NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

With fans’ hearts freshly broken from the whirlwind year of 2014– when  Anberlin  announced their disbandment,  final album , and last world tour—lead singer  Stephen Christian  certainly wasn't walking away from music. First settling down in Nashville, he began exclusively writing songs for other artists. But in mid-2015 he released two  Anchor & Braille  tracks, " Detroit Stab " and " Fatal Flaw ." In February of 2016, Anchor & Braille released  Songs for the Late Night Drive Home , the third full-length project with the lead single, " Watch You Burn " and a lyric video proceeding the album's release. I WANNA WATCH YOU CATCH FIRE.  In interviews Stephen Christian has stated that Anchor & Braille projects usually reflect the style of music he's currently listening to. For the third installment, Christian talks about listening to  Washed Out  and  M83 , which can be heard in the chill, "late-night" synth sounds of the albu

  "I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I. Don't want a lot for Christmas." *struggles to change the radio dial amid gridlocked holiday traffic* "There's just one thing I need" *hurry up with my damn latte! I think I'm going to die. Why the hell is Starbucks playing Christmas music in mid-October?* "I don't care about the presents" *internal Elaine monologue 'I think I'm going to die in this department store. Ma'am, why must you spray the perfume so close to my face. I can't breathe! What if the earth begins to shake and we're stuck in here forever underneath mannequins and holiday shoppers and that damn  Mariah Carey   song stuck on repeat?'* "Underneath the Christmas tree" "No" *raising a strict finger to students who should be studying in the back* "Not before Thanksgiving." "I just want you for my own/ More than you could ever know." Every year, Christmas music gets earlier and earlier.

Anchor & Braille has been Anberlin 's lead singer Stephen Christian 's side project for a while. Some of Anberlin's songs started out as Anchor & Braille songs. In 2009, Christian collaborated with Aaron Marsh and a few other hometown musicians including Louis DeFabrizio of Gasoline Heart , and released A&B's debut record Felt , an album that feels as if Christian were the lead singer of Copeland somewhere between their In Motion and Eat, Sleep, Repeat releases. Anchor and Braille's sound would vary greatly over their occasional four albums as well and the makeup of the 'band' would just become Stephen Christian collaborating in the studio with other musicians. You can tell that it's the same singer of Cities and Never Take Friendship Personal struggling relationships. SHE MAKES THREATS I HOPE THAT SHE SEES THROUGH .  Felt  was an album that appeared in my Junior year of college (one of them :) around a month or so before  New Surre

" Cadence " was the third single from  Anberlin .  Vocalist  Stephen Christian  talks about the band overhearing him playing the song on an acoustic guitar one day. Thinking the song was too mellow for Anberlin, he thought the song would be better suited for his solo project,  Anchor & Braille , but t he band loved the song and placed it as the penultimate track on their debut record,  Blueprints for the Black Market .  The song is inspired by Christian's time in college when he roomed with his brother, Paul. The brothers talked about life, philosophy, relationships, and God, and the song was a culmination of those late night conversations. The song features some of the best drumming on the record. Before the band's  livestream  of the album  Nathan Young , who was fifteen at the time of recording  Blueprints,  tells a story about how producer  Aaron Sprinkle 's brother  Jesse , drummer of  Poor Old Lu  and later  Demon Hunter , was brought in to record drums

Stephen Christian talked about each Anchor & Braille record on the Taco Boys podcast  when he was promoting his most recent project, Tension . He said that each record was made with different musicians, and his debut side project record Felt was made with local musicians in mind from around his hometown in Central Florida. Christian looked to friend and Copeland frontman Aaron Marsh to record the record, Copeland's drummer at the time  Johnathan Bucklew and Gasoline Heart 's Louis DiFabrizio on bass. When Christian debuted his LP, it seemed he had every intention of maintaining this small town sound. But then he moved to Nashville and started associating with other musicians. TEAR OFF YOUR SKIN. The   bonus DVD  release with the   Cities special edition shows the portrait of Stephen Christian as a lyricist, jotting down lines in notebooks as he sips coffee in Seattle. Then, in the studio, he'd drink herbal tea and at night inhale vapor for his falsetto notes on

Stephen Christian  under the appellation of  Anchor & Braille  released their third record,  in February of 2016. Stephen Christian said in an interview that he imagines a movie scene for his Anchor & Braille projects, and the title  Songs for the Late Night Drive Home is descriptive of that movie scene. The electronic sounds imagine an urban setting--New York's " Lower East Side ," Los Angelo’s’ Silver Lake, Orlando--anywhere that, during the day cars would fill the streets. But the late night drive home is peaceful. You're in your car driving past the empty office buildings for 34:23 seconds past midnight. KISS ME LIKE YOU STILL BELIEVE.   Songs for the Late Night Drive Home is a kind of closing of the Stephen Christian electronic era, which started with Anberlin 's Vital   in 2012. In some ways, Vital was like the band had just discovered synthesizers. The band had scarcely used keys or synthesizers on their five records prior to Vital. Christian cite

