Land - Song Notes

“Land” Release Notes: As the concept for Atlas was first coming together, I spent a great deal of time imagining what each of these Atlas EPs would sound like. I knew right away that "Land" should sound intimate, simple and as organic as possible. I knew that I wanted to limit the writing and production to only a handful of acoustic instruments and it felt important to record the majority of these songs live. As I wrote and recorded Land, I thoroughly enjoyed living in that quiet, focused and limited head-space, but I was reminded on a daily basis that restraint requires a lot patience. A ton, in fact! Eventually, these songs found their way to the surface and I'm so thankful they did, as they are some of the most intimate I’ve ever written.

Since this is a collection of songs about our home-planet, I recommend listening to them in your favorite little corner of Earth. Whether that's in your favorite room at home, or on a gorgeous beach somewhere, or in your favorite coffee shop - I hope these songs treat you well wherever you are and that you enjoy 'em as much as I enjoyed making them.

Here's a few song-by-song notes:

1. North - My wife and I recently bought our first house. In the first few days of moving in, I took a break from carrying boxes and wrote this song. It felt only fitting to write a song about our new home, as the first song I've written inside it. I asked my genius violinist friends, Emiko Bankson and Kumiko Bankson to be my guest string “quartet” and they played SO beautifully. They performed all of the strings on this song and I couldn’t be more pleased with their gorgeous contribution!

2. South -  This is a simple song about a complex thing- an exploration of the many definitions of truth. It’s also very much about being lost.

3. East - This song was inspire by Gerardus Mercator: a cartographer in the 1500’s who first assembled a book of maps and called it “Atlas.” I wrote this as a fictional story about his childhood, written from his perspective. I had this map on my screen as I wrote this song.

4. West - This song is about distance. It’s a love song about the challenges of being apart. I asked my friend, Eva Holbrook to be my guest and record a bit mandolin on this one. She did such a lovely job! Her band, “Shel” is great - be sure to check ‘em out!!

Thank you so very much for your patience as these songs took their sweet ol’ time. I hope you enjoy this collection of “Land” inspired songs. “Oceans” - my next EP (all instrumental pieces of music!) is coming soon!!

Much Love, Ryan - Sleeping At Last

"Aperture" & how it was made.

“aperture” is the last track on the july ep (itunes) in the yearbook series. for the last 5 years or so, i've been obsessed with the ukulele. as a birthday gift, my wife bought me my first at a swap meet in hawaii. before i had one myself, i thought it might be fun to play around with one and maybe, if the right song showed up, add a little background ukulele to it. when i actually had one in my possession, i fell madly in love with it. couldn't put it down. i ended up writing most of my album "storyboards" on the ukulele. and now, i still can't get enough of it.

i haven't gone crazy as a collector of ukuleles, but i do own more of them than any other instrument. one of which is a KALA "pocket" travel uke. it's the most adorable instrument you've ever seen. ever. i got it as a wedding gift from my beautiful wife a few years back. while working on my yearbook project, i was taking a break from writing and picked up my pocket ukulele to have something to fidget with, and accidentally wrote "aperture." the first and only song i've ever written with this microscopic instrument.

the first sound you hear - the strange shaker sound, panning left and right- is a loop i created in the iphone app "noise.io pro."

speaking of percussion… i love tambourine most days. however, i find that its hard to make work in a lot of my songs. i should say, it's hard to make work well in a lot of my songs. for me, it usually feels like an after thought in the song production, rather than actually enhancing a song. in "aperture" i think the simple tambourine in the chorus is actually subliminally vital. it's a rare example in my music, where tambourine is important to the emotional playing field. i also like how it was recorded here.. not sure why, because it's the same way i always record tambourine, but i guess the instrumentation and tones of this song, give it the right sonic space. anyway.. that's a longer paragraph about tambourine than it should be. moving on.

from the moment this song appeared, i knew the production should be sparse. the lyrics should be front and center. so i spent a lot of time playing with simple sounds/colors. it's funny to me, because every time i write a song that is meant to be stripped down and have very little accompaniment, i think because there aren't many layers needed to record around it, surely it'll take less time to complete. this is ALWAYS untrue. because there aren't many layers, each layer and instrument becomes extremely important.. and that's exactly when i zoom in way too close and obsess over every tiny sound and moment of the song. aperture is no exception. it took quite a while to find the sounds that felt necessary to the song, but that also preserved the intimacy of the song.

