The Hollowlung Review: stop_gap pt.1
After placing the last song in the previous playlist on the review, Darkwave, I felt like I had accomplished something major: a focused epiphany. I had filtered through the bitterness and boiling anxiety of that segment of life and sequenced it all down to something intelligible. The experience I had crafted with Darkwave helped empower me to understand where I was at. It granted me focus beyond my capabilities.
But there was a problem.
Darkwave was a manifesto of self-defense: my response to feeling fettered in life. The playlist served to, as the Decemberists sing in “A Beginning Song,” document a piece of the world inside my skin. By the end of composing the playlist and writing my blog post, I had documented an angry scar. I was hurt, and reacting in turn.
I had made a mistake.
Halfway through Darkwave, LCD Soundsystem’s “Someone Great“ plays. It’s a track which I resonated with during Darkwave’s composition, and I incorporated it into the tracklist without a second thought. It’s a poignant track lovingly dedicated to James Murphy’s (The origin of LCD Soundsystem) late therapist. In a playlist built on “getting mad”, it was almost a sort of “out-of-bounds” addition, but the track fit in snug like a missing puzzle piece. I vaguely recall it spurring on the generation of that playlist’s second half. After exiting the vibe-check phase of crafting the playlist, I came to the more cerebral consideration of lyrics, themes, and sequencing. Someone Great gave me pause, enough so that I asked myself, “Why did I put this in here?” After some time, I came to the conclusion that Darkwave’s tragic thrust is heralding the death of the ideal self.
That conclusion checked, too: after Someone Great electronic throbs subside into silence, the angry tone evaporates from Darkwave. Themes of anguish, anxiety and resignation take its place. All the songs of the last half branch from the idea of mourning the lost ideal… before slowly guttering like a spent match. Darkwave snuffs into smoke on the waves of Covet’s “Gleam. The playlist spins and twists into warm silence.
Then I, of all people that would eventually listen, was left asking: “What was the meaning? Why did I make this thing?” So much anger had balled up inside of me, and so much righteous indignation had spilled out during the sequence of the tracklist. What was its purpose? What did it express, and why wasn’t I feeling a release from the anxiety that Darkwave illustrated?
Someone had to be to blame for the way things were.
Even as I toiled with the meaning of Darkwave, there was a silvery thread of thought that glinted in my mind. It whispered in my ear, hissing low that the playlist’s purpose had been to escape how I really felt. Escape, in turn, implied something that needed to be escaped from. Something was the source of the angry escape. Something had landed a first blow, and I spent the entirety of Darkwave’s creation fighting back… but I didn’t know what I was landing blows against.
I thought about what,
or who
and…
In the end
there was only me.
I turned to myself again,
peering with dull sight upon emotion that the year had wrought.
I took a look at myself, then, and saw dimly that I had withered bitterly in the abence of an ideal to strive for. Darkwave was like grasping around low-lit chambers, and I had caught cables of steeled contempt lashed angrily to the walls of my heart. I did not try to remove them. They belonged where they were. Their existence was justified, somehow. Perhaps I wanted them there.
Compelled to assess the rest of my mentality, I searched numbly through the monoliths and other foundations wrought in the soil of my soul
before coming to a deep, heavy well. Filled oily black, the liquid within roiled and popped, throwing lacy effusions up across the gently curved well walls. Part of me wanted to jump in— to fall head first and let the thick substance flash across my body. I toiled over the idea of breathing it in; of bringing myself to ruin. I found myself in a state of self loathing that horrified me, so I began crafting a new experience. It was a space to think at the edge of the well.
Enter stop_gap:
A splint for the soul
And a cry for an end
to the way things were
A trigger warning, for those sensitive to themes of Self harm
Upon writing this paragraph, I have had a half-finished version of this post clattering around the back of my head for just about a year. Halfway between when I started writing it and now (early 2023) I left it for other things. I left it because I could feel that I didn’t have what I needed to complete the work truthfully. There are many narratives I could have employed to describe how I felt or what I was experiencing with the topics that roam stop_gap, but I was uncertain of how to best identify and reflect the core of the playlist. The main motif is self loathing, overgrown into contemplation of suicide. It is a sensitive topic, and I was unsure how to communicate a story that wouldn’t insult the survival experiences of others with a prideful and ignorant expression of my perspective. I tried several times to approximate a truthful account, but each time the words came up shallow and thievish— like I was describing my life through the ivory of other’s teeth and eyes. Ironically, that’s exactly the way playlists work, but when it came to the interpretation of the tracklist I knew that I had drafted stop_gap to interpret a very individual perspective, and that mindset needed to be documented. So, instead of leaving the post as an unpublished frankenstein jumble, I returned repeatedly to decode the feeling that had informed the playlist. Again and again I tried writing with tenuous respect, with each draft refracting through new perspectives. Nothing stuck for the better part of a year, but recently I discovered a frame of mind which I felt comfortable elaborating upon. It incorporates a nuanced understanding of depression, anxiety, and the compulsions that lead to suicide.
