna
a few of the screen recordings i took
alternative cover
*/ was written about manic euphoria
manic feels like too strong of a word, but basically, the idea of so much energy, happiness, excitement packed into a short time period that you know is going to end
specifically, it was written about furry conventions, and how panna and i only had a few days together before they were cast back down to florida for another prolonged period
knowing you have to make the most of every moment, as it’s all fleeting, but that’s not a sad thing! just the reality of it. the acknowledgement of that is okaythe design of */ became a common motif in my work, being representative of panna themself. you can see it as early as the "my favorite clown" music video:
they then took the design onto themselves, merging it with their sona to create this design, which we hope to do more with in the future (it's currently embroidered on their jacket)
this song is likely to NOT retain its name as is, because it doesn't feel like a true representation of panna (not that it was meant to be)Velaspace also helped with additional production which helped this silly little interlude come to life. maybe you'll see more from us in the future?All the background samples throughout were taken from my time attending Anthrocon, specifically from an old camera that panna owns (that distortion's real, folks, no effects in sight!) and the final drop, fittingly, resamples "this is love", the track following it, for most of its pads.
this is love
the first song properly written for the album
i could speak on this song and the meaning it’s had for me over the entire course of making this album, hell, of even just knowing my partner for hours
but i feel like the name puts it bestfun fact! this song was actually sampled on “my favorite clown” first, before the album released. listen on the last drop to see if you can hear it :)this song is THE epitome of the album for me, it's what inspired a lot of everything elsei wish i had better ways to put into words what this means to me but RAHHH it's genuinely everything
here's a video of me performing a live version of it at a gala where i live
(original teaser posted to this website on launch)
silver star is about accepting that i am worthy of love, and healing
it also speaks on the idea of floating around a silver star, two beings on opposite ends of the same gravitational pull, the same interests, hobbies, environments but not pulled into an orbit that could make them both visible until pure chance brought them together
the birds serve as avatars for us, it’s an extension of ourselves in a way, but while they float around the silver star together, encapsulated, we both roam the real world until it comes time to indulge in fantasy
additional art by panna
"When you spin a thaumatrope really quickly, the images blend together and show the two meeting, but when you don’t, they’re separated, but both sides share the silver star (representing common interests, similar friends, things that could’ve connected us at any point but just never did until we both got to college)"
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