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Music for Mental Health

by Various Artists

supported by
Gary Williams
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Gary Williams a really enjoyable listen.
Malady of Knots
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Malady of Knots Why have to be human... Not because happiness really exists. Not out of curiosity, not just to practise the heart... But because being here is much, and because all this that's here, so fleeting, seems to require us and strangely concerns us. Us the most fleeting of all. Just once, everything, only for once. Once and no more. And we, too, once. And never again. But this having been once on earth - can it ever be cancelled?

Rilke
Soloman Tump
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Soloman Tump Fantastic compilation for the ultimate cause. Enjoyed all of this on first listen, and will no doubt have many repeated listens. Favorite track: A Beautiful Idea - Escape.
Darren James Holloway
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Darren James Holloway "Music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all, but you are the music while the music lasts" T.S Eliot
The New Emphatic
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The New Emphatic For me this compilation is a testament to what great things we can achieve when we work together.
Thank you to everyone, you who bought, who played it, who helped promote it and especially to you who took part in creating it.
more...
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1.
When you are so full of nothing that something can’t fit. 

 That's when things turn the darkest. 

To walk without sight makes it’s easy to get lost. 

 Take pride in helping others and let others help you. 

 We are strongest when we work together.
2.
Escape is a step into my relatively recent past and potentially a window into my future. When I began recording electronic music circa 2017/2018, I was undergoing treatment for depression and anxiety. I’d reached a stage where going anywhere outside had become uncomfortable to impossible. As I attended gigs and events on a regular basis, which was the only social interactions I had with anybody outside of the internet, it was a bit of a problem. The paranoia (why is everybody watching me? Am I standing in somebody’s way? Does anybody actually care that I’m here or do they just put up with the auld git that turns up all the time?) and panic it would cause made it impossible for me to continue. I couldn’t actually tell you how many gigs I left early or, if I managed to stay to the end, (I always tried to stay as long as I could when friends were playing) I would almost run out of the venue as soon as the last note was played. Eventually it got too much for me and I stopped going for about a year. I eventually made it back, proving the drugs do work, sometimes, and life got back to normal’ish. Then, weeks before I was due to play my first live show – you guessed it – Covid-19 arrived. At the time of writing, we’re about to be allowed back out into the world. Good news. Except those feelings have started to return. At the moment I’m just about coping, managing to repress the worst of the feelings and fingers crossed I’ll be back at a gig near you (if you live in Glasgow of course). Escape is my attempt to capture those feelings of paranoia, the panic attacks and breathlessness, the involuntary sweating and twitches. Until I escape to the outside world and the knowledge I’l be home soon, and I can lock the door and the world behind me. Best wishes 
David (A Beautiful Idea)
3.
Sitting down to create this track brought up a lot of emotions and questions in relation to mental health. I've had a number of friends and family members who've had ongoing struggles with mental health and I also lost a friend to suicide some years ago. I've only danced around the edges of mental health issues and with lifes ups and downs I've been lucky to have never been taken headlong down into the dark places I've seen others go. Making this then was quite a challenge and the track took several months, I was patient and left the music for a week or two and then picked it up again before letting it rest again. Making this track got me to reflect on the mental health of people I've known and those we were lost and to focus those emotions into sound. The two main field recording in this track - one of distant workmen drilling and the other of trees creaking in the wind - both feel like the pressure and mental forces of nature and society (the earth and the world) that are a constant in our life. The instruments and rhythm of the track are like the emotions and experience of the person, that which our individual mental health produces. These sounds / emotions ebb and flow along upon the bed of the field recordings, sometimes sounding confused, glitchy, occasionaly mournful, sometimes in shadows, sometimes at peace, sometimes almost reaching a state of beauty but always with a movement flowing somewhere, somehow.
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I think I've suffered from bouts of depression and melancholia pretty much my whole life. To me, these states of mind are just a part of being human. They are not something to try and run from, be afraid or ashamed of, or hide away in a dark corner. I don't think I'd be able to create music without them. All the best, Darren
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The motivation behind it is self-explanatory given the title, but you could of course replace ‘Tory’ with any one of the numerous incompetent, self-serving, racist, neo-liberal governments that have made this already feculent couple of years so much more shit that they had to be.