The framework for this post acknowledges that many individuals feel an overriding drive to escape their problems by blotting out who they are. Some people do that with substances, experiences, or other mediums. Others feel compelled to rage against their body and the life it holds. Self harming individuals must all be taken seriously, but when suicidal ideation is compelled to definitive action then the situation is overridden with emergency. So before going on much longer, I will blatantly say that I have not made plans or incurred any such emergencies. I have looked into my future, however, and saw many instances of myself where that could happen. When sifting through the playlist, I often felt that I wanted to be nothing: to emulse into the air and disappear into a thinning red spray. I thought about taking that terrible action against myself. Some days, it was merely the logistical and emotional inconveniences of suddenly nonexistent family member which kept me vigilantly limp in my bed, waiting for sleep to shuttle me to the following day. The feelings which would lead to those terminal events are what stop_gap is meant to alay.
…but I never learned how to tie any knots, and I never searched for other means of cutting my mortal coil short. I never went looking, either, for fear of receiving what I had asked for. Often what bouyed me along was the dull hope that I was being dramatic and selfish— two things which could be cured with enough time and discipline. All the same, I wanted to escape my life, permanently and quickly. It was dramatic and silly, but I couldn’t stop the cycle of thoughts on my own. So, escaping into the comforting strains of music, I drafted stop_gap as a temporary fix for the narcissistic cycle of depression and neurosis that I found myself tumbling through.
- “A Beginning Song” by The Decemberists -
Condescend to calm this riot in your mind
Find yourself in time (Find yourself in time)
If I am waiting, should I be waiting?
If I am wanting, should I be wanting?
When I start off a playlist I try to find a song that meshes nicely with the content of the list. The first song is usually a thesis of sorts, and cues the listener into what the central ideas could be about. In that respect, “A Beginning Song” reflects upon the necessity of emotional intelligence (or in other words, emotional self-awareness) In true Decemberists fashion, it is grim. Also in their fashion, however, there is great hope. As they sing in this first track: “I am hopeful; should I be hopeful?” The song portrays the nature of stop_gap’s purpose. It seems to say:
“I am searching for a better state of mind, putting off the malaise of today with an intermission.
Am I alright to do this?”
This song is a timid step into exploring a part of myself that I had no clue how to handle. I knew it would hurt, but what would hurt worse would be the fruit of ignoring the self-inflicted pains I was already caught up in. It is Orpheus at the mouth of Hades. It is a child at the threshold of kindergarten. It’s an adventurer taking a deep breath, knowing that soon they will enter a place that they have never considered existed. It’s the brace before pain. It’s the knowledge that something greater lies beyond the depths, and the hope that a hard journey will reap spoils for all.
Now commence to kick each brick apart
To center on your heart
Starting with your heart (bright heart)
Like a small concert, stop_gap is designed to explore an idea, and that idea is to explore feelings, just as it was in the previous playlist. At first blush, that exploration should be easy…
”How are you feeling?”
”Bad.”
”Sorry bud.”
…but it’s not always easy to express how one might feel, and even more difficult to resolve those thornier emotions.
With the creation of Darkwave, I felt worse having documented where I was. That previous playlist had served to record the whole of my mindset, but it had also crystallized the core feeling into a spined shell that bitterly screamed, “I AM GOOD ENOUGH!”
It was a reflection of discontent, discordance, and the playlist lit me strangely with a negative light from within.
