#dani lee pearce

[danileepearce]

I share a plex server with some friends over where I live now and sometime ago someone requested and added Welcome To The NHK to the list of available shows on it. About a week ago i started to work my way through watching it and just tonight I finally finished it. I didn't really think to expect much from it, but it ended up a show, a world, a set of characters that im really glad i ended up spending my nights with.

Firstly, the show for a good handful of its duration is absolutely laugh out loud funny. I now understand in that way why it seems to have been at least a minor sensation in some corners of late 00s internet(i don't know exactly of the reach it had, but it was probably big). so many easily quotable/jokeable/memeable moments throughout, such a hilarious dissection of otaku culture and also really just like, early 20s life. satou is the most 22 years old any human being has ever been in their entire lives.

the show genuinely takes its sweet time really kind of slowly inching its true message on you; it front-loads itself heavily with its comedy and its stories about satou and yamazaki being complete ridiculous dumbasses over several episodes, with every episode ending with that insane ABABA BABA BA ODORU AKACHAN NINGEN song which, the lyrics are so well written and so relatable for 2006…i was only 11 when this first aired! ********************************************************************* [[MAJOR SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT, DONT READ IF YOU DONT WANT THEM, ALSO CONTENT WARNING FOR SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTER]] *********************************************************************

but then you get to that point in the series where satou becomes This Close to committing suicide. its played off in a somewhat over-dramatic way and even that has humorous undertones to it, but the first true colors of the heart behind the show really begin to introduce themselves in a very visible way after that point. the end credits song changes to something a lot more grounded, and little by little from then on, the humor kind of falls away, the characters satou had to bounce off of in these ways depart from the main plot altogether (but they give satou and yamazaki that one last "snowball fight" lmao. how did those two never kiss) until its just him and misaki. i actually was stunned at how totally transformed the tone had become by the last few episodes.

When I finally got to the end, it was one of those endings….one of those resolutions….where i just kind of ended up going out for a night walk at 2 am, walking for almost an hour listening to music, and then sitting out on a lounge chair on my driveway staring up at the stars and just thinking.

The big lore reveal for misaki around the climax of the story made me realise just how much i had in common with her. Basically ever since i first became homeless, and honestly some time before that, I feel like i've basically just always dedicated myself to helping others as best as i can. i used to be pretty bad at it, but i was dedicated enough to making this a fundamental part of who i was it that it became a skill within myself i refined like a sharp blade over the years. i gave myself up to ppl completely, in more ways than one, often just to have a place to stay. to this day, i feel like i give so much to my friends. i try to give so much to whatever community i find myself in. because i think i too share a compulsion to give others the love and the kindness that i was never given when i most needed it. like misaki. i also have worried pretty heavily about if my usefulness would last to the people around me. ive also hinged my entire life purpose on that.

i dont think i have as tragic of a backstory as misaki's is framed to be, but my family life was in many ways as equally fractured as hers. my mom didn't kill herself, but it feels like she might as well have. she always seemed like there once was a human being there that just became completely consumed with hate, with christofascism, with this desire to have me constantly hurt and beaten by not just her but by just about every adult figure that graced my life for many years. my dad was just simply not present, and was consumed by this complete inability to ever have the relationship with me that i so badly needed from him growing up. at times he was an equal participant in the abuse. and additionally at times he was actually scarier and a lot more energetically violent. when satou is on the island and raises his voice and fist to misaki, her reaction was something i felt very deeply. it especially hit with the lore reveal.

additionally, i related to satou in a number of ways too. up until this year i had spent the last 9 years essentially living in this very open-wound self-exploitative way where i essentially kept no secrets and no part of me concealed from people until this spring, around my 29th birthday, and at some point in the following summer, everything just Slammed Shut on my fingers from the inside and has not reopened. i feel like ive radically transformed into being a much more private person. i hardly post anywhere on social media anymore and most times i just outright avoid it. ive unfollowed/disconnected from a lot of the ppl i knew in that time period. ive struggled lately with a very deep fear of the world and of nearly everybody in it, since many of the people i met after escaping home were also people that hurt me in pretty profound ways, both on and offline. i spend a lot of time just in my house, which i try to maintain as low of stimuli within as i can. sometimes i just lie down and i listen to music and get lost in a very deep currant of my own thoughts. sometimes i just spiral. i was spiraling pretty heavily over this last week especially. feeling like the world and everyone in it wants nothing to do but just hurt me. like ITS ALL A CONSPIRACY (OF COURSE! WHY DIDN'T I REALIZE THIS BEFORE!)to keep me always suffering and in pain.