lyrics…

as a whole, this song is about recording. not recording music, but recording memory, recording life. it's about keeping record. so visually, i had a ton of fun thinking through all of the different means of recording… archeology, music, art, personal memory and photography.

since i was a kid, i've been in love with photography. so as the first line came together in my head,

happiness is somewhere i have been before- a blurry photograph that i have since ignored.

i knew that photography should play a big roll in the record-keeping themes of this song. there are so many beautiful words connected to photography. it was fun to first write down a list of words that i liked, relating to photography.. "light" "edit" "aperture" "record" "memory" "pinpoint" etc... and see what kinds of things i could say with those visuals. it's also worth mentioning that because i handle the art layout of each of the sleeping at last projects, i've spend far too many hours in photoshop. because of this, a lot of these ideas and visuals were inspired by my time in photoshop… like this line (which is my favorite of the song):

i’ll be an editor, no, a curator of light.

continuing on with the keeping-record theme, i challenged myself with the task of fitting the word "archeology" into this song, without it sounding weird. maybe i'm wrong, but i think it actually fits quite well!

give me the heart of an archeologist, that i may dig until i prove that i exist.

being proud of myself for fitting a 5-syllable word into this simple song, i decided to go for another...

a subterranean cathedral in my midst

the heart of this song is in the chorus:

God, it has been quite a year- i’ve lived a little bit and i’ve died a little more. i know that i’ve asked it before, but please let the scale tip here in my favor.

it's a simple prayer… acknowledging the highs and lows of a year, in a glass half full/half empty kind of way, while asking that the overall results lean a little more towards good, than bad.

in a way, this song breaks down what the "yearbook" project did for my life. it kept a very personal record of my entire year. in these songs i recorded every up and every down of that year, and i remember thinking a lot about that as the project carried on. how strange it is to have such a specific record of the year.. and hoping and praying that in the end the good outweighs the bad.

love, ryan - sleeping at last

listen:

full lyrics:

APERTURE

happiness is somewhere i have been before- a blurry photograph that i have since ignored. i’ll carefully adjust the aperture once more, until i set the record straight.

i’ll brush aside the dim, make room for the bright. i’ll be an editor, no, a curator of light. i’ll let my better angels always set me right, until i even out the score. until i even out the score.

God, it has been quite a year- i’ve lived a little bit and i’ve died a little more. i know that i’ve asked it before, but please let the scale tip here in my favor.

what was once the sweetest melody i’ve heard is now a memory reduced to little words. i’ll tune the orchestra and play the overture, until i pinpoint every note.

give me the heart of an archeologist, that i may dig until i prove that i exist. a subterranean cathedral in my midst, where echos come to rest. where echos come to rest. is this where echos come to rest?

God, it has been quite a year- i’ve lived a little bit and i’ve died a little more. i know that i’ve asked it before, but please let the scale tip here in my favor.

until i set the record straight, until i set the record straight, until i can set the record straight.

Space 2 - Song Notes

Hello there! Today marks the release of "Space 2," so I thought I'd write down some release notes to go alongside it.

TRACK LIST

1. Jupiter 2. Saturn 3. Uranus 4. Neptune

... and of course,

5. Pluto

Space 2 is (obviously) the sequel to Space 1, thus completing my "Space" series within Atlas. Just like the Darkness and Light EPs were envisioned to be two halves of one “album,” Space 1 and 2 were meant to compliment one another as well; Two sides of the same record, which I'm calling Space. (duh)

While I was writing its sibling EP, Space 1, I found myself constantly immersing myself in all things Space as I wrote. For Space 2, the obsession continued- constantly glued to my telescope, constantly watching space-related tv and films. I had endless conversations with smarter people than myself too - all in an effort to gather up the tiny pieces we know about our gorgeous Solar System.

Nerd fact: You may, or may not have noticed… Space 1 feature what scientists call the “Inner Planets.” Space 2, feature the “Outer Planets."

I truly had a wonderful time writing these songs. Our universe is stunning in every way imaginable.

