#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! 🌙💙✨

[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.

[sleepanonymous]

I think I’m mentally in a good enough headspace to finally write about this. This will be a ranty post, so skip it if you’d like. I’m also not going to pretend I’m not wildly speculating here. I do not know Vessel, nor am I a mental health professional. This is just me rambling into the void; I did my best to make it coherent.

So, to start, we’ll need the message from Vessel that he played during his The Room Below set and the text on screen from the Fall For Me music video. Since I’ll call back to them, I’ve transcribed both below.

Fall For Me:

The truth is I am due a harsh lesson in truth itself and how bitter it can be. Will you teach me? The truth is I am ugly, I am inadequate, I am lost, I am no god. The truth is, I want, to want, to live, and so do you. I just can’t do this any longer. I am afraid. Are you afraid? I want to understand what it is to let go. So for now let me live as a living drama of your pain. If we are to be submerged let us be submerged together.

Vessel’s Room Below Message:

We are here to silently connect. To project ourselves onto one another. We are here to remember. We are here to forget. We are here to worship. Some time ago, I was given a message. It was a message that originated from one of you. Someone possessed by a strong desire to tell me something. The message read very simply: You saved me. I have thought about this message a great deal since. It left me with a feeling that I have somehow been mistaken for someone else. I did not save anyone. I do not believe I have the capacity to save anyone. All I have ever given anyone was a small window into the emotional waiting room of my mind. I do so whilst doing everything in my power to minimize my own vulnerability. In this way, I am selfish. I chose not to give what others can, and yet I am the benefactor of this thankful praise. |I experience a great deal of pain in my life. However, I do not believe I have suffered as you have suffered. Perhaps that is another reason why we are here. At the very least, we have all suffered. I would also like to take this chance to tell you something. To love oneself is not the easy task we are sometimes told it is. We are all limited by something. We are all guilty of something. My own path towards a place of greater self-acceptance is paved with the art that I create. It is a path that I continue to stumble down at the expense of everything else. I am nothing without this music. I am nothing without this mask. So, in this sense, the message I received was true, but only in an inverse sense. The truth is I did not save anybody. You saved me.

For a bit of background, the Fall For Me music video was released in September of 2021, right before the release of TPWBYT. The Room Below show was initially set for January 2022. It was postponed twice due to COVID-19 and was finally set for the end of April 2022. To be honest, most bands would have just cancelled the show after it was postponed, especially if it was a single show, not part of a tour, and not meant for the entire band to be present. According to an online article, the show itself even started half an hour later than it was supposed to. Again, I’m wildly speculating, but Vessel wanted to do this show specifically to deliver his Room Below message. He doesn’t communicate any other way with his fans aside from the occasional chuckle on stage and his awful (/affectionate) heart hands. So what else was he supposed to do in order to respond to that person who told them that he, specifically, saved their life?

Let me back up a bit. Again, this is speculation, but I believe this person with their strong desire to communicate their message to Vessel did so before the music video for Fall For Me was released in September of 2021. It’s possible the message came after, but before makes the most sense (at least to me). I say this because the music video for the song has no direct connection to the lyrics. The base subject matter for Fall For Me is about longing and wanting someone who does not want you back, at least not in the same way.

On the other hand, the music video is Vessel (or a character he is portraying, if that makes you feel more comfortable) committing suicide by sea, and, upon first watch, the words on the screen are his suicide note. With closer examination, this is not the case. The words on the screen, though some statements do seem like they belong in a suicide note, are more like a precursor to Vessel’s Room Below speech, especially with the “I want to want to live, and so do you” quote. Even more than that, the statements show Vessel disproving himself and his importance to Sleep Token fans.

“I am ugly”, “I am inadequate”, “I am selfish”, “I am nothing without this mask.” With these four quotes, I’ll move on to the second part of this post. These four statements are coming from a man with severely diminished self-worth. Plainly, Vessel is struggling, or, to use his word, he is suffering. Without pulling more from his music, these quotes alone are a tell-tale sign that Sleep Token’s anonymous marketing strategy has backfired in the most spectacular way for Vessel. While it has captured the attention of over two million monthly listeners on Spotify and garnered over ninety-nine million views on YouTube, the anonymity has ruined Vessel’s self-esteem.

With the above stated, I believe he’s still on board with keeping up the anonymity of Sleep Token. To be frank, I think he’s the only member of Sleep Token who is still 100% on board with the gimmick. The Vesselettes recently unmasked back in July 2023 (good for them; they deserve to be recognized and praised for their talents), and there are multiple accounts of II, III, and IV walking around festivals and venues unmasked, sometimes even wearing their full stage costumes sans masks. Vessel relies on his masked identity like a crutch to deliver his art. He does so because he believes he has to. He plainly stated this fact to the six hundred people at the Lafayette with him in April of 2022 and, by conduit, all of Sleep Token’s fans who have heard the multiple recordings and edits of this message.

The other members, II, III, IV, even the Vesselettes, the old keyboardist, OG IV, and 2020 session player Sam Kubrick, have all achieved variable success without the Sleep Token façade in the public eye. But not Vessel. The best he had was performing on a small stage hosted by his former university at a music festival in 2014. Before that, he struggled to get subscribers on YouTube and played open mic nights at a local café. Vessel didn’t achieve any recognition or fame until after he put on the mask and bought entirely into the idea that his music, his art, should be wholly separated from who he is as a person.

This mindset reminds me of a Miley Cyrus quote (stick with me; I promise this is relevant) from a few years back. She did a podcast interview and said the following about her Hannah Montana persona: “When I looked like myself, when I didn’t have the wig on anymore, no one cared about me. I wasn’t a star anymore.” Her quote helped put Vessel’s statement, “It left me with a feeling that I have somehow been mistaken for someone else”, into perspective. I saw that snippet on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, and it was like everything instantly snapped into place involving Vessel’s insistence on remaining anonymous.

With the above said, do I believe that the anonymity schtick is a trash idea and that the band should ditch it? Absolutely not, because it works. Without anonymity, the band would not have blown up the way they did after The Summoning dropped in January 2023. Without anonymity, there wouldn’t be extra layers of added lore. Without anonymity, there would be no mini ARGs for the fans curious enough to wonder why there are no credits on the songs their streaming services are suggesting to them (thanks for fucking that up, by the way, Apple Music. A+ shitshow right there). We would not have such emotional, beautiful, heart-wrenching songs without Vessel’s anonymity. Vessel has said this last point himself with his quote about minimizing his vulnerability. Would Vessel have had the confidence to put out songs like Bloodsport, Atlantic, High Water, Missing Limbs, or even Vore without his mask to shield him? In Vessel’s words, all he has given his fans is “a small window into the emotional waiting room of [his] mind.” But what a gifted, beautiful, turbulent, fractured, and brilliant waiting room we have been allowed to see.

In closing, whoever it was that gave Vessel the message about saving their life, I sincerely hope they were in attendance for The Room Below show, and I hope they heard Vessel’s response. I hope they both, as well as anyone else touched by this interaction between the two, have found support channels for the weight of their pain. I hope that they are happy.

TL;DR Vessel is a beautiful, talented, and humble human being who has and continues to save lives with his music. He deserved so much more attention than he got before Sleep Token. I want Vessel to know this (even though he will never see this post). However, I also do not think that he and the other boys should not drop Sleep Token’s anonymity act at the expense of their comfort.

[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!