And, like both characters, i have wanted to kill myself. many times over many years. sometimes for extremely silly and impulsive reasons like satou, sometimes for reasons based out of very real deep-seated trauma, fear, and a sense of never-ending heartbreak like misaki. the way she fixates on death and suicide leading up to her own attempts is something i've done more times than i can count. anyone who has known me for any length of time has learned this about me at some point. my most recent plan to do so was made at the end of july this year. its funny in that way how satou catches misaki before she falls, and how satou is caught by the chain link (lol) and misaki then helps him back onto the cliff. that to me very much analogues my friends catching me and me catching myself. maybe im also that chain link; where even in my most brazen and my most far-flung from a grounded feeling that a hard wall will always stop me short from going through with it. who knows!

and i mean, maybe a hikkikimori partially/subliminally fits my description as of present, but maybe without the negative connotations that seem to associate with that term. ive mostly become a lot more hermetic out of necessity. I've Lived So Much Life and a lot of life that no one should ever have to live, and i've finally arrived at a place of stability and support where i can finally just Withdraw from it all. i can live with a quietness and a control over my environment that i've essentially always longed for. i guess that ive lived the reverse life of satou; he seems very comically dedicated to Always Being A Hikkikimori and yet he ends up doing a lot of Living over the course of the series! and in the end it results in him kind of resurfacing properly into the world. thats what the series portrays as a happy ending but i'd like to think that my "reversed" version of that has a happy ending to it in itself. i can finally live how i feel i deserve to. i can finally find and feel my own happiness in the withdrawal from so many elements in my life that were hurting me, burning me, bruising me very terribly.

id like to think also that our overall attitudes towards ppl who quote-on-quote Don't Contribute To Society have vastly improved since 2006; on a few occasions the series seemed very mean spirited in a way that hasn't aged well. The brief focus on kobayashi's brother i thought was really touching though; seemed like a more sympathetic look at complete reclusiveness even though he too has another "happy ending" type resolution. some ppl are just most comfortable shut off and isolated from most things in the world, especially in a covid age.

but anyway, i really like that the way satou and misaki dedicate themselves to self preservation is a(nother) contract that basically binds them them both to stay alive together. neither one of them wants the other to die, so either they both have to or neither of them do. that's really cute and sweet. i think i would get a lot out of having that kind of agreement with someone. like really, the way that this series extrapolates upon what it means to live, what it means to keep going, is done in a way that is surprisingly very well handled and very affecting to someone like me. and i definitely am sure that im not alone in that. these subjects were always the series' secret weapon, they were always the CONSPIRACY. the series just wants us all to live, to take care of ourselves through everything as much as we can.

in all of this, im reminded of a memory of someone who long ago i used to talk to and message every day as an excited 16 year old who barely knew how to be an actual person and was only really just learning how to interact with people online. if memory serves, Welcome To The NHK was a series that was very close and dear to her at that time. i hope she's doing ok.

but yeah. i guess in its own strange way NHK has become one of my unexpectedly favorite anime of all time, something that is no secret to anyone who has reached this same sentiment about it. It was something that found me at the perfect place at the perfect time. i get it now. i feel like i now get so much. a lot of this feels written very messily and disorganized and complicated in my thinking and wording, but if you made it this far, thank you for reading. its been a minute since i felt this inspired to just write

[oceanlandworld]

i was raised by rivers of blood i fed on the fish of the fire of your scream spare my roasted heart and mind i got gold in places youll never find cause youre not brave like i am brave to dive in filth you must misbehave

[dogeatspine]

dani's late 2010s albums have a certain energy to them that feels really reflective of the changing political environment for trans people in a way that is really affecting to me - this song is an interesting example because as much as it is about the transformative and liberating powers of HRT i also interpret it as touching on the co-opting of trans culture by capitalists in ways that were in some ways optimistic predictions compared to how things have actually progressed since but in other ways feel very relevant to trans culture and identity today

so a toast to us its all working out fine the rivers run with robins eggs blue saccharin now lets try to not tear each other apart this time

[oceanlandworld]

it's not bolded but this is maybe my favorite song from this (criminally underrecognized) album

Tracklist:

Galaxy Owl • I. Dandilionheart • II. All The Rain • III. Goddexx Bless/Spirit Bouquet • I Get A Rise(The Trans Holy One) • Periwinkle Death • Tell Me I'm Cute Again Cause I Forgot • Another Rain Song • Moth Girl • Dark-Light Position • Damsel Lilith Pansy • Give You My Earth • Uranus in Aquarius • Let Me Remind You • Never Having Or Always

