#create;release tpwbyt

[moonchild-in-blue]

Create ; Release - A Sleep Token illustration project

I've talked a bit about this art project before, but now that I'm close to finish painting the 1st round, I can finally make a Serious Master Post about it (to make it easier to find and because I need to have everything neatly organised or else I die).

Create ; Release is a series of painted illustrations for each Sleep Token album, where each song will have its own individual painting based on my favourite lyrics, tied together by a colour palette. They won't necessarily relate to the ST lore, even though there will be some elements included. I'm going for a bit more abstract/conceptual approach, so to speak.

I'm starting with This Place because 1) it's been on my mind a lot recently; 2) for some reason the colour blue has been incredibly inspiring for me (Darya's Blue Period era); 3) I just felt like it 💙

The original plan is to make the 3 albums, but I might expand to include the EPs and 2 singles. This project has been a lot a bit taxing and time-consuming, but incredibly fun and satisfying to make!

[Because I know myself, I'll hold off posting the final illustrations until I've had the whole album scanned and ready. That way, I'll make sure to actually finish it, and you won't wait ages between songs (there will be however a few weeks of waiting time between albums, to allow myself time to have them all pretty and ready!) I will be sharing a few sneak-peeks and what-not with you while creating them 😘]

Links and Tags (will update as we go):

All posts will be tagged as #create;release

Sundowning

Tag -> #create;release sun

This Place Will Become Your Tomb

Tag -> #create;release tpwbyt

Atlantic | Hypnosis | Mine | Like That | The Love You Want | Fall For Me | Alkaline | Distraction | Descending | Telomeres | High Water | Missing Limbs

Take Me Back To Eden

Tag -> #create;release tmbte

Bonus:

Sneak-Peeks / Sketches

Tag -> #create;release bts

One (tbd)

Two (tbd)

Jaws / TWTYW (tbd)

If this is something you're interested in keeping up with, or if you're from the future and are going through this because you're sooo in love with my art and me (kidding), a big massive THANK YOU from the depths of my heart 🥺.

Your support and encouragement mean the world to me! 🌙💙✨

[minyard-05]

okay. maybe i will type up my caramel 2cents

(keep in mind it's 5 in the morning i've listened to it about six times already and i will be continuing all day)

so. To me. to me it's almost definitely the clearest message that's been in any of their songs. like if you read the lyrics and possess 2 pieces of knowledge (1: all members of the band deliberately remain anonymous by choice and 2: a lot of their fans are often bad at respecting this choice) i think it's very clear exactly what vessel is saying here.

but the first thing i want to bring up is the Sugar parallel. first of all, it's fucking everywhere: the title, the way it was teased, the style of the intro, ALL of this is very heavily linked back to Sugar.

but like. if you go back and listen to Sugar (which i did), and you read the lyrics, it ALSO has a very explicit message, although admittedly there is slightly more metaphor in this one. but just as an example:

i wonder what that could mean

it's no secret that both Sundowning and This Place Will Become Your Tomb are about being in/escaping an abusive relationship, one that's specifically emotionally manipulative and isolating, and this entire scenario is reflected in what we know about Vessel and Sleep. that's a separate essay in itself, but i'm going into the rest of this operating on the assumption that we all know and are aware of those topics being prevalent most on ST's first two albums.

and now. Caramel.

as a very basic explanation of what went on with the actual release of the single: essentially, someone involved with the band i think posted about being excited for it to be released and fans came back and lost their shit for it not being 'enough information' or not being 'exciting enough'. my first response to that is get a grip. my second response to that is stop acting like they owe you anything because it's literally just a band. like this is their day job. leave them alone.

ANYWAY.

unfortunately, the aforementioned bullshit about Caramel's release ended up being ironic as hell because the single dropped today, and what is it about?

exactly that.

i mean. come on. come on. like i can't explain this any better than vessel already did, the message isn't even hiding behind a metaphor anymore. what else could "I guess that's what I get for trying to hide in the limelight" possibly mean? sleep token kind of shot into mainstream when Take Me Back To Eden came out, they suddenly went from smaller venues on tour for TPWBYT, to selling out Wembley stadium on Teeth of God, and that's a stressful place to be as an artist. you go from making music for yourself and writing what you want to write, fuck what anyone else says– to immediately being Watched and Observed and Studied like a fucking experiment. all of a sudden people want interviews and people want to know what you're writing and people want the next song and it should be like this and it should be exactly like the last one and fans want fans want fans want.