Most of all, it wasn’t truth. Even though I was proclaiming my sufficiency during that time, I wasn’t feeling good enough. I came home from work and sloughed my mind into useless taskes until I fell into exhausted sleep. I guarded who I was from those around me. When my validity was questioned, I would attack the questioner or dismiss their claims, justified subjectively by their apparent inability to curb their bias against me. The perspective of Darkwave was a view that validated my feelings of anger, but didn’t uncover the truth of where I was at. Textbook narcissism.
I wanted to end that mindset, so I began stop_gap with a song that kindly croons to kick the bricks laid around the heart until you can truly figure out who you are.
So I started kicking.
- “Sleeping Lessons” by The Shins -
And glow
Glow
Melt and flow
Eviscerate your the fragile frame
Spill it out on the ragged floor
A thousand different versions of yourself
“Sleeping Lessons” bubbles dreamily from the echoes of “A Beginning Song”. Thematically, the song scrapes and pounds against the idea of identities manufactured by others. It has been defined on sites like Genius as a song which is aimed against the expectations of older generations, but I find it more compelling to think that “Sleeping Lessons” highlights how approval seeking behaviour is an implicit self-harm. To shatter yourself into other’s designs, fragmenting to fit your slivers into the frame provided by external expectation— you can destroy yourself that way.
In the context of stop_gap this song is intended to direct the flow of thoughts out of standard convention. One of the traps I see in mental health conversations is the WebMD effect. You know the way it goes: a guy with cancer symptoms and a guy with common cold symptoms walk into a searchbar and accidentally buy each other’s diagnoses. That sort of thing needed to be scrubbed from this playlist; I wanted to squeeze the ignorance out of me to ensure I would be positioned to react in accordance with some form of reality. I have seen reaving depression, sycophantic ignorance, and even punk-rock rage packaged as outfits and worn to blindly shroud the feelings underneath, and I felt that it would be disrespectful to the real punks out there to ignorantly label myself without first mapping out the landscape upon which I’d build my manifesto (There existed the nagging possibility that I was just being dramatic, after all). My goal in adding “Sleeping Lessons” was to cement that idea of “jumping from the hook,” to discover with eyes open wide where I was really at in life.
Jump from the hook
You're not obliged to swallow anything you despise
See, those unrepenting buzzards want your life
And they got no right
As sure as you have eyes
They got no right
Self-reflection when you are ashamed to exist is painful. As Sleeping Lessons says, it is like eviscerating yourself into a thousand pieces and sifting through each without knowing which one you are. Each version holds some truth, but you don’t know which parts are truth and which parts are lies. However, discerning who we are is not about knowing ourselves by the thousand pieces we see in front of us, but rather about understanding how to translate the distortion of the mirrors we see them by.
Another theme from this song: trusting that other people have put in that work for you when they define your characteristics is a surefire way to lose your ability to love yourself.
And if the old guard still offend
They got nothing left on which you depend
So enlist every ounce of your bright blood
And off with their heads
Jump from the hook
You're not obliged to swallow anything you despise
- “Daisy” by Kate Davis -
"My parents, when we were growing up, grew little starter seeds in our basement.
I have this really deep memory of going down to the basement and seeing all these tiny seedlings under one of those lights that is supposed to be like the sun.
I related to that - I felt like I was one of those little seedlings, being very protected and nourished and isolated in the basement."
An interview regarding the song
A long time ago I made a pact with myself to stop swearing. As a fifth grader, I was foul-mouthed when the situation permitted. After a few years the novelty wore off, and I held fast to the idea that cussing was often a cheap stand-in for more creative speech, so I went cold turkey for 8 years. “Daisy” smolders over warm riffs and a steady drumbeat, cycling through themes of inadequacy and existential claustrophobia. It also cusses.
Gratiutously.
…but the drums felt like the plodding pace I was taking to get through the midwinter days. The guitar line felt like the hot coal-seam fires flashing anxiously in my chest. The lyrics felt like they cast illumination on the darkened thoughts lumbering through my mind. Those lyrics hit hard, and I could never quite say why other than “I feel like this!” Where many songs in stop_gap codify the emotions of anxiety and its associated cadre of emotions, “Daisy” describes the experience with clarity. For the rare flower of a song that it is, I pushed it up stop-gap tracklist to number 3.