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[forcefemd]

tagged by @fungaldeity !!!

tag 9 ppl you want to know better

last song: seraphim II by how to disappear completely i really like ambient stuff (usually to listen 2 when im trying 2 get myself to sleep) and this came up in my reccomended a few days ago n its really comforting hehe

last show: twin peaks sgjlhjldgjhdjg watched the last evening (finale of s1) with dawn :3 its my favorite tv show like ever but thats kinda already obvious by how much i post about laura palmer lol. 100% reccomend the girls in twin peaks r some of my favorite characters in anything hehe

currently watching: haibane renmei!!!! really really pretty anime about angelgirls (produced by the creator of lain) i would totally reccomend it!!! its very atmospheric and is also like. ridiculously transfem. like i dont wanna say too much but just from the first episode the show feels like its about tranny angels all living 2gether its so sweet

currently reading: listening 2 the audiobook of watership down!!!! peter capaldi reads it and he does a super great job, i loved the book and movie when i was a kid so ive been listening to this over the past couple of weeks and its. oooh its so good ^x^ i love rabbits

current obsession: inscryption!!!!! i just started playing it like yesterday and i super super super love it. im a big fan of card games (my urls from a yugioh card kjghssdkjgh) and inscryptions already really reaally fun even before all the beautiful mysterious other things the game does hehe :3 dont wanna spoil anythin tho!! if youve never played it and like deckbuilding games (stuff like slay the spire) i would 100% check it out!! also the stoat is hot.

@gorepup @molsno @autolenaphilia @dani-lee-pearce @manyeyedgirl @puppy-cow @transgirlmarin @blightedbaedling @froggrrl420

[celestial-thoughts]

august 21, 2023 - weekly women’s pro wrestling news roundup: week of august 14-20, 2023

this week's news roundup includes:

News & results from last week’s editions of Monday Night Raw, NXT, and Friday Night SmackDown.

News & results from last week's editions of WWE Main Event and NXT Level Up.

News & results from last week’s editions of AEW Dynamite, AEW Rampage, and AEW Collision.

Other updates and news from last week.

Things to look forward to in women’s wrestling this week!

spoilers below the cut for shows/events listed above!

Notable news & results from TV last week:

Monday Night Raw (8/14):

Backstage, Adam Pearce spoke to WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Chelsea Green about the future of the titles now that Chelsea is without a partner as Sonya Deville has a torn ACL. Kayden Carter and Katana Chance interrupted, saying that they wanted a shot at the titles once Chelsea found a partner. Kayden and Katana were then attacked from behind by Piper Niven who declared that she would be Chelsea's new partner and took one of the title belts from her.

Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley defeated Indi Hartwell. After the match, Candice LeRae and Indi attacked Rhea before escaping up the ramp. match length-3:05.

Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus ended in a double count-out. The match ended after Becky and Trish began to brawl in the crowd. They continued to fight up the stairs and into the concourse. As they reached the merch stand, Zoey Stark appeared and helped Trish to lay out Becky. match length-11:30.

Backstage after the match, Adam Pearce confronted Trish and Zoey. He said that Trish would have another match against Becky, and that this time it would be in a steel cage.

NXT (8/15):

Blair Davenport defeated Dana Brooke. match length-3:39.

In a backstage segment, Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley & NXT North American Champion Dominik Mysterio called out Lyra Valkyria & Dragon Lee, issuing a challenge for a mixed tag team match next week at NXT Heatwave. Later in the show, Lyra and Dragon Lee accepted the challenge.

Jacy Jayne defeated Thea Hail. match length-8:11.

A video package of NXT Women's Champion Tiffany Stratton was shown. Stratton promised that she would be on NXT Heatwave next week.

AEW Dynamite (8/16):

Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. defeated The Bunny to qualify for the AEW Women's World Championship four way match at AEW All In. Britt claimed the final spot in the championship match in London, where she, Saraya, and Toni Storm will all be challenging Hikaru Shida for the gold. match length-7:31.

WWE Main Event (8/17):

Natalya defeated Tegan Nox. match length-5:43.

Friday Night SmackDown (8/18):

Bianca Belair & Charlotte Flair defeated Damage CTRL (WWE Women's Champion Iyo Sky & Bayley). Bianca pinned Bayley to score the win. match length-13:50.

Bianca was in the middle of being interviewed backstage, when she was attacked by Damage CTRL's Bayley, Dakota Kai, and Iyo Sky.