  The smoothest, easiest, most chill record by Anchor & Braille is titled Tension . The album was written and recorded before the pandemic but released in May 2020 in a time when the U.S. was still under the shock of job loss, fear, and illness both physical and mental. According to a podcast I listened to today , lead singer Stephen Christian thinks of a scene from a movie when writing his Anchor & Braille albums. Whereas Songs for the Late Night Drive Home literally described the dark yet enchanting movie scene in the title, Christian said that Tension was about those quiet moments in your room by yourself or with a loved one. BY MYSELF, EYES WIDE CLOSED. The opening track to Tension claims "This ain't no ordinary love song." The song alludes to the early days of a romantic relationship, when late-night conversations with that person can keep you awake all night just fantasizing of all the possibilities of where that relationship can go. When Stephen Christia

  Today, we’ll revisit high school in a playlist The Angsty Aughts. This playlist will compile and celebrate the Emo songs I’ve blogged about. For this list, I’ve decided to focus on scene music from 2003-2009. I’m sure that a second generation of Emo featuring Olivia Rodrigo and Goody Grace will be a post in the future. For this playlist, I've decided to stick to a high school theme because that's what Emo does best, so I listed the song as "Class of" based on the year that the song was introduced. Enjoy! Listen to Angsty Aughts on AppleMusic . 1. " The Sound " by Further Seems Forever (Class of '03), the song of the day. 2. " Embers and Envelops " by Mae (Class of '03) 3. " All of Me " by Watashi Wa (Class of '03) 4. " Coffee " by Copeland  (Class of '03) 5. " Crushcrushcrush " by Paramore  (Class of '07) 6. " Sick in the Teeth " by Jonezetta (Class of '08) 7. " Spiders &quo

With fans’ hearts freshly broken from the whirlwind year of 2014– when Anberlin announced their disbandment,  final album , and last world tour—lead singer Stephen Christian certainly wasn't walking away from music. First settling down in Nashville, he began exclusively writing songs for other artists. But in mid-2015 he released two Anchor & Braille tracks, " Detroit Stab " and " Fatal Flaw ." In February of 2016, Anchor & Braille released Songs for the Late Night Drive Home , the third full-length project with the lead single, " Watch You Burn " and a lyric video proceeding the album's release. I WANNA WATCH YOU CATCH FIRE. In interviews Stephen Christian has stated that Anchor & Braille projects usually reflect the style of music he's currently listening to. For the third installment, Christian talks about listening to Washed Out and M83 , which can be heard in the chill, "late-night" synth sounds of the album. Work

In 2020, Stephen Christian released his fourth Anchor & Braille album, Tension .  When he released his third A&B project, Songs for the Late Night Drive Home in 2016, many of his fans were still mourning the disbandment of Anberlin . But starting in 2018, Anberlin had started to play one-off shows and even started touring the next year. In 2020, the band was supposed to announce a tour with Memphis May Fire and perform at several festivals. But in lieu of the pandemic, the band started a livestream concert series. While Anberlin was active, Christian released Tension, an album of the most straight-forward pop songs Christian has released to date.  TRY TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF TO A STONE WALL. Last year, I wrote about 13 love songs leading up to Valentine's Day. This year, I'm not sticking to that format, but as Valentine's Day approaches, I thought I'd make a few playlists compiling the love songs I've written about.  1. " Madness " by Anchor &a

I decided to do something a little different today. I'm going to present my first playlist within a playlist: 2021+. When my friend Stephen Barry  chooses his top songs of a given year, he gives two years of wiggle room for the records he missed. My format is not like Mr Barry and his Orchestra , but I thought that it would be interesting to make a playlist of the best songs I blogged about about last year that fit within a two year time frame. I'm going to stick to one entry per artist as usual and leave links for the posts. Today's song, "Counterfeit" by Wolves at the Gate, comes from a 2019 album, so it barely makes the list. First, I will post the Spotify playlist: The songs listed on this playlist: 1. " Cold Air " by Acceptance. The lead single from 2020's Wild, Free  is a song about a community torn apart by prejudice. Also check out " Wasted Nights " and " Dark Age. " 2. " Counterfeit " by Wolves at the Gate fro