Tag: ryan karazija

I’ll keep coming

November 8th, 2022

Ryan Karazija, long live his music and his memory

I have mixed feelings tonight.

First of all, I’ve been absolutely neglecting this blog lately, probably because in the longer term I feel blogging a lot doesn’t align with my main goals and I have so little time and energy to dedicate to them that I’d probably want to really think how I manage my time.

But then, the things that I’m working on are so long-term, and so freaking mind-blowing that I feel even lonelier and more alienated than ever. And that’s saying a fucking lot because I’m probably one of the most isolated individuals you’ll read, I’m not kidding. So I know these things, these projects that live in my head are a real thing, a beautiful thing but then everything that surrounds me and what you’d call my reality screams: “Bullshit! You’ve got nothing!”. Fucking voices of discouragement, subconscious playing tricks on me.

So, you know, sorry for being so honest here, but the truth is I need to communicate something until I’m there, at that point where I will be communicating at a different level. So whoever you are who happens to find this little blog somehow and read it, please know that you’re important to me, you’re helping me pursue impossibilities that are worth every minute and every slight chance of becoming possibilities.

Why Ryan’s Picture?

In case you didn’t know, Ryan Karazija, the frontman of Low Roar passed away a few days back. And if you’ve read me before you probably know I’m a big fan of his music.

Ryan’s music was very personal and very deep in most cases; I connected with it immediately because I could feel his struggle, I could feel his uncertainty, and his hope, and I could feel how he knew his music was precious but unknown. Of course, that wasn’t the case the entire time but at the beginning, it was.

He died too young, but he was able to see outstanding achievements in his musical career, I hope he felt very satisfied with the outcome of his efforts and his love for music. I hate when people who’ve touched my soul leave this planet, I know such is the nature of life but it still saddens me and makes me feel lonelier for these strangers have been friends with my heart even if they will never know it. A few years back when Chris Cornell died I felt it very deeply as well.

But Ryan wrote this song “I’ll keep coming”; oh man, I’m almost crying just thinking about it, it’s such a beautiful sample of the human spirit and its struggle to transcend and overcome chaos. This song is an anthem for me and I chose it to be the soundtrack of this moment in my life where I’m so full of hope, and so much closer to my dreams but also surrounded by such anonymity and uncertainty.

Some progress

Well, I’ve made progress in my two books so for both of them the first draft of the respective first chapters is almost finished; seems super slow but it’s a big step for me and I’m sure I’ll become more fluent with time.

When it comes to the series “In the Wings of a Raven”, I’m writing my first piece on Kurt Cobain and it’s been quite a lot of research mainly because I want to be fair in my writing about people who are not here with us to tell us their thoughts any longer; for me, it’s risky, not cause I’m afraid of opinions but because I’m deeply respectful of human life and human dignity.

It’d be easy to write about Kurt and center it all on the more visible aspects of his public persona, while he was actually a very complex, talented, and sensitive individual who had too much on his mind until it became unbearable for him. I’m not done with the research nd I’ve started writing the story, I will post it here once it’s finished and you’ll tell me what you think about it.

By the way, below is an AI interpretation of Kurt dreaming of escaping from a dungeon, how do you feel about it?

A.I render of Kurt Cobain dreaming.

Don’t miss me too much if I disappear again.

I’ll keep coming.

J.V
Music Crisis: Low Roar

June 24th, 2022
Music crisis is all about exploration friends, it’s all about expanding to unknown horizons and the discovery of this band was exactly that for me. I can’t remember how I came to find it, I believe this was after my first music crisis where I found a lot of atmospheric stuff, which often presents visuals related to the forests and cold landscapes, actually, the previous article in this category deals with that music in depth.

It’s fun how naturally resistant to change a person may be; let me elaborate, I was in a music crisis: yes, I needed something new: yes, I looked for something similar to the latest thing I discovered when I felt this way: also yes, xD. I’ve been listening to some psychology lectures about behavior and well, it seems humans tend to construct models of success based on experience, so I guess this is not completely illogical yet it’s a bit of a paradox when the subject is an exploration of the unknown!

So what does it have to do with “Low Roar”? Yeah, good question. Well again, I thought it maybe was some atmospheric metal thing, probably because the first record (which was the only one available at that time) displayed a moose and what seems to be a sound (roar?) coming out of its muzzle in the form of birds. So, quite a poetic and compelling illustration (that’s the image on top of this post in case you haven’t noticed yet).

