35 Minutes Of Instrumentals are done for the next black metal album so far...

 ...and I am nowhere close to being done recording instrumentals for it. 

I do this part before recording vocals. 

This is going to be a really long album with lots of tracks. 

I'm going to be trying to work with a label to release this, I don't have one I'm working with yet, but I want to try and find one. 

Moving forward on CD-R Releases...

Sorry if you've paid more in the past for these. 

One thing I'll point out is that whenever someone has made an order in the past I've included as many extras as I can. Although I've been able to do this up until now, I need to stop doing that as much because I'm going to have to put something back into production cost for the releases that are coming up. 

In other words...I have to try and break even. I haven't cared about this in the past but it's starting to catch up with me. 

Thank you all for your support, and if I still can include extras with orders, I will, but it's more likely to be just a couple of stickers or a button, things like that. 

From now on:

Self-released Pro-CDr releases will be $6.00 Each. 
Runs will be produced in quantities of 25. Inserts/colors may change from run-to-run.
They should be seen as unlimited. Not Numbered.
They are not available for distro/wholesale. Only from me.

This is just what I'm doing to make sure that physical media is available to those that want it. Thank you all again so much for the support. 

Cassette and vinyl release runs will still be limited and may or may not be numbered, depending on how I feel. 

Last Week Of February

I'm taking a weeklong break from responding to emails, interview requests, answering questions, etc. I feel compelled to talk about it here a little more, particularly after how I woke up this morning. For anyone that regularly speaks to me, emails me, is working on a split with me, anything...please be patient. It will only be a for a week. Here's what's going on:

1. I have released too much material too quickly. I don't think so, but I've received some feedback on it. Basically the feedback I've received is that people are overloaded with it and it makes them put the project down and not listen to any of it. I don't know why this would be the case, but I often have a misunderstanding of how other human beings operate. Any insights or thoughts I receive on this via email are welcomed, I love hearing from people and it's been happening a lot for the past several months. Anyway, I need to work out how I feel about some of it and write commentary/explain it. Some of it I don't even understand fully and just work where I feel guided to do so. It may be interesting, but without publishing lyrics (which I rarely do) or explaining instrumental work, there's very little context to work with. I know people want to know more because they directly ask me for more, and I do feel that I owe them some explanations. So I'll be focusing a bit on fleshing out my explanations for some of this work.
2. I will be having intense prayerful periods for the following week. I always pray. It's something I do anytime I think about it, and sometimes find myself praying while performing everyday tasks. The point is, I will be entering very purposeful periods of intense prayer for the next week to try and receive guidance and answers regarding some of the visions and dreams I've been having, which have been particularly intense for the last month. I've never received this much in such a short period of time.
3. I will be going through an intentional fasting period. No, I'm not going to stop eating completely for an entire week. That's not what I mean. There are multiple things I will be giving up for the following week to help my prayer, though. This is to focus on God, which is the whole point of fasting in the first place. Doing this can make me a bit...cranky. I don't want to come across as unkind to anyone and I already find myself becoming impatient with certain things people have been saying to me or asking me, even when I know it's totally innocent and not meant how I've initially knee-jerk reacted to it. I'm doing this so I can hopefully see things from a renewed perspective.
4. I release about 1/3 of everything I make. It's actually probably close to 1/4 of it at this point, so I want to go through all the other unfinished or ditched material and see if any of it is salvageable or if I really dislike it and figure out what I'm going to do with it...and if it's unfinished, see if it fits in with something I want to make in the future. 
5. I have two more really big splits coming up in the immediate future. The split with Nightmare I am and the split with Blackhouse. The physical media is almost complete for both, and I want to make sure I can figure out how to promote and move these things into the hands of people that might want them, because I haven't been really great about that with the previous physical releases of material for R.I.O.S. and it wouldn't be fair to be lazy about it to the other artists involved. 
6. I'm going to plot out my next major black metal album. This is part of why I'm going through my giant pile of unreleased material. I don't know how I'm going to do this yet. I have enough material written for probably four actual full-length albums, enough material recorded and basically finished for two more albums, and enough unfinished material for another two. Because I've received a lot of recent criticism for putting out too much too fast, I really want to figure out what I'm going to do with this. This very well could end up being a box set that I will spend the better part of the rest of this year putting together.
7. Label Interest - I've been receiving label interest, with everything that comes with. I haven't talked about this previously because I don't want to jinx it but I talk about everything else and never shut up so why not? Some of them are somewhat large, some are tiny, some are just people who want to help me by putting something out. Some are outright scams.
   
