Hello email-havers

This is John Greer writing to you on the occasion of a new music release. Today I’m happy to share my newest song ahead of a new EP, both titled “In The Dark.”

The song is available now on Bandcamp and streaming services (this one, this one, or even this one!). You can preorder burned CDs that come with stickers, that I will personally mail out to you and your CD-playing device. Or you could hang it on the wall. Or smash it with a hammer and record it in slo-mo and send me the video. All things impossible with digital files… something to consider!

a bit about making this:

This is a completely homemade batch of songs though not without some help: mastered by School-of-Song friend Sam Torres, using a drum sample from one of my favorite drummers J.T. Bates, and featuring vocals by a dear friend - Sarah Lashinsky.

I am very proud to have carried these songs from small ideas, mixed together with other ideas, and into fully arranged songs. My last EP, Vessels, was the result of asking myself “can I capture original songs on the guitar?” and this EP asks a more daunting question: “can I create the sounds that I’m hearing in my head when I imagine this song?”

As an acoustic musician, all of my songs are the acoustic version when I write them; using the guitar as a primitive orchestra of different parts to accompany my voice. So, it was a long process for me to strip down the acoustic works to make space for full arrangements. However, I found this manual creative process reminded me of the joy of making music. The ideas we arrive upon during the making of something are seldom the ones we have when planning the journey. I spent a lot of time in-between EPs honing the songs, to really make sure they were good songs before ever picking up another instruments, but in preparing to release this EP I really just can’t wait to get back to making more music, combining more elements, now that I really understand by experience that my most joyful creative moments occur in front of the microphone rather than planned ahead of time.

Though, I do still hope they are good songs.

about this first song:

The first song, In The Dark, was first inspired by Sarah Ruhl’s essay “speech acts and the imagination” and, musically, draws on Leo Brouwer’s Study No 1 for guitar (which if you’re familiar with, you will hear in the core acoustic guitar part and all of the little riffs and glitches throughout).

Thematically, the song attempts to explore the underbelly of “sonderlust” - that 2010s word we all got enamored with for a moment - that each of our lives are just as deep and complex as any one else’s (true!). This song asks: if we are all so deeply entrenched in ourselves, how could we ever get to know each other, or really truly connect?

👂👂

Thank you for listening. You can preorder the EP prior to its release on 9/4, and I’ll have another new song to share with you in just one week. Stay tuned also to this newsletter which will provide you the where/when of seeing this music performed live.

Until then

— JG