Author: Dan Steven Erickson

Transition

This summer will be one of transition. I’m starting the process of relocating back to Maine. Details are not fully in place, but the goal is to be living in Maine full time by September, October at the latest.

I’ll be spending a good chunk of the summer in Maine working on my condominium. But I also need to deal with selling large items, packing, and moving out of an apartment in Tennessee.

Why post this here? Because it’s a transition that will temporarily slow down my creative output. Songwriting will be on hold. Book and poetry writing is on hold. I’ll continue to post a couple of times a week on the YouTube Channel, but no promises.

Once I’m resettled in Maine, I’ll create a dedicated studio space for audio and video recording and to begin to make subtle changes to my channel.  Two things I’ll work on during this transition is the True Sounds of Nashville ambient music project, and I’ll keep updating my new site G L I T C . S H. – dse

True Sounds

I’m currently in the brainstorming phase of a new experimental music project, The True Sounds of Nashville. The concept is simple.

We all know Nashville as the Country Music capital of the world. But I live here and what I see and hear is not country music. I hear the engines of cars and trucks on overcrowded freeways and streets. I hear sirens. I hear the hum of AC units cooling large buildings. I hear factories, construction, and the chaos of multiple bands playing cover music up and down Broadway. I hear birds, rain, and thunder.

In the coming weeks and months, I’m going to start sampling the sounds I hear in and around Nashville. I’ll then manipulate those sounds and mix them with my own experimental ambient synths and pads.

I’m not yet sure if this will be an Anderhill project, or a darker, heavier sound more suited to A Cult of Lies. In either case, I’ll keep you updated on the project and a potential release date. – dse

Preorder Cult Boy, the Novella

Cult Boy is now available to preorder as an eBook at Amazon with a release date of June 9.

Imagine being the victim of an extreme religious cult as a young boy. Dan Steven Erickson has written a raw and gut-wrenching novella about his own experience working as a slave for Ted Rinaldo, leader of “The Group” at Eden Farms in 1970’s Snohomish, Washington.

As 27-year-old Andy Burden, Dan Steven Erickson tells the story of extreme work, living conditions, and punishment in the cult, and how his actions helped to bring the cult to an end. The aftermath of his childhood experience left him traumatized and he struggles with paranoia and substance abuse as a young man. As a means of healing, he takes a train across the United States where he meets a cast of marginalized characters that help him more than any religious organization ever could. He discovers and struggles with the power of forgiveness tempered with the reality of his personal trauma. He writes the story while on his journey and then leaves it behind only to rediscover it.

At just under 30,000 words, this is fast-paced read that can be completed in a single session. – dse

Preorder Today

Old iPhone Song Recordings from 2016

This batch of songs was different than much of my songwriting. The songs were a little more experimental, not always following the traditional verse/chorus/bridge format. I believe I was inspired by Bill Callahan at the time.

I’m going to post some shitty-looking videos to my YouTube Channel. Why? Because I don’t care how they look. The entire objective of the channel is to catalog old work. In 2016, I made some iPhone recordings of a batch of ten songs I’d written 7 or 8 years earlier.

When I recorded the songs, the room was dark or I pointed the camera without caring about angles and got the ceiling light. The audio is okay, basic iPhone audio for 2016. Just as I’m cataloging old cassette recordings using Big Yellow, I decided since these are already recorded, so why not?

Remember, the point of the channel is (for now) not to post high-quality videos, but rather to catalog a portion of my more than 1500 songs. Here’s the first song from the collection. – dse

Side Two

A little over a month ago I released an Anderhill EP titled Coalescence. Today, I’m releasing Side Two, a second EP with the same basic vibe, a combination of ambient synths and minimalist drone-based beats.

It’s been fun to program some drums and I’ll likely do more of that up the road. But my next experimental electronic project will likely move away from drums and focus more on live sampling, something I haven’t done in a while. There is a lot of industrial, road, and city noise in my current location and I’m going to take my iPad with me on a walk to capture some of those sounds.

In the meantime enjoy this one. – dse