NXT Level Up (8/18):

Jacy Jayne defeated Karmen Petrovic. match length-5:10.

Dani Palmer defeated Brooklyn Barlow. match length-4:56.

AEW Rampage (8/18):

AEW Women's World Champion Hikaru Shida & Skye Blue defeated The Outcasts (Toni Storm & Ruby Soho). After the match, Toni and Ruby attacked Shida and Skye. Saraya also attacked the champion and her tag partner, before Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. ran down the ramp to make the save. All six women brawled to end the show. match length-10:08.

AEW Collision (8/19):

Willow Nightingale defeated Diamante. match length-11:02.

Other news & updates from last week:

On Wednesday morning, Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that Lacey Evans has officially left WWE. This follows Lacey removing "WWE" from her social media handles, as well as indicating in her Instagram bio that she is no longer with the company. As of writing this, there has been no statement from WWE regarding Lacey's release, but she has been moved to the alumni section of the WWE website. According to a report from Fightful Select on Tuesday night, Lacey had indicated that her deal was set to expire at midnight.

Dakota Kai confirmed during a Twitch stream that she still has a ways to go before she is cleared to return to in-ring action. Specifically, she said that she is just under six months away from being cleared.

Speaking of Dakota Kai, she and Zelina Vega announced that they are starting a podcast together. Subscribe on YouTube here.

Things to look forward to this week:

This Tuesday on NXT Heatwave, Ava (fka Ava Raine, daughter of The Rock) will compete in her first singles match, against Ivy Nile.

This Sunday, August 27 live on pay-per-view, AEW All In takes place in London, England. Zero Hour starts at 12 pm ET, and the PPV begins at 1 pm ET. AEW Women's World Champion Hikaru Shida defends her title in a four way match against Toni Storm, Saraya, and Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D.

Current Women's Champions in WWE & AEW:

WWE: - Women's World Championship: Rhea Ripley - WWE Women's Championship: Iyo Sky - NXT Women's Championship: Tiffany Stratton - WWE Women's Tag Team Championship: Chelsea Green & Piper Niven

AEW: - AEW Women's World Championship: Hikaru Shida - TBS Championship: Kris Statlander

[tyrannodokuro]

a former roommate of mine moved out recently and got screwed over by a shitty moving company, if anyone can help her out it would be awesome

[moonsandmelodies]

Sophisti-Pop Serenade

Sophisti-Pop Summer / Sophisti-Pop Stroll

Elegant ballads and slow grooves from the eighties suggest tall cities deep in the night. Distant cars and lost ‘smooth’ radio show blur into the air as hundreds of tiny lights liven up the darkness.

See also: Is It A Crime?

Track listing

golden war - blue camera / subterraneo amor - cecilia toussaint / lilly et bill - blues trottoir / living in confusion + living all alone - phyllis hyman / midnight mood - kashif / victor should have been a jazz musician + i’ve done it again - grace jones / make me a believer - luther vandross / esquinas - djavan / pleurer des rivieres - viktor lazlo / ten minutes - isabelle antena / to tak jak gdyby ktos - ewa bem / all the world loves lovers - prefab sprout / che vita ha fatto - lucio battisti / fantasy (pioneerball remix) - tesla boy / cowboys and angels - george michael / fear - sade / from a late night train - the blue nile / when all things are well - dani lee pearce / no te cuesta nada - javiera mena / love is here where i live - everything but the girl / scarlet ribbons - roisin murphy / holding back the years - simply red / gullible fool - la roux

[noncisartists]

We call ourselves the G.N.C for Gender Neutralized Committee the Gay N' Crafty Ones the Great New Circle of Life We can be anyone and anything and everyone and everything

[luuurien]

Dani Lee Pearce - Unfair Harmonies

(Synthpop, Indietronica, Progressive Pop)

Playful and deeply, deeply personal, Dani Lee Pearce's thirteenth album celebrates neurodivergence and trans identity in a creative and singular way. My reservations with its songwriting and production notwithstanding, the statement Unfair Harmonies makes is more than worth your attention.

