‘Some Kind of Normal’ is not just an LP, but rather, a metaphor: direct but raw, pulling and honest….It’s time to meet Dan From Downington.
“My name is DAN FROM DOWNINGTOWN, and I am an alternative artist from Chester County PA. I’ve been releasing music under this alias for the past year and a half, and as of now I have released my debut album, “Some Kind Of Normal.”
Dan from Downington’s Some Kind of Normal was first released on the 16th of this month. Previously, we had the chance to dive deep into his single by the same name. Now, the liberating, genre-defying tune has blossomed into a full-on concept album. But getting here wasn’t easy. According to the artist:
“Writing the music for this release was an emotional hell, but the recording process was more satisfying than you can imagine.
Now, what better way to begin an album than with “Chapter 1”?
…A door opens, someone walks away, sighs, then gets on the computer. The sound of a heartbeat enters and intensifies. The violins come in and panned slightly to the right, creating an even more pensive feel. The heartbeat goes away… Someone whispers in the background Deep low bassy sounds swell, and the white noise consumes us until….It swells and stops suddenly.
Next “Why Can’t I Let You G” comes in, a bassline at the forefront of the eerie piece.
There’s a certain syrupy slowness about this track…A melancholic acceptance amidst the glitched-out drums and mellow Midwest emo guitar. When the line “In the echoes of your laughter, in the void that’s left behind,” the tune takes on a poetic feeling, creating a sense of longing and loneliness (which stays with us until the album’s ending chord).
Dan’s inflamed emotions come through in his fervent, affecting vocals, which leap from smooth baritone to a trebly head voice.
“Leave Me By Myself” takes the energy back down a notch with a vibraphone-ish synthesizer.
In the music video, a shaking camera pans around a forest floor, highly exposed, disorienting…Then something unexpected happens. The guitars and drums kick in and it crescendoes into the ending chord, unresolved.
“Corium” continues this dark feel with its broad, synthy bed-of-sound intro. In the consequent video, he seems to be waking up from a fuzzy dream, trying to navigate a garage…As if hit by a tranquilizer the edges of the video. Then “I Know Nobody Loves You” is when the devil on your shoulder talks. At the halfway point of this one we feel a visual and sonic shift. The video becomes comic-ish, and drums enter. The pain turned a different color, more vivid angsty red. This track focuses on the 2 chord/ the note ‘Re”, perpetuating unease.
We come back to psychedelia for “Make Sure I’m Not Dead” which depicts two friends exchanging some suspicious pills. This dissociative track segways into the penultimate kaleidoscope of an electronica song- Aka “Drifting Away”.
Finally, the album closes with somber “Tomorrow Never Comes”. The embers of lost love, and longing culminates into the closing thought.
In the end, Some Kind of Normal leaves us with a melodic wisened voice of someone who has live a lot of life.
“My debut album “Some Kind Of Normal” (Spelled “Some KiNd oF nOrmal” for streaming services), is a conglomeration of all of the singles that I released in the past year, as well as a few other songs to tie it all together. While I don’t want to give away too much regarding the concept of the whole album, it seems to be thematically darker, than the songs on my previous EP. Instrumentally, there is a common orchestral theme throughout the album, however, each song features a unique combination of guitar, bass, 808’s, electronic and live percussion, synthesizers, and vocals. In general, I feel like I have started to finally develop my sound with this one.”
Dan From Downington
Check out our other features with Dan From Downington HERE.
Q&A
Why the blood on the cover and the faces crossed out in the art?
The concept of the album has a lot to do with things that happened to me at a young age. Aside from relating to my image as an artist, the crossed out faces also act as a way to strip the emotions, and some humanity away from the characters on the front of the album. The blood, being smeared onto the focal point’s shirt is meant to represent a desire to “fit in,” even if “fitting in” results in personal harm. It’s a bit of an extreme metaphor, but I think for a lot of people it’s all too relatable.
Is there a reason for the unexpected capitalization of the album’s title?
I think the album as a whole is very unsettling. So I wanted to express that in the font. I think it looks kind of neat.
By Corium (the title of the 5th song in the album) do you mean the Latin word for leather/skin, OR a nuclear reactor?
I was going for the “reactor meltdown thing.” That point in the album is where everything sort of comes crashing down in a very unstable and uncontrollable manner. I didn’t realize that Corium was a type of leather, but given the lyrics of the song, I think that’s kind of a happy accident… Well… maybe happy isn’t the right word, haha.
How did you come up with the chord progression for “Make Sure I’m Not Dead”? It’s. noir and impactful.
Thank you, that means more to me than you know. When I write music, I usually think of the melody/chorus first. It usually happens when I’m drinking heavily….. But once I come up with a melody, I wait a few days to see if it still grabs me in the first couple of seconds of hearing it. If it does, I start hammering out different chords on the piano or guitar until I find something that sounds good. That’s been the same for every song I’ve written so far.
How does it feel to finally have a full-length album out? What was the recording process like?
The process was long, and emotional. But I’m happy with the results. I alway think that there are ways to improve future songs, or things that I could have done differently. But when you record a song, you are recording a moment in time. And given the nature of the album, I think I found that moment.
What made you inspired to choose this orchestral theme, the thread that holds Some Kind of Normal together?
It was just what I was feeling at the time. I think the strings are a very beautiful and almost innocent sounding family of instruments. To me, it was the perfect way to sort of tie in the theme of the album, while still providing a very dark tone.