Bomb In My Car

My Life In Music

Posted 17/05/2026

If there's one thing I love in life more than anything, it's probably music. Since I have this blog setup now, I figured I might as well share my love with the world. Music was probably my first love and the thing that's been the biggest constant in my life from a very young age. On my dad's side, I come from a long line of musicians going back to, like... my great grandfather. I was raised around live music, and I have always appreciated its ability to bring people together for a shared experience.

When I was a kid, I had some distant cousins who were in an indie rock band, and I always thought they were the coolest people ever. I don't know why I never really picked up an instrument until high school, but I'm glad I got there eventually. A lot of the music I heard growing up was country and folk, and while I understand people's reservations surrounding those genres, I continue to enjoy a lot of country and country-adjacent music as I've matured.

My dad raised me on a steady diet of '90s and '00s hip-hop like Outkast and the Beastie Boys on the way to preschool every day. I didn't know what anything meant, of course, but I liked the way it made me feel. If that's not what music's about, what is? My childhood mix CDs my dad made me were mostly rock from bands like the Beatles and Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, so I was always surrounded by and interested in a variety of genres and styles.

Getting a little older, I had always enjoyed the old Christmas tunes and mid-century classics growing up, and in about 5th grade, I discovered the Fallout games series. I'm pretty sure there are a million adults now whose first exposure to that kind of music came from those two sources, and I'm one of them. I mostly didn't listen to that music often, or at least never expanded outside the games' soundtracks until 8th grade. Once I did, I appreciated the depth and range of emotions and styles that "older music" or simply "jazz," as I called most of it, could convey.

I continued this sort of obsession through early high school, before broadening back to my eclectic roots and discovering new styles to fall in love with. Rewinding a bit, the COVID pandemic in 2020 created an opportunity for me to really do whatever I wanted. I was still in high school, and online school was both way easier and way less strict than in-person school was. Because of that, I ended up staying home almost all day every day just listening to music and playing games. It was at this point I really started to broaden my fascination with old music.

This was an incredibly important part of my life, and a lot of the music I listened to at the time is still in occasional rotation. As previously mentioned, I eventually grew out of this phase a bit, but a lot of it had already entered my brain's permanent catalog, only to be touched if I get nostalgic or end up needing to discuss some random artist's 1934 discography. What I didn't grow out of was the stuff I felt more socially acceptable to enjoy. Listening to a lot of jazz in high school is one thing, but what kind of weird kid listens to '30s gospel and barely-intelligible country blues on the regular? Despite not really listening to most of it now, I definitely find myself returning a few times a year to listen to some of it. Despite being sort of strange to modern sensibilities, a lot of it is really fantastic music.

Although I was previously exposed and had listened to it on occasion, I neer really "got" more alternative genres like indie, punk, and especially things like hardcore. Late high school, around my junior or senior year was when that started to change. For some reason, I have a very vivid memory from a few years prior at home with my dad during the pandemic. I remember discussing Radiohead, and how a lot of people say OK Computer is one of the greatest albums of all time. I remember saying "I get why people like it, but it's not my thing." Fast forward less than three years, and it was certainly my thing. I got heavily into a range of alternative genres, got involved in my local scene, and started listening to a million virtually-unknown acts from here and beyond. This was also when I rediscovered the music of those cousins I mentioned earlier, who I did a pretty deep dive on and started listing to regularly. I joined a couple bands in this time, one shitty pop-punk band and one midwest-emo-esque band, although I only played a couple shows with each.

In high school, I got much more into rap than before. On a family road trip in 2021, I started really listening to Kendrick Lamar, whose albums I would listen to in full basically weekly. I listened to quite a bit of old-school hip-hop stuff from the '90s before, but I was a big "modern rap is all mumbling" oldhead. Fortunately for me, I realized a couple years later that a lot of those attitudes I held were at least partially grounded in racism, and along with my political growth, I also began to appreciate art as something more sacred. I let go of most of my negative views of different genres, which also allowed me to get really into hardcore, screamo, and metal when I got to college.

A lot of the music through the past couple years up to now is pretty similar to what I've already described, but I've also gotten back into electronic music recently, especially the more experimental side of things. One of the things I continued to hold out on was hyperpop and some related genres, but that wall too was broken down in the past couple years, and I bump them regularly. I feel art as a sacred and truly beautiful force in my life now more than ever, no doubt aided in part by my growing interests in philosophy and psychonautics.