Synthpop, Indietronica, Progressive Pop 

Rarely do I come across albums I don't personally adore but can easily applaud like I do for Unfair Harmonies. While listening to Unfair Harmonies, I can pick out many things I'm not personally a fan of, but the vulnerability and experimentation are enough for me to say that this is well worth everyone's time, at least once. Though I can't connect to the experiences and emotions of Unfair Harmonies in any meaningful manner, I understand the exact ideas Pearce was going for and the reasons they've been delivered in the form and figure they are. To get the issues out of the way, my biggest ones are with the album's engagement, production, and performances. All nine tracks of Unfair Harmonies are longer than four minutes, but only a select few earn that longer commitment: most of the time, these songs are too one-note and lack the depth or drive necessary to keep me invested on a musical level. Opener Specticycle throws out a litany of bright, panning synths and percussive work, but the flashy electric guitar solo is about the only thing that changes throughout the runtime (save for ill-fitting, guttural vocals still covered in the digital effects Pearce throws on her voice). Hee Hoo Peanut starts off with a quirky melody that is, at the least, a bit of an earworm, but over five minutes the piercing repeats of it every time the chorus rolls around becomes grating. The new wave crispness of In Circuitry Terms is a fun change of pace, but Pearce doesn't push the song enough to make it highly rewarding. The main terms I would use to describe the sound of Unfair Harmonies are minimal to a fault, to the point where I have a difficult time engaging in the inventive lyricism of the album because the production is such a barrier to entry. But again, it's the themes and emotions of Unfair Harmonies that make it so worthwhile. She doesn't spare a single feeling of hers throughout, embracing messaging people on Grindr about their profile bios and trying to comprehend her ideas and desires through her neurodivergent lens that makes the lyricism of the album, which is admittedly obtuse at times, the most fun I had with the album. In Passion's Clutch describes her devoted, violent form of love that manifests in unique ways for her, while on Still Learning English she digs down to the most basic communicative forms we have with one another, examining how odd they feel to her at times. As someone who does not share a single one of these experiences, her descriptive songwriting is what kept me invested in Unfair Harmonies, even when I became absolutely bored of everything else surrounding it. With a little refinement and just as sharp a pen, I'm absolutely sure that Dani Lee Pearce has the depth and the adventurous nature to create something I'll love front to back. Nevertheless, Unfair Harmonies deserves all the praise you can give for how well she expresses her ideas, even if that's currently the only part of her work I've seemed to gravitate towards so far.

[danileepearce]

[oceanlandworld]

when i brush my teeth its evil when i yearn for you its evil when i trip on wooden stairs in woolen feet i laugh in evil

[dogeatspine]

peel off the layers to allow it to freeze looking at you down there scribbling pictures of the birth year on your knees take in the smudge of a desert and the grievance of the crisis cat look at it look at you and find first where the metal bones are hidden at

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

A Ninja, A DJ • The Short of It • Women of Many Shades • Dream Record 89 • A Cicada Dance • Every Legendary Blade • We Prowl On Furious Feet • Allowed To Forget • Still Untitled ��� Dream Record 812 • The Neon Ancient • Did The Conversations End • In Every Pussytown Cafe

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[forcefemd]

@molsno tagged me in this!! lock screen/last song listened to/last saved picture/last photo taken

ill tag @puppyknight @dani-lee-pearce @manyeyedgirl @catgirlforeskin and @hagfishgirlslime :3 have fun

[findmyhouse]

An interview with Dani Lee Pearce

In 1992, when Frank Zappa was described by Nicolas Slonimsky as “the pioneer of the future millennium of music” because of his ground-breaking work with the Synclavier, one of the world's earliest digital audio workstations, Zappa immediately disavowed that title, convinced as he was that this technology would never catch on and would eventually go lost. Today, 25 years later, this way of composing and producing music is utilized by countless talented artists across the world, armed with nothing but a computer. One of the most exciting underground musicians who uses the technology that Zappa once helped popularize is Dani Lee Pearce. Since she started releasing music under her current name in January 2015, she has completed six albums covering a wide variety of genres, and is currently working on a seventh album. Her original album trilogy, consisting of the instrumental albums Dani Lee Pearce, Dépayse and Kelvin, was released in the first half of 2015 and combined elements of chiptune, progressive rock and experimental music. From then on, she has released a number of vocal albums that draw more inspiration from pop and folk music, starting with Notes Of A Nervous Little Pixie in March 2016 and following it up with Petrichor, which was released exactly one year ago today. Her most recent album, Dandilionheart, was originally released in February of this year and was later remastered and re-released in July. As a fan of her work, I was honored to have a chance to speak with Dani about her oeuvre and her plans for the future. 

Let's start with a somewhat clichéd question: Which musical artists do you feel your latest three albums have been most influenced by? It's quite difficult to narrow it down to just individual artists in a lot of respects. Music itself, in all the nuances and idioms it contains, tends to influence my work in at least one way or another. A lot of times I suggest or hint towards things that people probably wouldn't expect. Individual artists are there in some places, but I actually find it a lot more fun to have people try to guess what my music could be influenced from. Whatever gets guessed for a particular song is usually correct.