   There's a list of what confounds me about this sort of thing. Some want to dictate how much material goes on a release. Some want to dictate things that they won't put on a release. Some want to dictate what I can talk about. Some want to dictate what I can't talk about. Some want me to record only a specific type of music for an album. Some want control over masters entirely. Some want to license my work. Some want to send me a cut of the pressing. Some want to send me none of the pressing. Some want me to pay for half of everything. Some want me to tour. Some want me to perform all promotional work. Some want to put something out and have it completely paid back before they release copies to me. Some, some, some, some, some...It's not a lot, really. There's a lot of overlap in this.
   
   One of them I reached out to early on in all of this and couldn't even get a response, now they're being really excited about the whole thing after I've gotten some attention. I'm probably being cynical about this but it does kind of make me prickle. I need guidance on which way to go here. I'd almost rather work with a larger secular label that has a purely business interest in putting something out. At least there I know where I stand.  
   
   Regular Christian discernment isn't enough to know what to do in this situation. It honestly makes me feel a little sick, and I may just decide to not do anything and continue to do it all myself. 

I don't believe I can get all of this resolved or figured out with a week of fasting and prayer, the point is to organize it. To organize my work. To organize me. I was warned by someone very close to me early on when things started happening for this project outside of myself that I would deal with these sort of issues, and the danger of burning out and burning it all down is very real. Despite some comments to the contrary from outside, I am very self aware. I know I come across as intense and loquacious, at times overbearing and annoying, insistent. I won't apologize for that. I don't want to withdraw everything I've worked on so far out of frustration or some sort of weird imposter syndrome. 

I also don't want to put the brakes on something that's actually accomplishing more than I ever wanted to. So what do I do? 

Today, I woke up tired.

I have a whole pile of things I have to do. For this project, for my side project, for my house, for my dogs, for my wife, for myself... Those aren't listed in order of importance, by the way, I'm simply stating the list of things I have to (read: should) deal with.

And here I sit, staring at a wall still feeling half sick from fighting off a flu for over a week that's still dragging me down. 

Here we go, from the ESV (LOL) Translation (LOL) of the Bible:

Isaiah 40:30-31 - Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. 

I'm trying!

The strangest things have happened over the last month. I've been highly motivated to work on this project (clearly) and have gotten a lot finished, interviews done, actual work completed. At the same time, I've barely talked to some people who really were instrumental in my motivation to deepen my walk with the Lord. 

I'm not putting anything on them for this, people are busy, that's life, I want to be clear. I guess I just didn't notice how big a part of my life and my journey these other people really are, the fellowship is just kind of drying up a bit. It probably has just as much to do with me being busy as it does them, the weather, etc. 

I've been having visions. I always have, but for some reason in the past month I've had a few of them and that's more frequent than usual. And they've been very vivid. Usually, I have some context or someone to bounce things off of to help me interpret this sort of thing. In this case, I've only shared one of them and the people who I shared them with really have no idea. The thoughts they've offered I wouldn't say I've rejected, but they don't seem to fit with how these instances made me feel, or the overall tone of them. 

So this part is strange. My prayer life is still very rich, it runs very deep and is an integral part of my worship and who I am, but for some reason seems disconnected from the increased frequency of abstract visions that I've received. 

It's alienating. I almost feel pushed away by those whose thoughts and counsel I actively seek out. Maybe I've irritated them.

These are strange feelings. 