At this point, I've pretty much exhaustively described my life journey through the music I've enjoyed along the way. Truly, I believe that music is one of the most important things we have in the world. Every culture has some form of music, often tied to ritual and spirituality. Although I'm not a spiritual person, the closest I get is creating, sharing, or otherwise experiencing music with people around me. If you've made it to this point, I'd be willing to bet you feel music in the same way I do. If not, I hope you can take a step back and appreciate music, not as a commodity, but as a powerful force for sharing our collective pains and joys.

"The world's spinning madly, it drifts in the dark
Swings through a hollow of haze
A race around the stars
A journey through the universe ablaze
With changes"

- Phil Ochs

Song of The Day: Phil Ochs - Changes

An Interview w/ Forest Spirit, Sun On Your Back

Posted 15/05/2026

Q: First of all, why don't you introduce yourself! Name, instrument, where you're from, how you got into music, etc. Whatever you want people to know!

hellohello ! you can call me forespi. i play piano drums guitar pretty well; other instruments worse. i live in new england. many years ago i found a bronze amulet in the heart of a gnarled oak which gave me music powers

Q: When did you first start recording music? Was it ever released? Was it Forest Spirit from the beginning?

i first started seriously writing and recording music in high school. many of the songs that end up on forespi albums are that old, at least in part. “summershakes” was actually one of my earliest recordings, though i redid the vocals and drums. before that i made a lot of chiptune music and mashups which i didn’t really release anywhere

Q: Something that really interests me is the intersection between personal history, our surroundings, and music. I think a lot of artists are inspired in their music by their current location or where they grew up — would you say you're the same?

absolutely !! i grew up in the middle of the woods and i still live in the middle of the woods. i am a big fan of traipsing around and sitting on boulders and the like. when i am lonely the forest spirit is good company

Q: Thinking about chicago song, it seems like it’s written from personal experience. I’m wondering if there are any other examples. How have experiences in your life shaped your music? How much of it is autobiographical?

hmm i would say very little of what i sing is literally from experience. i do like writing characters and scenes as sort of oblique allegories for my experiences or fantasies — the chicago song (for example) was very much born out of the eternal day-dream of faking one’s death and moving somewhere new. but the autobiography is certainly in the sound and the sentiments, whatever of that comes through !

Q: How do you think your sound presents your personality and biography? Is it just a feel thing, or do you think there’s something else?

certainly in the feel and influences, certainly in the way i put together words, i think. really in every part of it my goal is to vomit aspects of myself out onto tape — everything that’s there is what there is

Q: As a trans woman, I felt very emotionally impacted by some of the lyrics on winnowing. How does your gender identity influence your art (if at all)?

<3 every song i have ever written includes at least some anxious twinge of transsexuality

Q: What is it specifically about being transgender that you think makes it a good artistic subject?

i can’t speak for other artists, but for me it has been the locus of so much intense emotion + the confluence point of so many potent sociocultural anxieties that it would be silly not to write songs about it

Q: Your music sounds like nothing else I’ve ever heard. It’s somewhere in the post-emo, indie-rock, noise-pop area, but is so fluid and inventive that it defies strict description. How did you find your sound, and how would you describe it?

oh gosh thank you !! i think i am still finding it. obviously different cocktails of influences between the s/t and winnowing. but i think a lot about chord progressions and pacing and i want everything to have some bittersweetness or slippery unquitegraspability. chalk my “sound” up to all the music i like coming through in my writing and production i spose; see below for my influences

Q: Your music – especially on winnowing – contains an eclectic mix of instruments, from the standard rock instrumentation to autoharp, zither, saxophone, banjo, and violin. How many of these do you play yourself? Where did you learn to play those? (If applicable) Where do you even find someone who plays a zither?

the only one of these instruments i can lay claim to having played on my own songs is the banjo, but i am lucky enough to know many lovely musicians !! what you hear on “not your cat” is not just any zither, but a sort of prepared zither called the lunch poems instrument, created and played by my talented friend ketsy nammals, who plays a million instruments. and who i found on the internet

Q: Your lyrics are often cryptic and hard to understand, but convey very complex and vivid imagery, themes, and emotions. Do your albums have any sort of overarching themes or concepts, or are there just things you like to write about? What does the songwriting process look like when you’re making a new album?