Nothing further from metal, LOL. I was deceived by my genre bias, deceived but by no means disappointed! Once I started listening I couldn’t stop, and this doesn’t happen often with me, my attention span is let’s say, a struggle.

First Impressions

Ryan Karazija – Composer

I’ve always been into guitar, I like the inviting sound of an acoustic guitar playing arpeggios and emotional tunes; this is exactly what I had at the very beginning with the song “Give Up” from the first record which is by the way entitled: Low Roar. Damn, it was like, straight to the heart! It’s beautiful and nostalgic and his voice is… like calming, not sure how else to describe it, calming and sweet. But there’s something else, what he was feeling, what he expresses in that song, even before learning the lyrics I knew we had something in common and it was an instant connection, this made his music super special to me up to this day.

Now, if I’m to describe the feelings and thoughts I get when I listen to any Low Roar song, this would become a really weird book that probably only makes sense to me, so I wanted to just focus on that first impression of the first song that pretty much won me as a life-long fan. The cool thing about this whole musical accident is that to me it was a treasure from there onwards, something very exclusive and something not a lot of people knew; also given my experience with absolutely beautiful musical projects that only launch one record, I was seriously hoping that didn’t happen with this one. Fortunately, it didn’t!

Ryan’s Story: The Source of the Connection

Northern Lights in Iceland

As I said before, the connection I made with this music was very immediate and also very emotional; so it was also a simple connection, facilitated by the magic and emotion of the music. This means it didn’t require a lot of research about this guy’s life or point of view, except for what he wrote in the YouTube video where I found his record, and unfortunately, I don’t have a way to retrieve that, since that old video probably disappeared long ago but he was basically explaining that he’d recently moved to Iceland, that it was a big life change for him and a struggle to get adapted, to begin a new life in a foreign country.

I thought about the situation he had at that time and how it’s represented beautifully in the music he composed; yeah maybe this wasn’t a tragedy, maybe this was just a decision with unforeseen consequences (I don’t know the details), but the feeling of being absolutely lost in life, the pain of caring deeply for things that others don’t seem to even contemplate as important, the fear, and pressure of not achieving success, the anxiety concerning relationships and the absolute uncertainty when most of your life is in uncharted territory. All of this may potentially be right in front of an immigrant in a new country, and even if I haven’t experienced it fully myself (I’ve been away for prolonged seasons but not permanently), I can definitely empathize and relate to all of these feelings, through other types of experiences I’ve had.

So glad to see you again!

What’s Norman Reedus doing here?

So yeah, what’s a digital Norman Reedus doing in this article? Well, you may know the answer depends on how much you are into gaming; this is a scene from Death Stranding, a Kojima game that has a unique story and luxury cast. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but hey, that happens with excellent stuff I’m still playing it and enjoy it quite a bit. Now, part of the difficulty in the game is related to walking: the main character is a delivery guy, in a post-apocalyptic dystopia where being the delivery guy is pretty much as badass as it gets since it’s just too dangerous to be out of shelters (it’s a long story).

OK, so what about Low Roar? Well you know, if you’re always into music, sometimes you stop listening to artists you like for periods of time, as you’re discovering new stuff. I kept listening to Low Roar for quite a while, when the “0” record came out I was thrilled but I didn’t keep up to date with much else (I was just glad Ryan kept publishing music). To my absolute surprise, my first long walk playing Death Stranding which included a soundtrack was… guess what? Low Roar! Oh my God I couldn’t believe it, this was so exciting! And for various reasons:
1. I love the game
2. I love the music
3. I feel like I knew this guy since he was in a moment of so much uncertainty, and seeing him in a deal this size is just fulfilling!
I don’t know what the impact of this collab has been for Low Roar, but I mean this is a game with a large budget and I’m guessing it was a pretty good deal. Regardless of the details, I love it that it seems we will have Low Roar for a while, I’ve been visiting the website and see a lot of concerts in a lot of cities and the whole presence of the artist on the Internet is way different to what it used to be; and even with all of this, it seems the indie essence of the project remains.

I’m happy with this review time to say goodbye for now.

J.V