Oops, I almost forgot: 

“Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

Now that I have that out of the way, I'd just like to state again how disgusting I find it that they require this to be put here. I only include this as a huge dig, I frankly don't care if they try to enforce a copyright on the Bible. Well, I do, but I mean against me in some way. I'll just do it larger and bolder and call them a bunch of greedy jerks even louder publicly. Luckily that's protected speech. Now what I can't do is call them frauds, hucksters, cheats, swindlers, hoodwinkers, thieves, etc. No, that would not be protected speech. But I can express my belief that whomever at Crossway decides they have the right to enforce copyrights over God's gift to mankind is a complete and total moron who should really consider their life choices and interpretation of what the Bible actually says even though they've been part of a company that translates it. Maybe they should find something else to do. Like repent for spending whatever chunk of their career they have enforcing something so incredibly disgusting and stupid. Maybe take up golf. Or knitting. Or basket weaving. 

I'll also say that I had a friend (not mentioning who, because it's not my story to tell.) that reached out to them and they said they would need to see any usage and make sure they liked it before they approved his use of a passage from the ESV translation. Good to know they also have a say over whether or not something is Christian enough to use a passage from their Bible. 

Changes on Bandcamp.

Don't worry, anything you've purchased or downloaded before will still be available. They're still part of the official discography, I'm just cleaning it up for visual reasons. 

Thanks for your understanding. 

Paranormal YouTube...

Without mentioning channels... There's a ton of them. 

They're great fun. They're spooky, partly made up, partly real. These guys go into spooky spaces with lots of cameras and electronic toys and make a big racket, tell jokes, offer sandwiches. I also enjoy darker imagery and, "The spoops," as it were. I'm sure there a lot of others who see these things from the same position I do. 

Often you see them wearing cross necklaces, on very rare occasions talking about God or their beliefs, etc. But never to the extent that they'll stake a claim to being a Christian or any other religion. I find this curious. 

Maybe they should be more careful? 

I wonder why they don't want to stake a claim in in Christianity. Anyone who deals with spiritual warfare can tell you a lot of things they experience do actually happen, even if they're dramatized for these channels in the name of content. 

The reason I find this curious is because of how often demons are brought up. Look, if you're going to have a channel that gets thousands upon thousands (millions) of views, talking about demonic presences, possessions, attachments, it makes no sense not to speak about God. There are no demons without God. They're not mutually exclusive ideas. 

They all seem completely dumbfounded about how to avoid being affected by these entities. Well, you can't be totally untouched, but you can keep yourself from having attachments or being possessed by being a Christian. Christians who have surrendered to Christ in earnest can't be possessed. You can be manipulated, you can be oppressed, but you can not be possessed. You cannot be attached to. We become a vessel for light to shine through. 

Is this an issue of pride?

I can't take them too seriously when it seems so insincere. I guess what I'm saying is that spiritual warfare shouldn't be treated so lightly, and if it's presented for pure entertainment purposes I don't have a particular problem with it when it's clear that it's for entertainment purposes.

But.

1. If you're going to present it as real, I think honesty should be up front. 
2. If you're going to speak about demons, you should probably mention God in that same context, I do think this is attractant.
3. If you have a belief in demons that's genuine, you should probably develop a belief in God that's just as genuine. Quickly. 

Am I just old? I had these inklings even at times when I wasn't sure if I identified as a Christian, or when I was interested in darker aspects of spirituality. I always think it bizarre that some people have very deep beliefs in demons, specifically Biblically accurate demons, and then don't identify as Christian or seem totally confused by the whole concept. 

Like being contrarian simply to be contrarian. 

A Triptych Of Psalms is on Bandcamp Today for FREE!

