I Wake And Remember
an EP that attempts to emulate an unwavering will against the inevitability of forgetting. Or in a simpler term, refusing to forget someone important to you no matter the distance, event, nor time past.
“Two Birds”
“Two Birds,” narrates a simple journey through the depths of musical layering and harmony as the subjects go through phases of separation. The song diverts from the traditional form, as it is urged to be listened to as one ever-flowing landscape as Ray’s cinematic influences transfer naturally to his songs. “Two Birds” precedes it’s latter half, “It’s Been So Long,” which talks of reunion within the same subjects, in a similar yet polarizing sense.
“It’s Been So Long”
“It’s Been So Long,” is a polarizing sequel to“Two Birds.” The song contrasts its preceding half by establishing a sense of rhythm to the similarly harmonically vocalized and warm-toned arrangement. It establishes the same narrator, from far, working a way to go back to a home seemingly forgotten. The song attempts to create a jarring yet removed epiphany in the act of realization - the realization that one might be looking for something they already whole-heartedly possess.
“A Long Distance Song”
A boy choirs with an unmatched sense of longing and excitement; as he travels to see his long distance girlfriend after a grueling six months.
“I Wake And Remember”
At last, we have traveled far enough - in expanse and duration - to experience distance in memory. We have been lost and we have been found. We have encompassed so much where dissociation inevitably falls upon our doorstep. Yet under the facade of skin and age we burn intensely against the dawn of forgetting. As, from time to time, we awake and remember what we once had. Some scene, some person, somewhere, decides to dip a finger in and tickle us. We warm ourselves in the sweetness of memory and grasp onto whichever handle we are to hold. We hum and sing a tune.
We seem to have arrived at the end of our journey. We follow along a narrator who has been seemingly lost for too long. The bird (the narrator from the first two singles), lands on his window and gives him a hint. He is suddenly brought back into remembering a crushing loss he has suffered, he had it suppressed deep in his memory for so long. The song has four parts of drastically contrasting sections. It is sung with a robotic hue, yet gets emotionally intense as memory crawls back - like an inanimate object coming back to life.
One main inspiration for this song is Ray’s grandmother, who suffers from dementia. Years of observing her made Ray realize that from time to time - some memory unexplainably drops into her mind, as she is able to grasp and remember random parts of her life. The arbitrary remembrance of memories dear to her either gives her an intense euphoria, or an intense sadness. It is a song that illustrates a testament to the unmatched power and will for the ones we love.