Can I make a guess? Go ahead.

The continuous driving rhythm, slightly droney nature and stream-of-consciousness style vocals on the track "Dandilionheart" (or at least the first part of it) reminded me of Talking Heads. Am I far off? Nope. Pretty much if you say "this reminds me of this" I will go "Yes" every time. I listen to music all the time of all genres and all of it gets worked into my psyche and inevitably comes out into the music somehow when I'm writing it. I may subconsciously be working in things I don't intend at any given time during the process.

From 2016’s Notes Of A Nervous Little Pixie onward, all of your albums have contained vocals. Is making vocal music something you had wanted to do ever since you started releasing music under the Dani Lee Pearce moniker, or did this desire come later? Earlier than that, like, 2013 at least, back when I made music under the name Kansas City 7up. My earliest recorded attempt was a song I never finished called "The Midnight Seer" from 2014, but ultimately shyness and a lack of the right equipment prevented this from happening sooner. After Kelvin I made a solid pledge to myself that my next album would have me singing because it would add an important and essential element to my music, and any new music I made would be saved until I could get that to happen. That's part of why the gap of time between Kelvin and Nervous Little Pixie was as long as it was.

Which do you usually write first: a composition or lyrics? That depends on what I think of first, although generally these days the words come first, in a rough form, since I will usually come up with things I want to say but not yet in any particular order how I want to say them. The music then helps me to establish a metric and pattern for how I will fit my vocals into the song in a way that works, which will in turn help me to revise the song and add things to it to make it gel. I try to work on each element independently because I like the challenge of creating music that surprises me in regards to the words I'm writing it for. Some of the things I've been working on recently are like that. It very much helps to keep my music fresh and unique to me. By contrast, all of my current albums were mostly music first, words second. Some songs took years to write proper words to, like "Tell Me I'm Cute Again Cause I Forgot", which previously existed with 3 different sets of lyrics before I finally settled on the current set. It's a more difficult way of working now but I will occasionally still try making a song that way for fun, since it enables some great creativity.

I'd like to talk about your album Petrichor, which is approaching its first birthday at the time of this interview: When you created the album, did you set out to make a concept album from the start, or was it an idea that came into play while you were working on it? The album came in many embryonic forms when I was first developing it. At first it was going to be an album called The Many Lives of Maypole, and it was going to document the life of a young girl with queer parents and her friendship with a child who later comes out as trans who has much more angry conservative parents. I was going to write a book in addition to an album of music to go along with it, and while only one song ever came out of this incarnation, the idea of an album + accompanying book stayed, and I later wrote "🌙🌙🌙", which I haven't gotten to publishing yet, to go along with Petrichor, containing poetry that elaborated upon the concepts of that album.

After Maypole it was then called The Giving Of Violets, an album which would have been about a capitalism-induced apocalypse that forces society to start over on a much better path, this time fully embracing LGBT rights among other things, as people are now more free to explore their identities gender and sex wise. The title is derived from a lesbian custom in the 50s where women would give each other violets to declare their love for one another, which in the story would be readopted as a gesture of affection. A good chunk of what would eventually be the finished album was written during this time, with early versions of "From Young Unknowing Eyes" "I Hope It Doesn't Rain" "Silver Tree’s Mixtress", "Twig Parade" and "Lute-Bird Calls" being put down in a test sequence, along with "Down In Evergreene", which was already done, and what eventually became "Give You My Earth" on Dandilionheart.

Some time later I had an anxiety-induced epiphany and spent a period of time very withdrawn in a quiet space only listening to quiet music, and I thought of an idea for an album of "whispersongs", very quiet music with whispered spoken word of very simple poems accompanying it. The project would have been called Rest Easy Love, and that's where I came up with "This Tree". This was the beginning of me writing poetry for a period of time, which eventually led to the writing of "Over My Wall" and "The Hill of Mist" as well. The Giving of Violets was dropped since I felt I could make the concept stronger, and later an album called The Scarlet Sky With Anais was developed but never fully finished. The song that eventually became "Monsters and Rainclouds" was listed as the final song of an album that also contained songs that would later become "Periwinkle Death", "Tell Me I'm Cute Again Cause I Forgot" and "Burning Pearls". "Down in Evergreene" was listed again also.

