The Incident at Black Lake

This album is fucking dark, musically and lyrically. I wrote my parts in the darkest, most distressed headspace I have ever been in. Most of the time during the writing of this album, I was convinced that I had been unglued from time, I was barely functioning. Through the fog and sensation of reality warping around me, I somehow found clarity in my writing. Weirdly, at first, I didn’t know that I was writing about myself, I was just kind of writing. I remember there was a day when we got our first mix back, and I hadn’t heard the songs in a few weeks, 30 seconds into the first verse, I collapsed in this park I was walking in, I realized that the songs were me, describing the suffering I had been experiencing so that I could understand what was happening in my own head, it was completely overwhelming. I had created something so direct, with zero awareness that I was doing so. It was a mind-bending experience, as if a past version of myself had reached out through time to help me understand what was happening to me, an absolute headfuck. For my contributions musically I created tones and sounds that conveyed how distorted the world around me felt, I was attempting to use the music to level out the turmoil I was experiencing internally. I was experiencing reality in waves of vertigo, time-loss and visual blackouts, I was trying to push back on these sensations with music. I think this album is beautiful, there is elegance in darkness. I think it’s sad because I know the turmoil and pain it took to write it, and I think it’s powerful because it’s the first time I have truly been honest in my music.

-Barrett Klesko