GUESTS:

SHARON GERBER (played Cellos on "Saturn”) - Sharon is a brand-new friend of mine. We met just last month in Atlanta, where she played Cello for me for the first time at a conference. She’s such a sweet soul and it pours out through her incredible Cello playing! After hearing her first note at the show, I knew I just had to invite her to be a guest ASAP on Atlas, so when I was writing “Saturn,” it just made perfect sense. Her recordings are so lovely and add so much depth to this song! Please check out her solo music, Celloasis! - It’s absolutely stunning!!

SONG NOTES

1. JUPITER

I wrote this song from the perspective of Galileo Galilei, who discovered Jupiter’s 4 Moons, which are consequently named the "Gailelean Moons." The song is divided into 4 parts, representing each of the moon’s Mr. Galileo discovered. If you listen close, you’ll hear some radio static that NASA recorded of Jupiter’s unique storm systems. Because Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, it's an awful lot of planet to explore - so as I wrote this song, I tried to have it constantly progressing into new territory.

2. SATURN

I liked the idea of following Jupiter with a song perhaps written from Galileo’s children perspective. It’s very much a song about losing someone close and deeply loved, but it’s about the good they left behind in our lives and how to reflect that in your relationships in front of you. The collection of Cellos on this song were played by Sharon Gerber. Saturn is of course our most photogenic planet, with it's gorgeous rings, so musically I aimed as best I could to write something worthy of such good looks. I held the word "beautiful" as a measuring stick constantly as I wrote the music, asking myself "is this beautiful.. enough?" This is of course an impossible task, but I had fun with the challenge.

3. URANUS

I have to admit, it took my a while to figure out how to approach this oddly named planet. Ultimately I decided that the only way to avoid 10 year old humorous connections to the lyrics, was to make it an instrumental. So I stared at images of the planet and watched as much as I could, learning about this planet. Like all of these Space songs, I tried to write a score for the planet. Its own little anthem. I learned a ton about the weather patterns of the planet - which I let inform the instrumentation. Some serious storms going on up there! So I tried to write this in a very serious, almost brooding tone.

4. NEPTUNE

Named after the god of the sea, I wrote this one with the Sea in my mind. Foreshadowing the upcoming “Oceans” EP. Neptune, the planet, is considered an Ice Giant - so I tried to use as many cold and wet sounding instruments as I could. (You can even hear some sampled melting Ice and snow in parts of this one!) This one was a really fun one to put together - though it’s a challenging story, being helplessly lost at sea. Inspired a bit by the film Gravity and All is Lost.

5. PLUTO

I knew right away when I was sorting out the ideas for Atlas, that on the Space EPs, Pluto had to be a part! So I made it a “bonus” track! It’s not really written from the perspective of Pluto, per say, but I liked the ideas of writing a song about the emotions that we human’s could assign to this lonely, demoted planet. It turned out to be a very personal song for me, though I consider it to be the most “fun” of the bunch.

As with all of the Atlas songs, I’ll be writing more detailed stories behind each song in the coming months! In the meantime though, I’ll be working hard on “Land” and “Oceans,” the remaining EPs for this Atlas Year!

Completing the Space-themed music for Atlas is bittersweet. I feel so grateful to have had a few months to dive in so deep and it feels amazing to reach the finish line and move onto new themes, BUT I will miss calling all of the hours I spend watching amazing Space documentaries and movies "research."

I truly had a wonderful time writing these songs. Our universe is stunning in every way imaginable. Thank you for giving me your ears to explore this stuff with you. It means so much to me!

Love, Ryan - Sleeping At Last

"Space 1" Song Notes

Hey blog-pals, long time no speak! In celebration of the latest chapter of Atlas releasing into the wild, I wanted to write down some thoughts about each of the brand-new songs. There's so much to tell you about this collection of songs, I don't even know where to begin!

First, song general info:

RELEASE NOTES:

The first thing to know is that the sequence of this EP, and the next (SPACE 2), are in order of the planets closest to the Sun.

Tracklist:

1. Sun 2. Mercury 3. Venus 4. Earth 5. Moon 6. Mars

Guests:

Jordan Hill (played Drums made out of Auto parts on "Mercury") - As a mechanic and an incredible drummer, my friend Jordan Hill came up with the idea of creating a drumset made entirely out of Automotive Parts! He made a video showing it off and thousands of folks were blown away! Not only is it an interesting idea, but it actually sounds incredible! So when I was writing Mercury, a song I was limiting myself to using only metallic instruments, asking Jordan to play his Auto-Parts kit was a perfect fit! I couldn't be happier with how it turned out! Visit his blog here.