 

Alaretin - Psalm 66: How Awesome Is He

https://alaretin.bandcamp.com

Rejoice In Our Suffering - Psalm 77: The Depths Were Also Troubled

https://rejoiceinoursuffering.bandcamp.com

Oak Of Weeping - Psalm 88: A Reflective Poem, Set To Chant Mournfully

https://oakofweeping.bandcamp.com

As with any of my split releases, I don't know what I'm doing that would cause me to be lucky enough to collaborate with these artists. I'm privileged to be on a split with Alaretin and Oak of Weeping, they have become close friends in a very short time, and the honor of being on what is their debut release is overwhelming. God's will brought us together for this, and these bands are going to eclipse my own in popularity in a very short time.

We decided collectively to make this available for free download.

I really can't wait to see what else these projects deliver in the coming months and years.

Fruits Of The Spirit - Patience & Faithfulness - OTHER SPLITS UPDATE

 A few people may remember that Patience I was a single I posted about a week ago, then took down. Faithfulness I was also on the Joy! EP initially, but I removed it because I wasn't satisfied with it at all. 

I reworked both of them and have released them as a free single ahead of the full length album. I really hope you enjoy them. The rest of the album has a similar sound, but might be a bit more upbeat in nature. There's some 12-string acoustic guitar parts and 6-string acoustic in some medieval scales that I've been trying to play around with. 

Shaping up to be a fun album! 

IN OTHER NEWS - The tapes for the split with Nightmare I Am should be here Monday! 

The split with Alaretin and Oak of Weeping will be posted as soon as we have an album cover. FOR FREE. 

I just need to finish my artwork up for the split with Blackhouse and it will be ordered. I hate that I'm the one holding this up but I want to make sure everything is perfect. It will likely be ordered this coming week and then we'll just wait, then have LPs. 

...Should I get Patience & Faithfulness put on lathe cut vinyl? Hmm. 

Fruits Of The Spirit - Joy! EP - More information about the new Dungeon Synth/Comfy Synth project.

Though a big part of Rejoice In Our Suffering's output is dark ambient, I've been working for some time on some more upbeat material that isn't so spooky. Largely influenced by many of the releases on Dungeons Deep and Taste Of Beer, this material probably isn't as complex as most of what those labels put out, but I thought it would be a good genre to create music for. Something else that heavily influenced this project was the children's show David the Gnome, based on the artwork and books under the title, "The Secret Book of Gnomes" by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet.

Curious?: YouTube - The World of David The Gnome, Opening and Closing Theme

I have also been thinking heavily about the fruits of the spirit, those outlined in Galatians 5:22-23, so I thought about how some of the tracks I was producing made me feel. I hate to disappoint by not having a deeper meaning behind the naming of the tracks for this music, but I simply listened to what I've been working on and assigned names that I felt were appropriate and the type of mood I was in as I created and worked on them. 

These ponderings, I wouldn't call them meditations, led to the creation of, "Joy!" I'm not unhappy to admit that the title track is the best thing I've produced for this project so far, and is indicative of where the project is likely to go in the future. 

To be clear, this is definitely a side project. This won't be taking over anything for Rejoice In Our Suffering or taking anything away from it, it will just exist as it does now: a little side project. 

That being said, I have about an album worth of loose material that I need to refine and finish, but I don't know how long that will take. Given the nature of how I work and the nature of this project itself, it could be the day after tomorrow, it could be a week, it could be a month, it could be a year. 

This project is fun, is appropriate for kids and adults, and I can't wait to see where I can take it in the future...Pure Joy! I hope this amalgamation of fantasy and Christian values performs its intended purposes and makes you smile. 

So if you've read all of that (or if you haven't), I'll just start from here with the first actual release from the project:

 

The final track listing of Joy! is as follows:

Side A:

Joy I - 2:57
Patience II - 1:17

Side B:

Goodness I - 2:17
Gentleness I - 2:03

Physical Release:

10 Copies on Pro-CDR - Not Numbered
25 Copies on Pro-Duplicated Cassette with alternate cover, hand assembled and hand numbered. I will figure out some other sort of little bonus goodies to come with this because I realize it's a short EP and cassettes aren't exactly cheap to get made.

These will both likely be available in March. 

