It is so crucial to find new music that connects with you, to fall in love with it, play it intensely, then LEAVE IT BE, as much as you can.
Don't wear it out. That's your connection to You when you discovered it.
I just listened to Manic Street Preachers' A Design For Life and was teleported back to age 16, having recently left home, sitting on the bed in my first flat, having just pressed play on the CD. I was right there again. Everything so vivid. The peeling magnolia wallpaper. The cereal I'd bought from Safeways with the dehydrated strawberries in it that was my dinner. The bicycle in the corner of the room with the flat tyre. The smashed glass on the carpet from the burglars that had come in earlier through the window and stolen my Smiths and Oasis LPs. The tears in my eyes and the hope in my heart.
I did that deliberately. I'm scoring the strings on the new Marcus Aurelius album, and I wanted to remember the way the string sections on that album made me feel when I first heard them and put that feeling into the music.
Musical time travel is dangerous. It's tempting to lean into it, go deeper, go further. Many people do that, and they get lost. My uncle died not much older than me, drowned in nostalgia and alcohol, listening to his David Bowie LPs, remembering the boy he was, wondering what the hell happened.
One song is all I needed. I got what I came for. I left that kid in that bedsit, listening to A Design For Life, gazing through wet, blurred eyes through a smashed window at the stars above, and went back to work on the music.
Some day, someone will use it…
For time travel.
Akira The Don
Don Studios Playa Del Carmen MKII, July 2023
LATEST SINGLE: Akira The Don & Naval Ravikant - Escape Competition Through Authenticity ft. Nivi | SINGLE
(https://akirathedon.substack.com/p/akira-the-don-and-naval-ravikant-9a1)
LATEST ALBUM: Akira The Don & Naval Ravikant - How To Get Rich Vol. 3 | ALBUM
(https://akirathedon.substack.com/p/akira-the-don-and-naval-ravikant-fdd)
LATEST VIDEO: Naval Ravikant & Akira The Don - You Will Need To Rent Your Time To Get Started | Music Video
(https://akirathedon.substack.com/publish/post/135495749?back=%2Fpublish%2Fposts)
LATEST MIXTAPE: Akira The Don - HOPECORE MUSIC VOL. 1 | A Meaningwave Mixtape
(https://akirathedon.substack.com/p/akira-the-don-hopecore-music-vol-492)
Timelapse of me drawing my new avatar
Tools: Procreate on iPad with Apple Pencil
Own the NFT at https://opensea.io/akirathedon !
BACK WITH ANOTHER BANGER FROM BERTON AND THE DON!
TELL THEM NOW!
With lyrics adapted from Berton Braley's poem of 100 years hence!
STREAM https://go.meaningwave.com/TELLTHEMNOW
Art by me!
Own the NFT! https://opensea.io/akirathedon
STREAM & DOWNLOAD: https://go.meaningwave.com/DUNEWAVEODYSSEY
MERCH: https://www.meaningwave.com/collections/dunewave
MEANINGWAVE VINYL: https://www.meaningwave.com/collections/vinyl
“THE SLEEPER HAS AWAKENED…”
At last! It is time!
DUNEWAVE: ODYSSEY!
(https://go.meaningwave.com/DUNEWAVEODYSSEY)
Crystalizing the wisdom of Frank Herbert’s Duniverse into a single-hour-long, sixteen-track epic musical explosion…
Four years in the making!
Recorded on multiple continents!
With vocals from beloved personality and Dune authority Danika XIX, and vocals and production from I, Akira The Don.
DUNEWAVE: ODYSSEY is both a diamond-hard distillation of the wisdom of the ages, a timeless and futuristic cosmic space trap rock opera, and a summing up of the first 5 years of Meaningwave, as concise as it is anthemic.
You can stream on your platform of choice (https://go.meaningwave.com/DUNEWAVEODYSSEY), download the digital album here now (https://akirathedon.bandcamp.com/album/dunewave-odyssey), and you can also, ...
Brothers and sisters! It is time!
Tonight, we proudly present to you… after four years in the making, the hour-long, sixteen-track opus, based on the works of legendary author Frank Herbert…
DUNEWAVE: ODYSSEY
We shall be gathering together to listen to the record for the first time at 9PM EST right here.
(https://linktw.in/dNVi7F)
SEE YOU THERE!
LOVE! TO! YOU! AND! YOUR! FAMILY!
Akira The DonDon Studios Playa Del Carmen MKII, September 2023
STREAM & DOWNLOAD: https://go.meaningwave.com/BALANCEDJUDGEMENT
MERCH: https://www.meaningwave.com/pages/search-results-page?q=balanced+judgement
MEANINGWAVE VINYL: https://www.meaningwave.com/collections/vinyl
“DO NOT GIVE SOMEONE A STICK TO BEAT YOU WITH.”
BALANCED JUDGMENT (https://go.meaningwave.com/BALANCEDJUDGEMENT) is the latest single from the forthcoming DUNEWAVE: ODYSSEY, and the last before it drops next week!
(https://akirathedon.bandcamp.com/album/dunewave-odyssey)
An intergalactic space trap anthem and meditation on the terrors of the prisons man builds for himself.
“CODES AND MANUALS
CREATE PATTERNED BEHAVIOR.
ALL PATTERNED BEHAVIOR
TENDS TO GO UNQUESTIONED,
GATHERING DESTRUCTIVE MOMENTUM.”
Lyrics adapted from Frank Herbert’s DUNE novels.
And that leaves us with just A WEEK till the DUNEWAVE: ODYSSEY album releases!
(https://akirathedon.bandcamp.com/album/dunewave-odyssey)
You can preorder the digital album here now, and you can also get… FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN ...