The actual concept began to develop around this time when I met three very important people: The first was a musician named Izzy Unger Weiss who met me for the first time at a birthday picnic, and the first thing we ever did together was sit down and play guitar. They introduced me to more worldly sensibilities both in their music and aesthetic, which began in me a more forthright interest in what I like to call "personal occult", which is essentially like a redefining of monsters, demons, spirituality, magic, the construction of the universe, etc. all on one's own terms, either casually or otherwise. Izzy did that to an extent, at least I could sense it, I'm not entirely sure if she would say the same but that's largely what my brain tends to produce for answers regarding it. Izzy was also overall a big musical influence at the time and made me more interested in learning guitar and writing guitar-based music. I'd later design a couple of album covers for her own music and eventually we may even collaborate on something.

The second person I met was Never Angel North, an agender independent author who was and still is writing an anthology of fiction collectively titled Sea-Witch. At that time the first volume was written but not yet released. Never's writing is unlike anything that's really been written in regards to fiction or poetry, especially in a queer/trans context, as it constructs an entire world inside of a living, breathing, feeling sea monster and the inhabitants who worship a meteor to whom they pray "may she lay us waste". The writing is at once emotional, intimate, sexual, terrifying, harrowing, ecstatic, decadent and mordant, but in all respects is absolutely brilliant and it completely redefines ones view of the world, of life, of gender, of quite possibly everything. It was being introduced to Never's writing and Never hirself that I became more open to the idea of constructing a world of my own in a similar fashion.

The third person, Jade Eklund, I met through Never, and she showed me through her own art how I could make this possible. Here was someone who practically lived and breathed their art which largely revolved around spiders and a recurring central character known as the Spider Queen. You'd enter her room and the walls would be covered in drawings ranging from spiders to seeing eyes to otherworldly presences, and she had filled out several notebooks of things that she had written stream-of-consciousness, and continued to build upon her mythology by doing the same on Facebook. We traded notebooks the first couple times we saw each other to get to know each other a bit, and she would draw/write surreal things in my notebook that inevitably influenced Petrichor's content, specifically the character of YESSAND the Masquerader King. I began writing poetry and concepts stream-of-consciousness in my own right, making up my own mythology taking inspiration from all three of these people and making frequent references to them in the process as I did so. This carried over into the eventual songwriting of Petrichor, and the creation and completion of the remaining songs.

"Monsters and Rainclouds" was at one point a song written specifically for Never, referencing a lot of elements of hir writing, and snippets of things Jade wrote in my notebook, which contained unfinished lyrics for Petrichor's songs, found their way into "Masqueraders" and the background voices of "Lute-Bird Calls".

Well damn, I was planning to ask some more follow-up questions about the story, the role of Jade Eklund (whom you credited in the album's description on Bandcamp) and even the voice samples on "Lute-Bird Calls", but you've already answered everything I could ask about the album. I'll be sure to look into the works of the other artists you mentioned just now.

I’d like to talk about your latest album now: Dandilionheart. In contrast to Petrichor, which is an epic, prog-like concept album, Dandilionheart is a collection of avant-garde pop songs that seem to be only loosely connected thematically, much like Notes Of A Nervous Little Pixie. Was it a relief to be able to write self-contained songs again or is it actually easier for you to write music when you have an overarching concept to work within? Concepts are actually quite difficult because you become restrained within one world of thought, and if you want to make it work you can't stray too far from it. Petrichor is a satisfying work but it was stressful to have to write about one thing for 8 months. Some of Dandilionheart's songs I actually began writing in tandem with that album, just to give me another outlet for other ideas at the time. So I would say that yes, I actually have more fun with individual songs than anything else, and I will probably continue writing in that context. I'm someone whose mind always wanders to different places at different times, so it's important for me to have a variety of ideas going because it feels more free to me. In that respect Dandilionheart was quite nice to make.

There’s another difference I’ve noticed between the two albums: On Petrichor, the vocals are quiet and dreamlike throughout, whereas on Dandilionheart they have a more prominent and more powerful presence. Is this the result of a conscious decision or simply a natural consequence of you becoming more confident about using your voice and getting more familiar with the recording process, et cetera? I was very confident with my voice when it came around to Dandilionheart and in a lot of places I get really into the song and just let loose, try things with it that I hadn't tried before. "Let Me Remind You" is currently home to the highest note I've ever sung for example. In some ways it is conscious as well because I always try to make albums independent from each other, like making films without visuals. I largely let the music decide what my voice will do though, and the music was definitely a departure. The fact that I actually sing loud is another indicator, I had never really done that before this album.