Jeremy Larson (played Brass on "Mercury") - One of my favorite people on the planet, and a frequent Sleeping At Last guest, I knew right away as I wrote the brass section for this song that Jeremy would be the guy to play/record it! He's new to playing Brass, and just like everything he does, he sounds incredible! Hear Jeremy's music here!

Melissa Bach (played Cellos on "Earth") - Another frequent guest of mine, Melissa came out to the studio with specific instructions - don't listen to this song more than a couple times. As with all things on Earth, I wanted the cellos to be reactive, more than planned. So we sat down with the song and recorded ideas as we had them! I couldn't be more delighted with the results! Melissa's a true talent and a great sport!

EXTENDED RELEASE NOTES:

As I set out to write SPACE 1, I watched as many documentaries on Space as I could, read a bunch of sci-fi and studied up on the nuances of each of the planets in our Solar System. Basically, it was a kid-in-a-candy-store situation. I had SUCH a wonderful time writing songs inspired by these gorgeous planets!

1. SUN

What better way to segue from the "Light" EP, than to start with the source of all light in our world? The gentle, hopeful opening represents the Sun we know from down here on Earth - warmth, life and light. As if to follow that light closer and closer up to its source, the song picks up, becoming more and more driving and electric. I wanted to explore that spectrum of gentleness and intensity. Instrumentally I chose to use as many bright instruments as possible (mandolins, glockenspiels, synths, harpsichords, etc). Lyrically, this song revolves around the lyric "Infinity times infinity" which is of course a classic kid argument. The song is about division, arguing complex beliefs and ideas with one another - adult stuff, but realizing that we're just little kids, all under the same Sun, trying to out-do each other in one way or another.

2. MERCURY

For a planet 70% metallic, it felt fitting to only use metallic instruments on this song (except for my voice, of course, which is made of human). I asked my close pal Jeremy Larson to play Brass and he did gorgeously. Then, I asked my friend Jordan Hill to play drums using the incredibly unique drum-kit he built himself, made entirely out of auto-parts. (What?!) Such a cool sound! To see his kit, watch his viral video here. I'll be posting a separate blog post about these drums soon.. it was a pretty fun collaboration!

3. VENUS

Named after the goddess of love, I had to write a love song. Sung from the perspective of an Astronomer (myself being the most novice one ever,) I wrote this as a long song for my wife. Side note: I noticed that this song goes really well with being on a train. It represents the most lighthearted part of this collection of songs.

4. EARTH

Thankfully, I have my upcoming "Land" EP to execute further inspiration from the one planet we all know best. Made up of primarily Piano, Cello and Voice, which I have decided are the most Earthly of all of the instruments. My friend Melissa Bach played Cello gorgeously throughout this song. Melissa's been a part of many Sleeping At Last recordings, including: Emphasis, Goes On and On, as well as the entire Storyboards album.

5. MOON

An instrumental! I treated this one as if I were given an opportunity to score the Apollo 11 Mission. After watching hours of footage, I wrote this piece of music imagining as best I could as to what music for an adventure like this might sound like. I had a lot of fun doing it... and if you listen closely, you can hear (in sequence from launch, Moon-landing to the return back to Earth) NASA audio from that Apollo 11 mission scattered throughout the song.

6. MARS

The red planet, named after the god of war. I really didn't think I wanted to write a song about war, but somehow the words and stories spilled out of my head. This story follows a few young soldiers, off to war, and consequently returning home only to fight an entirely different, internal war within themselves. A darker song, to be sure.

ARTWORK

The art, which I consider to be some of Geoff Benzing's finest work to date (maybe even my absolute fav!), is delivered exclusively in the digital booklet as usual to all Atlas subscribers! we've also included a jpg of the entire panoramic work for your enjoyment! Fun fact: The actual paintings, when laid out, stretch out to over 24 feet long. Amazing!

There is SO much more nerdy detail behind each of these songs, but I'll leave the rest of that nerdy stuff to upcoming blog posts on each individual songs. Soon. Thanks for reading!

Much love,

Ryan - Sleeping At Last

"Hit or Miss" & how it was made.