*Special notes: 

Official Release Date is 02/13/2025

The release originally had a fifth track called "Faithfulness I" but it was removed because it didn't fit and I wasn't satisfied with its production. I have touched it up and it will now go on the upcoming album. 

The track listing originally had "Patience II" and "Goodness I" switched, this was altered to fit the tape release and edited so they would sound consistent in their new positions. 

Also Note: The streaming versions do have the old version of "Faithfulness I" in the track listing. This will eventually be fixed, so if you want to hear the absolute worst version of this song that will ever exist, enjoy while you can. 

The removal of "Faithfulness I" from Joy!

 I didn't like the way it sounded. I'm going to re-work this track and include it on the Self-Titled album. 

Which reminds me, you can get the digital version of Joy! right now. 

I'm having trouble deciding between a lathe cut 7" or a Cassette release. 

Sin, In The Face of Blessings...

I've received so many blessings recently...

I just posted about the Lithoscry interview, I was also interviewed by Blacforje Magazine if you'd like to read it... https://www.blacforjemagazine.com/interviews/interview-rejoice-in-our-suffering

And in both of those interviews, I've been up front that this project is about confronting sin. To a degree it's been successful, and I still find myself struggling with the same long-term sins I had before I ever started the project. 

I've heard it said that you can always tell that adults struggle with what they've dealt with since they were kids, and I suppose that's true. 

I find myself thinking at the beginning of the day, "I won't do these things today." - I often do them less, but I also just as often screw up and do them all over again, as if the inner machinations of my mind and heart drive me toward them as some sort of cruel addiction. It is addiction, in its most literal sense with tobacco, but with other things as well. The Adamic nature is an addiction to sin. 

This is how evil works its way in, staring us in the face and laughing at us. Humans are weak. These ancient evils know our ways, they know scripture, they know the most insidious formations of manipulation and oppression that they can employ against us, and we embrace it with a smile and deal with the guilt and nausea holding hands and walking together later. 

Then we pray. 

And every time, without fail, I sincerely repent. Some would say it can't be sincere if I fall back into these things (Tobacco, an unhealthy relationship with food, wrath, whatever it may be...) but it is. I resolve to work on them, and I do, but here's a pack of cigarettes staring me in the face, here's a drink I shouldn't have, here's me partaking in those two other activities as a result of something that made me mad today. 

So the only thing I'm armed with to deal with them is prayer. I do this constantly, and still I fail. 

God has given me everything, and made apparent to me this list of things I shouldn't do, and corrected me on many things I shouldn't have done. 

So where's the difficulty? We are to lay these things at God's feet, and I always feel like I'm ready to do so and sincerely try to do it. 

Then I light up another cigarette. 

Or I have another drink. 

Or I plot revenge (I never take revenge, but I plot it.) 

Then I realize I've failed, and try to stop doing those things. 

Thank God, he's not done dealing with me yet. Though sometimes, when I'm receiving a deluge of blessings, it still feels so far away. I am very thankful, I am sincere in my desire to give up unhealthy, damaging things. 

These are the silent depths of existential dread, accompanied with hearing his call to action. 

And where will that calling take me? 

I was interviewed by Lithoscry

This is one of the best channels on YouTube. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAuTUUP1AvA

This may be the only video interview I ever do. I never realized how much I glance around when I'm trying to think. Loony. 

Comfy Synth/Dungeon Synth Side Project

 As if you needed more sounds made by me:

Fruits Of The Spirit - Christian Comfy/Dungeon Synth

Cassette EP coming soon. Non-album single posted now. 

Clinical depression is a strange beast...

I know I've harped on all of this before, but it really is. Things couldn't be going any better for me at the moment on paper and I'm still discouraged and tired for a large portion of my waking hours. I still have trouble going to sleep at night and doing the things that I need to do just to have an organized life. 

I have 4 splits coming out in a very short period of time, all with spectacular bands, I have at least two more albums worth of material written and ready to record, I've been doing a few interviews and getting featured by people I don't even know in parts of the world I never would have expected...

...and still, I get so wrapped up in despair I can hardly move. 

