"Didn’t want to pull away / But it’s easier than pulling the trigger / On what I want to say, mind simmers /With things that I shouldn’t consider..."
It is the nature of being a music writer that I might receive a piece of music but hold onto it for several weeks before the so called embargo is lifted and it is released. This is the case with Norman Lake and the beautiful cinemascopic "Feel". For many reasons I have visited it often (sometimes for days at a time) not to analyze it or to figure out what I wanted to say about it but just because it has served me... served me in many different ways. There is something about Norman's vocal aesthetic, the sonic emotionality of his hushed inward style of emoting, of bloodletting that get's to me. Combined with his powerful compositional skills, mixing the warmth and textured acoustic guitar that feels so incredibly big with impassioned drums, heartbreaking piano chords (sometimes pounding chords or meandering notes like fingers desperately finding the right notes, and pushing bass notes with subtle / overt electric guitar lines into a cement hard depressive building of emotions. A memory, a zeitgeist of upside down thoughts and downward spirals.
Norman Lake's music is informed by hard times and at this point in my comments it would be best for the artist to speak for himself.
"Though a songwriter since the day I picked up guitar, my real journey as an artist started 5 years ago when I spent ten days on psychiatric hold in a mental hospital. Drugs and mental illness had consumed my life, and every emotion seemed like a tidal wave I couldn't control. It was a long road to become sober and begin healing, but in that struggle I discovered my voice as an artist.
My goal with music is to allow people to feel things too difficult to express in a conversation, with others or with themselves. Feelings of confusion, or pain, or heartbreak are not meant to be beaten into submission. We have the privilege to feel these things and recover by understanding they are part of our humanity.
In my effort to remain sincere and honest with my audience, I record all of my music as single live takes to 4 track tape. I feel it gives the most intimate listening experience, and I cannot hide behind the clean tricks that yield digital perfection. Instead, the listener hears whichever take of the song had the most emotion behind it."
My goal with music is to allow people to feel things too difficult to express in a conversation, with others or with themselves. Feelings of confusion, or pain, or heartbreak are not meant to be beaten into submission. We have the privilege to feel these things and recover by understanding they are part of our humanity.
In my effort to remain sincere and honest with my audience, I record all of my music as single live takes to 4 track tape. I feel it gives the most intimate listening experience, and I cannot hide behind the clean tricks that yield digital perfection. Instead, the listener hears whichever take of the song had the most emotion behind it."
I don't know if "Feel" comes from those hard times but the words move me in a tremendously impactful way, words like this:
Save face, void deal, love’s haste, conceals
Burnt taste, shared meals, mind blank, heart kneels
This is how I’ll always feel
This is how I’ll always feel
Red tape, paint peels, sealed gate, great wheel
Tempt fate, lord steals, such waste, raw deal
Last place, I yield, mood tanks, and mind reels
This is how I’ll always feel
This is how I’ll always feel
This is how I’ll always feel
Burnt taste, shared meals, mind blank, heart kneels
This is how I’ll always feel
This is how I’ll always feel
Red tape, paint peels, sealed gate, great wheel
Tempt fate, lord steals, such waste, raw deal
Last place, I yield, mood tanks, and mind reels
This is how I’ll always feel
This is how I’ll always feel
This is how I’ll always feel
I spoke earlier about this song touching me and serving me. It is difficult to put into words but the sheer emotional weight I feel has, at times, felt like a warm embracing blanket when doubts about the world and my world has seeped in my brain and become stagnant and rotten. Other times, the sense of hopelessness and pain inherent here (which I feel and most of us feel sometimes) has served as a cathartic purging of pain. Songs do make me cry sometimes because they are so sadly reflective and sometimes because they are so fucking beautiful. I have shed tears to "Feel" for both reasons.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.instagram.com/normanlakemusic/
https://www.facebook.com/NormanLakeMusic
https://www.normanlake.com/
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-polaroid-ep/1542390132
https://www.instagram.com/normanlakemusic/
https://www.facebook.com/NormanLakeMusic
https://www.normanlake.com/
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-polaroid-ep/1542390132
90's style DIY recordings with songwriting that's sincere, modern, and brimming with emotion.
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Norman Lake, folk, indie rock, alternative music, busker punk, stripped down, 90's indie, singer songwriter, drugs, mental illness, resolution, "Meant to Be", "The Polaroid EP", "Feel",
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