HEAR: Synth-Pop | Born Days – “How To Disappear”
Born Days has released “How To Disappear” a unique and inspiring track born from a dark period in the artist’s life. The passion and intensity in this track is present from the first note to the last. Born Days is the conceptual darkwave synth-pop project from Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist singer, songwriter, and producer Melissa Harris. Her debut full-length album My Little Dark is set to release on October 6, 2023, through AudioSport Records.
https://youtu.be/Nv9mW8xy0VQ?si=6fKq7n5D5qLHPQdy
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Harris explains the background of “How To Disappear”:
“I wrote this song while going on very long walks every day during a dark period in my life, maybe even for 2 or 3 hours sometimes. I live about a 10-minute walk from Lake Michigan and I would go there and watch the waves and record them every day. The sound of the water always felt really soothing, especially when you want to disappear from the world and join the clouds and the trees in their unknowing state. It’s that feeling when you don’t want to live anymore, but you also don’t want to die, it’s just the in-between where you wish you could just disappear and join the vapor breezes. Life can be very unkind sometimes, and it’s hard to know what to do when you’re feeling really down.
My favorite thing when life is unkind is to write music about it and tell a story with sound. I love to create sound and use found sound, too. I tried to capture the little sounds of the world while walking around. Sounds like leaves crunching underfoot to make the rhythm, the sound of lake water breathing in and out and then run through a phaser, little sounds that no one really notices that make natural rhythms in nature. Then, I would go home and pitch and stretch and retime these sounds to the beat. I used a variety of synths and a really dark bass to create the disorienting feeling of being sad and neutral and dark about whether or not I want to stay on this planet. I added some cringey y2k chants for irony. I hope you enjoy it.”
Candidly vulnerable and emotionally complex, My LittleDark is an album that draws inspiration from the realm of confessional poetry and the world of childlike innocence to sonically explore and narrate the anagogic, deeply personal, and complex labyrinthine pathways that exist within the heart and mind. Mystical and melancholic, Harris’s ethereal voice escapes into dark symphonic soundscapes driven by dreamy, synth-heavy polyrhythms that paint a cinematic electronic pop soundtrack soaked in moody, hazy textures. The album was partially written while Harris spent time in an outpatient program dealing with a severe mental health crisis and as a means to heal. Writing this music was one of the ways that Harris was able to continue living on this planet. Harris admits that it is hard to put that previous sentence into words, but this music is about truth and beauty, and so that is what inspired the songs on My Little Dark.
Drawing influences from alternative, darkwave, dreampop, and goth culture, Harris plays with a sonic palette of soft, dark, and dusty tones that mix elements of grunge, post-punk, neo-psychedelia, shoegaze, and modern pop. Deeply nostalgic and profoundly personal, My Little Dark explores Harris’s struggles with mental illness, trauma, destructive cycling, love, innocence, and beyond. Her distinctively soft and sweet voice is saturated with otherworldly essence that explodes into apocalyptic crescendos and escapes into ghostly innocence. Harris’s songs are brilliantly enchanting and sonically dripping with haunted textures, little spirits from the ether, and dystopian landscapes that leave you longing for a more innocent and beautiful time.
TOUR DATES + LIVE SETS
10/5 Chicago, IL – Loud Pizza Records // My Little Dark pre-release listening party 8 PM CST
10/5 Bandcamp // My Little Dark Album Release // Live Virtual Listening Party 4pm CST
10/13 Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle // Album Release Show w/ Lipsticism + Sunglow
