“Disappearing World” by Fair (Updated Repost), Monday, August 7, 2023

In the story of Tooth & Nail Records, which became the definitive Christian Rock label in the early ‘00s, Aaron Sprinkle became the main producer for record after record for the label. Sprinkle is not only responsible for producing records, but he also stylized bands and artists who would have otherwise been nothing alike. So, when he wasn’t busy launching successful bands into the scene, what was he doing in his free time? Sprinkle recorded a number of solo records and two with his band, Fair. Sprinkle’s solo efforts were never as successful as the bands he recorded, and life in the studio took a toll on the musical genius. 

WHERE IS IT THAT YOUR PEACE COMES FROM? "Disappearing World" was the only hit from this 2010 album named after the title track. Whenever Fair--three of Sprinkle's friends from his previous band, Poor Old Lu--put out a project, it was a limited release. One single to Christian radio, a video, and a couple of local shows. And then it's back to the studio for Sprinkle. On Season 1 of Labeled (now behind a paywall), Sprinkle talked about how destructive the studio life was for him. He worked around the clock on Tooth & Nail albums. This was the time when Tooth & Nail was signing everyone and sending slightly more than half of the bands to record an album with Aaron. This led to alcohol addiction and burnout. What's more, is that the crash of the music industry forced Sprinkle to work on smaller budgets and reduce the size of his team. He had to make the same great record on a fraction of the budget. Sprinkle broke with Tooth & Nail and retreated to Nashville to pursue other areas in the music industry, producing only records he chose to produce--Anberlin, Acceptance, New Found Glory, and Story of the Year, are just a few of his passion projects. As for his own music, he turned to composition. His instrumental series inspired by the Northeast Coast is quite nice. 

I FOUND IT IN A DISAPPEARING WORLD. Every year the earth seems to spin a little faster. I think about Brandon Ebel and Aaron Sprinkle and all who saw the rise and fall of the music industry. They recorded on cassettes and then CDs. There they promoted bands at big festivals and tours and sold tons of merch. Then everything went online to streaming and customers stopped buying music. The 2010s were tough on the music industry as streaming took over, and eventually most releases became available on Spotify and Apple Music. In the meantime, the bands had broken up long ago and members got other jobs. But during the pandemic, many long-forgotten bands got a resurgence, thanks to The Labeled Podcast, online communities, and Chad Johnson, former Tooth & Nail former A&R guy and organizer of a legendary festival in Birmingham, Alabama called Furnace Fest, decided to revive the festival in 2021. Late Gen X and Early Millennials now had money to spend on band revivals, and the old bands started to get back together. But while there was money for bands coming back, sales of their back catalogs no longer benefited producers like Sprinkle and Ebel, who had to sell the masters during the music financial crisis in the late '00s. As the world of the music business gets more and more complicated, Sprinkle has stayed busy treating music as a job. But in recent years, rather than just sitting behind the boards producing and engineering for other artists, he's been promoting his own solo music. While he is still best known for his production, in the ever-changing, at one point seemingly disappearing music scene, Aaron Sprinkle continues to create his signature sound both for other artists and by himself. Just not as often as before. 

Read the lyrics on Genius.