New Music / Freshly Written & Soon to Be Released
Philly Music!
INNER STRENGTH
I met Jason Elliss at a recent Panophonic show. Tom Lugo of Panophonic had introduced us. Here's a shout out to Tom "Hey Tom"
Jason has asked me to do a review of his two new soon-to-be-released albums, "Out of Medication" and "Smashed Teeth". Both albums are performed by Jason's solo project, "Depression".
Jason and Tom started working together only a few months ago on a joint project, "Under the Wire", which seems to be taking off nicely. However, as much as Jason enjoys the work with Tom, there are a lot of things that Jason felt he had to express, things he had to get out there, that were too dark, and, frankly, too personal for the joint project. Jason's recent life has had a number of bad rough spots. But more about that a little later.
jason started playing music in his mid teens when he and a bunch of friends formed a band, "Standin for Nothin". Jason's first venture into music was playing the drums. The band played together regularly, but never did any shows.
When Jason was 17, he joined a metal band, "Another Common Tragedy", as a vocalist. This band did do shows, including some of the big venues, such as the Troc!
Always impatient to expand his horizons, Jason later learned guitar and keys and synth.
Jason's music outfit, Depression, started more recently as an outlet for some dark experiences … … Jason confides, "Depression is my little journal I keep in my back pocket."
Some years back Jason had some extremely bad experiences with drugs, including later going into a rehab that turned out to be a problem in itself. Jason lost his father which added more tumult to his life. And, beyond that, there was an unfortunate circumstance when some of his teeth were knocked out. And that's the background behind the album title, "Smashed Teeth". And, during all this, when one would expect to have the trust and support of those close to you, he found that people were pulling away from him. So the track "Withdrawl" is not about him pulling away from others, but others pulling away from him.
When you listen to his music, you'll hear some harsh sounds that relate some of these bad experiences..
But music contains a lot of emotions, some expressed as a main focus, and some that are underlying and might go almost unnoticed. When I listen to "Withdrawl" and "Shattered", I find them to be not all bad characterizations. I hear small glimmers of hope, and I hear small glimmers of strength and fortitude. Maybe its the particular harmonies that he uses. The tempo shows a determination to move forward in spite of the odds.
Jason's got the strength to move forward in spite of all that has happened to him. Not letting these other people drag him down. He's a devoted father to his young daughter.
Jason's work has a unique design in terms of its themes. Each piece seems to focus on one individual emotion or one characteristic and is an expression of that one dynamic. Most of the songs have no beginnings, they have no ends, but evoke present existential states of being.
Of the two albums of I've been hearing, "Out of Medication" is the earlier of the two (although both are current) and was done on a computer keyboard, while "Smashed Teeth" was done with a synthesizer.
The song "Withdrawl" is on the "Smashed Teeth" album and is playing right here on my blog page.
Jason has two shows coming up, both the same night, June 26 at Kung Fu Necktie. One of the shows will be as his solo act, Depression, and the other will be with Tom as a member of Under the Wire.
If you want to visit Jason in the meantime, here is the click to his Facebook page. There you can see pictures of Depression's first show which Jason did yesterday at the Brewerytown Spring Festival ((which unfortunately I did not get to see; I was working at our Farmstand)). … Depression (CLICK HERE)
I think the name has been suddenly changed to "Black Tombs".
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