I'm happily married, I have beautiful pets that want to just sit and be pet and hang out with me, more friends than I have time for, a great mentor, a nice house... Tons of books to read, tons of video games to play, food in the fridge, everything. I have everything I've ever wanted out of life and things continue to get better!

...and still, I sit for hours with my eyes closed and can't move, often electing to sleep during the useful hours of the day instead of working on the pile of work I have to complete. And I can't do anything about it, I'll sit around and cry and pray and still be completely unable to do even the simplest of tasks that I need to perform. 

Some may call this laziness, I don't think that's the case. It's not laziness, I'm capable of massive amounts of work in a short time and my work is always better than most would expect. 

And although my prayer life is rich, and I pray all the time, and it's one of the most important if not the most important thing I do in my life, I'm terrible at praying for myself and laying my problems down at the Lord's feet. It's not that I have some sort of misplaced pride that I think I can handle everything myself, it's that I genuinely see my own problems as insignificant. 

My niece died a couple of weeks ago and her parents are dealing with the grief and everything that entails, there are people starving and I'm a big fat man who regularly overeats due to stress or boredom or any other number of terrible reasons I could give, there are people who can't find places to live, jobs to work at, or even if they have those things they don't have enough money to maintain them. So why, when I have so much in my life to be thankful for, and I am thankful, do I still feel like laying down with my eyes closed and not moving? 

I think it's important for us, not just Christians, but for everyone who deals with this sort of thing to be open and honest about it. The attitude that our faith just isn't enough, or that we don't pray enough, or that we're lazy just doesn't work as an explanation and doesn't come anywhere close to being a tool to deal with it or a solution. All the medication in the world may help a little (it does, sometimes) but ultimately there is a sickness that pervades most humans' experience. 

Thank God for life, even if we have to claw our fingers in the dirt and scream into the soil to drag ourselves through it. Something with the heights of beauty we've been given as a gift to perceive can't truly be seen if we don't have depths of personal torture to compare it to. It's just particularly hard when even the beauty of the entire universe can't be seen because our eyes are closed in silence, wishing for all of it to just leave us alone. 

Industrial Split is with BLACKHOUSE!!!

I'm very happy that another one of the splits I've been talking about recently is with the legendary long-running Industrial act Blackhouse. I really can't explain how excited I am about all of these split releases. I love all of these bands and not only do I consider working with them a delight, they all make music that I have sat and spent hours of my life listening to. 

I really love them, I hope you'll enjoy their material on these releases as much as I do, because mine pales in comparison to theirs. 

The cover idea posted here and on the Bandcamp is temporary. It may end up being this, it may be subject to change. Either way, I think a split with Blackhouse, who I have personally listened to for years (Literally since I started making music) is an extremely exciting way to release what amounts to the most industrial-sounding material I've produced. 

I'm calling my collection of tracks on my side of the LP Praying In Machine Language.

I can't wait.

You can't either. 

Coming sooner than you thought: A Triptych of Psalms

01. Alaretin - Psalm 66: How Awesome Is He
02. Rejoice In Our Suffering - Psalm 77: I Cry Aloud To God, and He Will Hear Me
03. Oak of Weeping - Psalm 88: A Reflective Poem, Set To Chant Mournfully

This is receiving a digital release. 

Alaretin (Pennsylvania, USA) - https://alaretin.bandcamp.com/track/alaretin-death-by-fire-album-tease
Rejoice In Our Suffering (West Virginia, USA)- https://rejoiceinoursuffering.bandcamp.com
Oak of Weeping (Szeged, Hungary) - Link coming soon. 

This will be the first release for Alaretin and Oak of Weeping, they are much better musicians than I am and this split is coming together quickly and fantastically. We all play very different types of black metal, we all have different musical backgrounds, and all of the projects are, of course, Christian. 

This is the most fun I think I can have expressing sorrow and praising God at the same time. 

It's ironic, but I've taken this moment to Rejoice In Our Suffering. 

Get it?