Hello!

First of all, I must ask of you two quick favours:

1. Would you mind adding this email to your contacts? My deliverability is down, and that would really help me out by signalling that I am in fact not spam.

   If you use Gmail, you can click on the little contact circle on the left of this email, then on the top right of the pop-up window there will be an “Add to Contacts” button. Easy peasy.

2. If you live in Halifax, come to my show on Thursday!! June 4, Gus’ Pub, with Fireball Kid and Angel Girl. Gonna be a heater. If you don’t live in Halifax, tell someone you know who does!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. On with the show.

There is more bot content posted on the internet than human content. The early-internet vision of the web as a nexus of connection and communication is dead.

We are living in a different reality now, and our data is being used by very rich people with very few scruples to gain market and political power in order to further enrich themselves and exploit both people and the planet.

Sorry! That's just what is happening! To pretend otherwise, or to feign ignorance, isn't possible anymore. I’m a Capricorn and I don’t believe in sugar-coating.

Are you familiar with the Dark Forest Theory? Yes, it's about aliens, but stay with me and I promise it'll be relevant.

The original dark forest theory of the universe is from sci-fi author Liu Cixin's trilogy The Three Body Problem.

The theory posits that our perspective on the universe is naive. Of course we aren't the only sentient life force out there! The silence that we perceive from space isn't due to an absence of life, but can more accurately be likened to a forest at night; it is teeming with non-human society that is wise to not make a peep lest they attract attention from their respective predators.

Applied to the internet, the dark forest analogy can be quite helpful. Protected, private spaces are growing in number, providing shelter from the harsh realities of the world wide web in 2026.

In his piece "The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet", Yancey Strickler writes: "In response to the ads, the tracking, the trolling, the hype, and other predatory behaviours, we’re retreating to our dark forests of the internet, and away from the mainstream."

This newsletter is an example of this kind of space. Yes, Google etc. reads all of our emails (it's a federal offence to open physical mail but apparently not so for digital mail…don't get me started) so it's not private in that sense, but there is no algorithm, optimization, or gamification at work here. Strickler describes this as having a "depressurizing" effect.

I wrote a while back about digital gardening (here and here), and I am happy to share a new garden that I’ve been tending. It's hosted on DFOS, which stands for Dark Forest Operating System. It’s called the meadow.

Check out the meadow here!

This is what the meadow looks like, so far.

Think of it like a little private internet oasis. There is a blog, a chat, a member directory, and links that go outward like paths through the woods.

Below is a Sublime canvas, linked on the meadow, where I collect meaningful and inspiring ideas about songwriting, the internet, collaboration, ecology, and technology (all my favourite things).

the meadow is a place where I will continue to share my inspirations, experiments, and ideas. Later on in the summer, I will be sharing sneak peeks of my unreleased album, as well as doing limited merch drops and listening parties in the meadow. I can't wait! It's going to be so much fun.

PS- I’m releasing a single next week. Ghost Ship comes out on June 10. I’ll be in your inbox next Tuesday to yap about it :)

xoxo