I'm trying to think about dreams I've had
Happy or sad or the middle
Sometimes about you, with or without you
Still leaving me in the dark
I am dragging out, I am dragging out
I am dragging out of bed
But I'm still coming up, I'm still coming up
I'm still coming up a Daisy
What was that you said when I stopped to listen
I've pored over the pages you wrote
This manual to help me, get it together
But you won't hold my hand anymore
I've been throwing off, I've been throwing off
I've been throwing off lately
But I keep fucking up, I keep fucking up, I keep fucking up
Daisy
Neither am I good, nor pure
Neither am I wise
However I am willing to start from the ground up
So I keep growing up
- “End of the World”
by Mock Orange -
- “Spun” by Delta Sleep -
Shake down the curls Disguised but open clever girl Those vacant eyes It's like trying to face the end of the world
Did we complete the story? Did we repeat the story in full? Slow tears to hide Tied to the tide
Chased down the world Surprised but open clever girl Those vacant nights When I held your heartbeat in mine
You looked inside my constant fear of losing sight So many times I've tried to face the end of the world Tried to face the end of the world Tried to face the end of the world
I'm trying to face the end of the world
I've been runnin' for so long
Is it the weather that's making me
Spun inside my head?
In my head, I dream so easily
Really it's never meant to be
And time will tell how far we fall
How far we fall
I've been watching the world unfold
Outside my window it's getting warmer
Soon every winter will be dry beyond relief
And the water will be flowing at our feet
Every day the same day
Every day the same day
There’s a beautiful compactness to the way that “End of the World” describes the hypervigilant aspect of anxiety, and the track is set up beautifully in stop_gap by Delta Sleep’s trademark dystopian writing in “Spun”. Mock Orange follows up on the dread vision of the future in “Spun” with elegant lyricism in “End of the World”.
I've been runnin' for so long // Hey when you get there can you call me so I can get the secret in full
Is it the weather that's making me, spun inside my head? // Those vacant eyes, it’s like trying to face the end of the world
In my head, I dream so easily, really it's never meant to be // You looked inside my constant fear of losing sight
And time will tell how far we fall // So many times I’ve tried to face the end of the world.
Between the pace of the drumbeat, the crunch and glare of the guitars, and the ghostly vocals, “End of the World” approximates the feeling of looking intently into a damned future without slipping into a sludgy pit of self-despair. It is descriptive and well-composed. When I listen, it fills me with this dull and grim sense of travelling through life on autopilot, and when I have already got a grim sense it illuminates exactly what it is to look so cloyingly to the future for release from the present.
When I drafted stop_gap, my circumstances weren’t 100% optimal, but they were pretty decent. I shared an apartment with some acquaintances arranged by the apartment staff, there was enough money to go out to eat and buy my own food, and I brought in enough resources to sustain a commute and a healthy number of hobbies besides. Things would come up and money would get tight, but all-told life could have been looked at as fine.
To me, however, it was not fine. As Andrew Solomon puts it in his Ted Talk about depression,
People think about depression as being just sadness.
It’s much much too much sadness-
much too much grief-
at far too slight a cause.
There were nights where I was paralyzed in my bed. There were commutes home where I weighed the proposition of driving into the ditch at seventy miles an hour. There were nights where I drank to sleep so that I could obliviate the evening and resume existence the following morning. I did these things because I felt like a wretched black hole, not worth the effort of being a person. All the while I had loving family and friends within arms reach, and countless good things to reinforce my creative drive. I was living in the city, in a place where I had dreamed of residing for years. All this was still not enough, and on some days just a neutral look from a coworker would be enough to set that long fuse of dread sparking down the strata of my brain. Dread would become self-loathing: a mantra which cried,
“You are ungrateful.
You are a greedy pit of wasted effort.
Your bellyaching is worthless,
so stop being so stupid and snap out of it.”
This is the mindset under which I boiled for months, lit from within by cortisol flames which would burn for weeks on end. I didn’t understand it. Even after putting the final touches on stop_gap, I still couldn’t grasp what had gone so wrong for me to live in such a wretched state of mind. It would be a year from the day I finished the playlist before I understood why…
That boiling well in the heart and soul
bubbles inky black
it burbles on and gains its name
with the tar that they call
SHAME.
For now, I will leave you with this cliffhanger. This post has already gone very long in the tooth, and I would like to keep it at a readable length. If you’ve read to completion, thank you. I have already begun part 2 of this review, and will be returning to it here and there. Until then, stay near to your loved ones.
As always,
