Dan Warren

Okay it's been way too damn long since I've uploaded anything so here's this. It's just an instrumental demo for a new take on an old song of mine.

Yet another ambient-ish track, but this one morphs into more of an actual song as it goes on.

Another drone track, this one just built with an acoustic guitar and a buttload of effects.

This is just me learning how to use the automation in Arturia Pigments, and throwing out some massive brraaaaaams in the process. This whole track is one chord, and the rest of it is just delays, reverbs, and distortions with a bunch of interacting automation.

Okay this is a demo of a short (or half finished, depending) track that sort of straddles the line between depressing metaphor and "oh maybe there are actual zombies in this song", which is a pretty funny concept to me. Very rough recording, just using my ipad mic in the kitchen the other morning. Lyrics: Some people die with their eyes open And just keep walking around They learn to smile with their heart broken And to cry without making sound Have to look twice to see that they're drowning in it Oh I Sometimes Wish that that was me Oh to be doe-eyed Bovine Waiting patiently No more suffering Only shuffling 'round Aimlessly Leave the living to the living and be free

This is an old demo for a song from about 2010 that I just never got around to polishing up. Lyrics I only wanna be on your good side But I give too much away Trying to make things right in all the wrong ways I only wanna be on the inside wherever you are Stand and press my face against the bars I am an awkward silence Waiting to be broken on your tongue I'm a contented sigh that's still to come I only wanna be right by your side Wherever you may go Anywhere you are is home I don't understand What else could you need? Anything you want from me, I want to be

This is just a super-rough demo recorded on my phone, for a song currently (but not necessarily permanently) called "You'll Know". Mostly I recorded this so I wouldn't forget the lyrics I've come up with, but I also think the song is going in a really good direction so I wanted to share it. Lyrics (as of today): When the time has come for you, you'll know While we wonder what to do, you'll know When the air grows thin, and Vacuum burns your skin, and Somehow you begin to glow You'll know There's a thing behind your eyes, I know, that Nothing ever satisfies, and so In the end, defying Your own fear of flying And the terrifying odds, You'll go I know Clearly you're meant for another age One more deserving of you Bent on transcending the everyday Bound to become something new That's you Well if it doesn't quite work out for you At least we'll know beyond a doubt that you Chose your own disaster Despite their howls of laughter And they'll name the crater after you When you go You know

And so we hold tight to a lone mote of dust in the infinite night straining ourselves just to cling to the surface our singular purpose to stay side by side and what does it mean that they could have used fear or almost anything but love is lever they've chosen to move us to shape and improve us to keep our lives evergreen? Does that make us survival machines connected like mother and child each needing the other to thrive it's all or it's none that survive

I can't describe What I see in this light With my eyes wide open Almost divine So real and so right So loud, unspoken Falls on me Soft Like a frosty morning And blurs the outline It's too close to be seen Like the act of blinking Hard to define It's just a thing that you are Without even thinking You'll always be What I need Be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love But you make it easy If you can't get by On your own any more Any more than I can Look to your side Because you know that I'm there And you know that you can Call on me I'll be what you need Be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love But you make it easy

Maybe we never made it home Maybe we swerved across the center line You know that bridge we crossed that seemed to just go on forever? Maybe that’s what death was like But then if you and I are ghosts We get to spend the afterlife Two drunken poltergeists that haunt this old decaying empire Dancing every night And we’ll be saved like flies in amber Perfect and pristine Dancing through each coming winter Dead but evergreen Dead but evergreen The way we think will never change We’ll never lose the appetite The years to come won’t find us turning into other people Wouldn’t that be nice? And we’ll be saved like flies in amber Perfect and pristine Dancing through each coming winter Dead but evergreen Dead but evergreen And when the earth is swallowed by its aging sun We’ll still float in space unseen Forever dancing Never changing Evergreen

I know your face From some other place But this can’t be real, just can’t be real Too clean, too bright To be quite right This can’t be real, this can’t be real I know, oh I know But then I see you now, a perfect point of light So small and yet so bright Reaching out to comfort me Wake up superman Do what love demands Seize eternity I sense you there In empty air But this can’t be real, just can’t be real Too perfectly What ought to be This can’t be real, just can’t be real I know, oh I know But still I see you now, standing in the light And everything’s all right Holding out your hand to me Stand up superman Love holds out its hand Seize eternity I’m on your side Take my hand Seize eternity I’m on your side Don’t let go Seize eternity

Brittle fragment of a memory Still and silent over centuries Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, and never never go again Do not forsake me Love, do not forsake me Awaken to me Take a breath now Hesitation is the enemy Every instant is a victory Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, I swear it I swear it can be Everything you wanted Everything forever Forever's not so long Forever's not so long

Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? When the time has come to pick a side, will you simply refuse and say there's nothing you can do, when you know that it's not true? You defined yourself with things that you consume With your wine, your wealth, your car and your perfume So when someone bought the same things and that person became you there was nothing you could do, from that moment you just had this feeling as though something quite significant was lost but you can't quite define what it was And now you rise and fall like an empire every day as you build your walls just to watch them all decay Maybe nothing much is gained by it, but somehow that's okay all that anyone can say is that it had to be that way when any meaning you might find would be subjective anyway And hey, you did your best to keep the darkness away

Oh you temporary thing departing since the moment you arrived you know you can't survive this on your own you solitary thing now reaching out in hopes that you will find that another of your kind is reaching too Some signal in the static peeking through; there's something out there looking out for you and hey, you know it might be true You ordinary thing, less different than you want to believe yet terrified to leave your gun at home, you sedentary thing now dying only inches from your birth the master of the earth for all you knew You looked around and found nothing to do but never thought to blame your point of view and say, "you know this can't be true" "There must be more than this a message that we missed I just know somehow this can't be all, this can't be all" Oh no, you broken nameless thing cast up in ragged pieces on the shore hoping that there's more than just the one last quick and painless thing; that life was just a shadow on a wall and now you'll turn around and all will be revealed The colo

Who are you now, when all your fear is stripped away? Who are you now? What do you remember from the day? What did you surrender to get away? Hey, are you all right? Are you going to be all right? You seem to have forgotten how to breathe, or lost the urge for quite a while.

It’s quiet out here Look for the sun, I can’t find it out here And all that dumb shit that they told us about our manifest destiny Is gone and forgotten now And sure, our goals are pure What good does that do out here? I’m not sure And looking back now at that comic book future we used to believe in So foolish in hindsight, I see We’re only survival machines Connected like mother and child Each needing the other to thrive It’s all or it’s none that survive Gone in the night, all sense of purpose A thin veil of lies that just lay on the surface And I long to unload this cargo of corpses And own my own life

I feel like I'm finally nearing the end of production on my album Evergreen; everything is recorded, and now it's just a question of final mixing and mastering. Here's a more or less final version of the song that started it all, Sail or Anchor. Fun fact: much of the percussion is recordings of Ann Druyan's brain waves from the Voyager golden record, combined with tiny (< 1 second) snippets of ASMR videos ripped from Youtube. Lyrics: I can't describe what I see in this light with my eyes wide open Almost divine so real and so right so loud unspoken And it falls on me soft like a frosty morning Blurs the outline it's too close to be seen like the act of blinking Hard to define It's just a thing that you are Without even thinking And you'll always be what I need, be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love, but you make it easy If you can't get by on your own anymore then you know that you can Look to your side and you'll know that I'm there and you know that you can Call on me to be w

This is a very rough demo of a song I've been working on. I recorded it on my iPhone, playing the piano that I learned on as a child. It's in bad repair these days and sounds like it, but it has a special place in my heart. The song is about the aftermath of an alien abduction where a couple have had something installed in them that will record their thoughts and memories, and that in some strange way connects them to each other. They weren't supposed to be aware of it, but at least one of them is. Lyrics: When the stars came closer We were all at first afraid But when the night was over We only wished that they had stayed Tell me, have I grown transparent? Can everybody see right through my skin? And are my bones apparent? Does everybody know where I have been? They've taken something from me And left a vacuum in its place A mouth that's always hungry An absence nothing can replace It's something that we owe each other A fire that burns eternal, bright It's a part of us that lives forever Far from thes

This is not really meant to be a track per se, just demonstrating a proof of concept. This is essentially taking the idea behind Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" and faking it by chaining the same reverb over and over again instead of repeated recordings in a real space. Then I'm basically turning those reverbs on and off rhythmically while running a drum loop through them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk&ab_channel=TrilobiteJuice

Okay this is a sad one. I wrote this song about four years ago when I was approaching the end of a postdoc fellowship and didn't yet have another job lined up, and was contemplating what to do if I wasn't able to continue my academic career. At the same time I was talking to my family back home about how my brother's health was failing, and the abysmal quality of care he was receiving because he had the misfortune of being poor in America's healthcare system. I wrote this song in maybe thirty minutes and recorded it in the voice memos on my iPad so that I'd remember it. It's not precisely about his situation or mine, but it's not NOT about that either. For some reason the other day this song came back into my head, and I thought about rerecording it. When I went back to the iPad recording from four years ago, though, I found that I really liked it despite how noisy and rough it was - there was something about getting it down when all of those feelings were fresh that I really liked. So in the end I jus