All of this occurs inside tight and transient tune buildings. Opening observe “Machine Coronary heart” is the one one which runs previous 5 minutes. Closing observe “I Will At all times Be Right here” is the one one which even comes near being a full-on ambient piece, however even right here it is easy to comply with together with a affected person sequence of frizzy chords. The album’s concision and tidiness communicate to the affect Hawes’ experiences as a rock drummer had on his method to songwriting and manufacturing: “There’s undoubtedly an understanding of, OK, energy-wise, what can I do right here to maneuver issues alongside?” Hawes additionally believes it is necessary to push again on one’s inventive tendencies with the intention to develop, however these tendencies die onerous, typically for good cause.
“I actually love ambient music, and I attempt to, in some instances, get as little drums in it as potential, and I nearly all the time fail,” Hawes says. “As a drummer, I really feel like there’s this want and inclination of, ‘Properly, perhaps I can at the very least throw a kick drum in there.’ It is all the time that push and pull of making an attempt to work with that. I do not know the place issues are going to go subsequent, however I undoubtedly wish to try to embrace it extra going ahead and do extra drum-heavy stuff.”
The album’s second-to-last observe, “The Finish Of The Finish,” captures each Hawes’ want to embrace the repetition inherent to most music (particularly quite a lot of digital music) and his must shake up a tune with dynamic vitality. He got down to make a synth-heavy observe, creating a spiky frost of arpeggiated phrases. As these phrases cycle by way of totally different variations and synth patches, although, Hawes can also be clearly making an attempt to construct stress and make the observe really feel prefer it’s, effectively, transferring.
“I can normally take heed to repetition time and again, however when the coin flips and I’ve to create it, I really feel prefer it’s very boring for the person who’s listening to it. I form of battle with letting issues breathe typically,” he says. “I all the time really feel like I must put one thing else in there to occupy the area. With ‘The Finish Of The Finish,’ there was undoubtedly an effort there to be like, ‘OK, I do not wish to do an excessive amount of.'”
All this friction—between digital texture and rock-influenced songwriting, between darkish corners and energetic straightaways, between the layered and the sparse—yields an album that finally ends up feeling cohesive and intentional. It additionally virtually invitations listeners to interpret it in any variety of methods. The title I Will At all times Be Right here might learn as an announcement of devotion or a menacing promise. The only clarification Hawes has is that it is about persistence and resolve.
“I went by way of quite a lot of occasions engaged on this the place I wasn’t certain if I used to be going to maintain doing this,” Hawes says. “There was quite a lot of time the place I doubted what I would give you, whether or not or not I would launch it, whether or not or not I assumed there was any level to doing it anymore. An excellent chunk of the years that I didn’t put something out was actually simply me pondering, ‘Is that this actually value it anymore?’ I spotted that that is one thing that is essential to me, that has been a part of my life since I used to be 15. Understanding that, even when it is solely only for me and I am the one one who’s ever gonna hear something I ever make anymore, that I am nonetheless gonna do it. I am all the time gonna preserve doing it. That is form of the thought course of I had going into that one, making an attempt to seize that transfer of, I do not know—unhappiness however hopeful as effectively too.”
The quilt {photograph}, which Hawes created, opens the album as much as an entire different vary of responses. A black-robed determine stands in a slim hallway, delicate daylight creeping in behind. It is creepy but additionally incorporates a lot of the acquainted and home—carpet, a plastic thermostat, the wooden trim on bed room doorways. Hawes does not consider in ghosts however notes that whereas some individuals who report hauntings after all discover them terrifying, a few of them take consolation in the concept a misplaced cherished one is close to.
“Placing it collectively gave it that totally different which means. It nearly appeared extra ominous,” Hawes says. “No matter what occurs I’ll all the time be right here, but additionally,” he pauses and laughs a bit of ruefully, “I’ll all the time be right here. I like that it is a bit of bit ambiguous.”