this is why i would argue that fan culture is one of the most damaging things to musicians. because while it can be incredible to have so many people at your back who express a love for your art, it's suffocating to try and create when you can't get the reactions out of your head. what if they hate it? what if what you make isn't good enough? what if the last song they loved was a lucky break but the next one won't hit right and they'll hate it and they'll hate you and then you lose all of it because you couldn't do it right.

so do you get why the band might want to stay anonymous? that's not even getting into the media and the paparazzi themselves, which are their own issue.

with all this said, that's what caramel is about: the message is stop. it doesn't matter if we don't know their names or their faces, the members of sleep token are people and they deserve respect like anybody else. you don't get to demand anything from them, whether that's music or information or whatever else. they don't owe you anything. you choose to listen to the music, to buy the merch, go to the concerts, that's your decision. you're not entitled to anything from any one of them, because i'll repeat: this is their job. they're working when they're onstage, in the studio, even handling releases like this. and as a songwriter myself, it's fucking work. it takes hours and hours of looping 7 seconds of a song to get the mix exactly right, millions and millions of takes and rehearsals and writing sessions and it's fucking exhausting.

so i guess my final thing is just. listen to the music. engage with the other fans if you want to. enjoy what the band is freely sharing with you (listen to the message they're sending) and just don't be a prick. <3

[melit0n]

Adding on to this post (which I do suggest reading before you read this one!) because I've been seeing a bunch of stuff about the TOG graphic novel floating around and another thing popped into my head!

More specifically, about the physical form of Sleep.

In the TMBTE artwork, it's easily seen that, in one way or another, the Moon is alive. At least, to the point it has a whispering mouth full of sharp teeth and tar-like tongues.

In the transcripts for the tier 4 bundle page (thank you to @elkkiel for said transcript!) the first line states, "15 days since the convergence of the lunar anomaly".

Convergence is when two or more things come together to form a new whole, and, in biology, it's the tendency of unrelated animals and plants to evolve similar characteristics under similar environmental conditions. With that in mind, this could be a dying God changing in order to remind people it's still a God, and, that it never left.

What once only appeared in nightmares and wistful dreams now sits high in the night sky as a pale reminder of our fickle lives.

Plus, the presale went out on the day of a super blue moon.

Further, Sundowning's release had a Waning Cresent, with symbolises self care and mental contemplation, TPWBYT's had a Waning Gibbous, which symbolises releasing old habits and attempting to change, and TMBTE's had a new moon, which represents new beginnings. This album just so happens to have the song Euclid (which I've jabbered on about enough), which is about becoming someone new and accepting things can't be the same.

Next, we have "I was frequently beset by certain recurring dreams...I found myself standing on a vast shoreline gazing out at a flat, wide sea." The first thing that comes to mind is the Fall For Me MV, which just so happens to be apart of TPWBYT: the water based album.

Night time is, quite obviously, when the moon is most visable, and is also when most people sleep. Asides from this, the moon also controls ocean tides. The closer a moon is (e.g: a supermoon, or an unspecified lunar anomaly), the higher and more violent a tide can become.

Further, if and when the sun, moon, and or Earth are in alignment (at the time of the new or full moon), the solar tide has an additive effect on the lunar tide, creating extra-high high tides, and very low, low tides.

Sound familiar?

Whether Sleep is the moon, or was birthed from the moon back when they first became a God (one of @tonguetyd's ideas), is up for debate.

With all that, and the previous thoughts on Telomeres already thought out: "I felt that were I to somehow survive...then I would be left in a world that would not recognize me. I would become an element unto myself and myself alone. An echo stuck in the throat of a dead God."

So, I'd like to say that TPWBYT is Sleep's album, if anything. Or, in the least, heavily dictated by them in ways other than directly influencing Vessel.

[moonchild-in-blue]

Here are some more sketches and ideas for the Create ; Release Sleep Token illustrations. I've been super busy and this took a bit of a backseat, but we're getting there baby!

When will I finally finish it? Who knows. (it's coming soon though)

I am starting with TPWBYT because it's been creeping up on my mind alot these past months, and I have some *bigger* plans for the other two.

If you're interesting to see more of this art project, I'll be tagging everything as #create;release, and I've created a little Masterpost for this as well. So there!