"hit or miss" is the middle track on the july ep (itunes) in the yearbook series. i think i've proclaimed this before, but (unfortunately for those closest to me) i am a very impatient person. no matter how hard i try, i am just not a fan of waiting for things.

the opening lyric, "hurry, hurry up and wait" is the heart of this song. in the middle of yearbook, that concept was at constant play in my head. i would rush, rush, rush to meet the monthly deadlines and when i finally hit the finish line, as soon as each song left my hands, i'd have to do more waiting. so even though the whole idea of yearbook was born in the spirit of impatience, making the gap between writing, recording and releasing disappear, i was still impatient with the whole thing. so i wrote this song to remind me to cool it.

musically, a lot of this song's shape and heart was written several years before this song became a song, in a hotel of all places. a while back i got a new keyboard, and as is tradition with each new instrument i buy, i write something and play around with recording it with no aim, aside from seeing what i'm capable of doing with this thing. so while on tour way back when, i spent an evening in my hotel room messing around with my new gadget. usually those try-out-my-new-toy recordings don't turn into anything more than a bit of fun, but i always liked these particular little odd melodies. so i kept this song on the back burner until it made sense within one of my projects... yearbook felt like a perfect fit for this sort of exploration.

once i decided this piece of music belongs on this ep, i decided to approach this song without any specific intentions aside from having a lot of fun playing around further with it, keeping it in the spirit in which it was written. in most cases, i have a very clear picture of how i want a song to end up and exactly what i want it to say, so i really enjoyed a less pressured approach for this one.

musically, i liked the idea of taking some of those descending sparkly melodies and have different instruments take turns playing them. bells turn into wurlitzer turns into banjo, turns into several other types of keyboard sounds. instrument evolution of sorts.

lyrics... as i mentioned, are all about me venting my impatience, while pretending that i appreciate the importance of patience. (i do, of course... it's a virtue after all, but just not my favorite one...) this song is obviously very much about time.

i liked the idea of expressing patience (and impatience) through a lot of common expressions, like:

"a watched kettle never boils, a watched tree never grows"

"hit or miss"

"may we reap all that we sow"

i'm not sure why, but i generally tend to like the use of idioms in songs. there's a familiarity i suppose that i like when in contrast with (hopefully) new ideas. so for this song, i wanted to include as many as i can. it was a lot of fun to make those odd little connections.

"much too tired to try, much too stubborn to quit."

that lyric always kicks me in the butt in the right way. i find myself feeling like that, often. a state of limbo. that lyric is a good reminder and overview of the ridiculousness of letting myself remain in that place.

on a visual level, i was really excited when this line came about...

"every cloud above's full of splattered paint"

it has two meanings: on a totally surface level, i just liked the idea of there being clouds above us that are full of multicolored paint. and the actual meaning behind the line is probably obvious: rain is what gives our world life = color. when a line works on both levels, intent and surface visual, it makes me super happy. so i was grateful when that little line appeared.

overall, "hit or miss" was such a fun song to write! because of the less pressured approach and lyrically it's a lot of me venting and discussing my obsession and struggle with patience, it was quite enjoyable to write.

total side note: as i mentioned in the "wilderness: how it was made" blog post, i aimed to make that song in the vein of some of my older material from my "ghosts" album... i aimed to make this song have some instrumentation similarities to music on my "keep no score" album, AND on the next song of this ep, "aperture" i built it similar to songs on my "storyboard" record (when i began writing and recording my ukulele) so there's a fun little sleeping at last history concept at play on this july ep.

thanks for reading!

much love, ryan

click here to read other "how it was made" blog posts!

listen: (why does that have the wrong artwork? no clue.)

lyrics:

HIT OR MISS

hurry, hurry up and waitis how the waiting game is played.a thousand moving parts keep scoreinside the watch we can’t ignore.

so let’s hurry, let’s hurry up and wait.

much too tired to try,much too stubborn to quit,on an island in betweenthe coasts of hit or miss.are we settlers or are we natives of this land?only time will tellon which pedestal we were meant to stand.

so let’s hurry, let’s hurry up and wait.so let’s hurry, let’s hurry, hurry up and wait.

every cloud above’s full of splattered paint,every seed below lies patiently in wait.but a watched kettle never boils,a watched tree never grows.may we have our tea in the forest,may we reap all that we sow.

so let’s hurry, so let’s hurry, hurry up, hurry up and wait.so let’s hurry, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up and wait.