thank you! recurring things and themes i like to write: death and ghosts, quasi-historical vignettes, loneliness, birds, transportation and transportation accidents, unsympathetic perspectives, the weather, the natural world, the ancient world. songwriting process involves self-archaeology of voice memo idea kernels, months for fermentation, fortuitous connections between pre-existing fragments. writing + recording/production are simultaneous and informed by each other

Q: What are your biggest musical influences? Have they changed over time? Are there any surprising genres or artists that inspire you that people might not expect listening to your music?

my biggest influences definitely change over time.. for s/t it was weatherday; for winnowing it was maybe wilco? under those is a core of like pavement and mid-air thief, jazz, folk, 60s pop, 70s mpb, 90s music trying to sound like the 60s, other 90s–2000s electronica/hip-hop. right now i’m listening to sonatine by telstar drugs a lot; it’s like the halfway point between women and stereolab. really nice

Q: Do you/have you played shows live in your area? If not, do you have any plans to do that eventually? If you have, do you plan to continue that?

i have not played any shows yet, but i would love to do so !! i think i would just sing and play guitar; i’ve been preparing backing tracks to go along

Q: In your Spotify bio, you describe your music as “for long drives, short walks, and medium-length mass transit trips.” I can attest to the music’s power in all three settings, but when I listen, I think back to the first time I listened in one sitting, driving through the dense forests of Tennessee. I think to me it sounds like “sitting alone in a tall pine forest and staring up through the trees at the vast heavens above” music. In what settings do you think your music is at its most powerful? If you had to describe visually your ideal listening experience, what would it be?

gosh that’s a good question ! i really like the scene you suggest :-) i also like to feel the power of music while cleaning my room, cooking, and bleeding out in a snowdrift

Q: What do you think makes your music so well suited to the understated beautiful moments of life?

i think all music is !!!! music is there to keep us company. so i am trying to write music that will be a good friend

Q (on behalf of my friend Quinn): What’s your most useless talent?

i can tell how old a book is by smelling it

Q: How does this thing work?

clearly power is first supplied to the main flywheel (center left), which creates enough friction within the chamber of the machine to boil a tank of water, producing steam which continuously blows the annoying whistle (top center) to let you know it’s functioning properly. the series of springs and levers (right) carefully calibrates the angle and speed at which the steam rises so that it travels through the ceiling-pipe and into the air, eventually recondensing into water and causing extreme flooding outside (as seen through the window) which is then collected to refill the main tank for steam

Q: To ‘play us out,’ I figured I’d ask the most open-ended few questions possible, and let you decide how you want people to see you through this interview. With that being said, what's important to you? What interests you? What inspires you to keep creating?

ooh !! very open-ended.. i am very passionate about languages and history and that sort of thing. people, commonalities, trying. lists. right now i am inspired especially by the homeric concept of poikilia, intricate, busy, variegated art though with an overarching structure, disarming and dazzling. often used to describe beautifully woven fabrics. i think i want to channel a lo-fi poikilia in coming work, maybe drawing more from sample-based psychedelia of the 90s and 2000s… what’s more poikilos than since i left you? i’m messing around lately. expect future work to have stylistic commonalities with both winnowing and the s/t

"Do right and live long and listen to sad songs
'Cause your hearing's the first thing to go"

- Adam Carroll

Song of The Day: Adam Carroll - Stranger's Advice

Welcome To My Site!

Posted 15/05/2026

Thank you for visiting my little corner of the internet! My name is Clem, and I'm the admin of this site. I'm 20 years old and currently in school studying Sociology. I work in tech because I love computers and I enjoy pressing their buttons.

Apart from what I do for school and work, I spend most of my time either playing video games, making music, or watching baseball (go M's). I write quite a lot, but mostly for school. I'm planning on making this site somewhere I can put all the random things I want to write about outside academia.

I don't have any music out quite yet that I wish to share (only some old stuff on YouTube), but I'm planning on recording and releasing some demos sometime soon. I'll probably add some random little demo clips or musical ideas to this site whenever I feel like it!

More than anything, I'm appreciative of anyone who takes the time to read my ramblings. Thank you so much for checking out this site, and I hope you return soon!

"Here's to love, a thing divine;
Description doth but make it less.
'Tis what we feel, but can't define,
'Tis what we know, but can't express.

May neither time nor tide make us unfaithful, even if they make us unfortunate."

Song of The Day: eeyora - qnorqk