Let’s go back once more to the 13-minute title track of Dandilionheart. As you can probably tell I'm intrigued by the process by which specific music gets developed, and if I’m correct, “Dandilionheart” (the song) is the longest track out of your latest musical trilogy. Did you set out to create a track of such length before writing it, or did it naturally evolve into what it ended up being? The project file name for the song is "something maybe", which indicates that when I started this I didn't even know if it was going to turn into anything substantial. I was largely at the time playing around with the sample from what became the end of "Galaxy Owl" just to see for fun if I could take it anywhere and the more I developed the piece the more it kind of took on a life of its own. Specifically the section right before the lyrics was when I got the first inkling that the song would become what it ended up becoming. I realized three minutes in that it sounded thematically linked to a composition I had written in 2013, so I ended up stringing that (the "let all the rain come down" section) together along with another composition I had written in Sept. 2016 (the "goddexx bless" section) on the basis that they all shared a similar drive and tempo. When I got them all together and listened to it back I was dumbfounded at how perfect all the pieces sounded together, and then I had my song. I knew it was special and I knew I had to make it the title track from then on, and the lyrics were later written to fit the best I could with the sound.

Do most of your songs come into existence through something along the lines of what you just described? Sometimes, yes. "Masqueraders" happened the same way only with one additional section. I don't think I've quite written anything else in exactly this way, but I do still find uses for old unused compositions I have lying around.

What is the biggest challenge you encounter when composing music? I don't really face any incredibly big challenges in the composing bit itself except for sometimes finding uses for a composition, because sometimes I will write something but not have any particular idea what to do with it yet. I think my biggest challenges actually come in producing/mixing a track properly, which I am always very persnickety about.

I think also, at least today, it's trying to figure out how I want to do a song that I have lyrics written for. The number of approaches I could take is very broad and it's hard to find a direction that I think fits my words the best. I'm dealing with that situation presently for one song.

I think you've told me in 2015 that your first three albums were made primarily using FL Studio. Do you still use this or have you switched to a different workstation in the mean time? Dani Lee Pearce was actually also partially made with Ableton Pro when I was in college ("You For You Four Ich", "Every Clock Is 3 Minutes Behind"), and with a Casio Keyboard ("Animated Tattoo"). Otherwise yes, FL Studio is still my weapon of choice. At this point I visualize my songs as project files within that DAW and can make an instrumental up in under an hour at times. I don't anticipate that I'll change from it at any time soon since I'm so familiar with it and can work with it so efficiently.

Like you said, in your original album trilogy from 2015, there were a few tracks that were played on a keyboard, and “Moth Girl” was originally recorded on acoustic guitar but was later rerecorded using a DAW when you reissued your latest album. Do you still use any physical instruments in your recordings, and/or do you plan on using physical instruments in the future? Of my yet-to-be-released work I have one song that does in fact have me playing guitar, and another song in which I have had someone record guitar for me. One of my girlfriends is also going to be contributing guitar to my music eventually, and at some point I plan to record myself playing clarinet for some songs, as that is the one instrument I have proficiency at.

Is there anything else you’re willing to disclose about what we can expect from you in the future? More surprises. And more ways to convey them.

I can’t wait.

I’m nearing the end of my question list now. Can you recommend to anyone who reads this interview two artists who deserve far more attention than they’re getting right now? Rumor Milk is a very good musician friend of mine from Canada who gets very little attention for her work but she has a voice that has made me well up in tears multiple times. She is very talented and it would mean the world to her if more folks would check out and support her music. Chase Milo Reid is one of the first trans musicians I ever met when I came to Portland homeless and I've watched him perform live and develop as a talent in amazing ways. He's another who I think is worth people's attention and he would also very much appreciate additional support.

Finally, if you’ll allow me to ask one more clichéd question: what advice would you give to other aspiring musicians? Don't listen to advice intended for aspiring musicians given by musicians who are no longer aspiring. Let your soul do the talking. Let it dig into itself and find what makes it you, and turn that into art. Allow yourself to be raw and wild. Change it however you wish. Don't change it at all. However you do it, just make something, anything. And most importantly, make a fucking shitload of it.

Thanks immensely for your time; I've thoroughly enjoyed this interview. I'll be sure to check out all the artists you brought up and I'll be sure to use the word "persnickety" as much as possible now that I've been introduced to it. I've very much enjoyed doing this! Thank you very much for your interest in me, it helps me to remember that I'm doing something that reaches people.

_____

Dani’s music can be found here and here. You can read my review of Petrichor here.