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“Work, of various kinds, is a constant in most of our lives. It can also be a source of great stress and worry. When I read ‘Benedict’s Way - An Ancient Monk’s Insights for a Balanced Life’ (Pratt and Homan) there were many helpful words, but none as helpful as this: ‘Work…stands as a constant reminder that we are not alone in the world. There are others to think of, things to get done, and there is a kingdom to build. Work turns us outwards, straightens our shoulders and extends and hands to others.’ As you listen to ‘Little Charley’s a Battler’ think of how perhaps your own internal ‘battles’ could be ways that a higher power is guiding you, of telling you that this work is important enough to get done. That you are needed, and loved.” (dogs versus shadows, 2021)
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- it does come from reflections on my own mental health 'challenges' so I was hoping it might stir something in other listeners - I'm hoping it has the melancholy but also something of positivity too - I was tempted to work on it more, but it seemed like it had got to where it needed to be and I didn't want to carry on and overcomplicate it or muddy the waters so to speak...
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Watching the clouds in the blue sky, constantly with new forms, I feel steady and safe when I see it, but also very small.
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This was made raw, with a guitar, a loop and an old tape echo and that is it. 
No editing, no studio trickery. Pure, raw and energising drone. This piece is close to my heart, not because I think it is flawless, but quite the opposite, because it is flawed. Its flaws are what make it interesting and ultimately what makes it unique, just like us.
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For the last 23 years, I have been employed in a job that's caused me untold stress, frustration, and mental anguish. Teaching is a good job for many, but for me, it was a rut I couldn't climb out of. The last few years, due to Covid and unfortunate happenings within my school district, have felt nearly unbearable. Which made me miserable. Which didn't help my personal relationships. So, I made a colossal decision in June 2021 and resigned from my job. I no longer sit in bed, unable to fall asleep, stewing over difficult students and parents. My evenings and weekends are no longer filled with lesson planning and grading mountains of papers. I no longer wake up in the morning, wishing a meteor would smash into my house and put me out of my misery. My bank account has taken a definite hit, but there's more to life than working like a dog for a paycheck. One of the results of having more free time is the opportunity to create more music--the track "I've Got a Secret," recorded for this Mental Health collection, is one such example. The Creeping Man has always walked a line between soothing and strange, disquiet and calming. "I've Got a Secret" is a rather soothing dark ambient track (really!), reflective of my newfound inner peace.
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I was a shy child At times a lonely child. I was a child who needed to tell others how great I was, in hope that I would actually believe it myself. No self-esteem, no self-respect, I couldn’t see my own worth. I was the child that laid awake late at night asking myself “who could ever love me?” It can be hard to see when you don’t like yourself even a little. I was a diagnosed child. You know, one of those with ADHD. At times I was a child with eating disorders. Other times a child with thoughts of suicide. And I was the child that never could look others in the eyes. This song is written to all children that just like a young me, can’t see what great value they hold, how incredible they are and how extra ordinarily perfect their whole being is. It's as much a song for a young Jonas, as it is to my own children and every other child in the world, with a hope that they never have to experience anything remotely similar to what I experienced growing up. Finally, it’s for those that tried and failed. I’m forever grateful for that.
But most of all for those that tried and succeeded. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. You where worthy of so much more. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones 

 Jonas (The New Emphatic)
21.
Made with voice, bass, piano and a bundle of manipulations during June until July 5th, 2021. This tells a story of dealing with mental health issues over the course of a lifetime. Imagine this being told from the perspective of someone who is 92 years old, and each minute represents a decade. The piece plots the sanity levels and the control that the person has on their own brain at each stage. After 30 seconds, the awareness to life and surroundings was 'switched on', and that's when the madness really begins. During the first 4 minutes / decades, all manner of strangeness, intensity, confusion, barrages of information and brain noise are thrown at the subject. Once reaching 40 years of age though, a better ability to slow things down and recognise all the situations in life that were wrong or causing mental illness to expand is learned, and with it the knowledge and energy to then make situational changes accordingly. The more consistent calm that comes with this recognition then has the snowball effect so each time there is a challenge to the mental health, it can be dealt with and pain alleviated much quicker. The long fade between the noise and the piano represents the long knock on effect that decisions or troubles or illnesses have had, but the long fade in is almost like the thick fogs clearing slowly to reveal brighter, calmer times are on their way, serving as a reminder to keep on going in the new direction once you make the decision to unravel things from the past that have caused (and added to the chemical aspects of) depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, despair. The ending can be interpreted in a few ways, depending on your own mindset and thoughts about the story and length of life. I like to think of it as being something that is a change in the concept of time and that the clarity of mind feeling at that stage can continue as long as the body and brain allow.
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Embrace that you are an outsider. Seek out and support local, national and international strange sounds. Drink less. Save the beer money for noisy synths. Tinker with their innards. Embrace the hiss and pop and clicks. Write a manifesto. Ignore it. Make music that pleases you. Make music that causes you to grin as you fall asleep listening to it. There are few better feelings than this. Aist was birthed in the curious county in August 2021. Thank you to Jonas for inviting me to contribute to this compilation. Maximum love and hugs to Darren at Hream.
24.
The MVM is currently working on a series of nocturnes about the experience of bipolar disorder. They are based on the experiences and stories of one of our primary collaborators, who, along with his grandmother, mother, and aunt were all involuntarily committed to one of America's more regressive and backwards State Hospitals between the years 01967 and 01996. In 01998, the US government shut the place down for general abuse, incompetence, and malfeasance. Our collaborator has amazing stories about the place. They have amazing stories about the family's different generational trajectories: the radically different ways they were treated from how their grandmother, and even mother and aunt, were treated. One thing that remained consistent from the 60s to the 90s? Everyone was just thorazined (or alternatively medicated) into zombiedom, and then warehoused rather than actually treated for any illness. The track we submitted is crafted around our collaborator's hazy, foggy, blurry, medicated memories of their first few weeks in * State Hospital. Fun Fact: with help from their mom and their grandfather our collaborator escaped from * State Hospital after several months, and was unable to return to the state of * for many years, as they were wanted as an escaped prisoner and fugitive.
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Xqui - Piece 04:51

about

All proceeds going to Mind UK:

www.mind.org.uk

credits

released October 10, 2021

Original idea and curating by Jonas Geiger Ohlin

Thank you to all the beautiful people that have contributed to this album.

Please feel free to click on the 'lyrics' and 'info' links on the individual tracks to read more about the artists and their own personal stories and thoughts.

Look after yourselves and each other,

Jonas & Darren

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Hreám Recordings Brighton, UK

Curated in Suth-sæxe and beamed throughout the strange hinterlands

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