Oct 23, 20225 min read

Swolst's Existential Absurdity - Concepts & Credits

Updated: Jan 22, 2023

By Sam Wolstenholm

OCTOBER 28TH is the release date for this album...my album! That's right. I've been working on this for a long time, and it's finally becoming real. In this post, I'll talk a little about the inspiration behind the project and some of the ideas I explore. This isn't a review though...why would I review my own album?

Before I go into the content, here's how I personally define the terms used in the title (you can click on the words to see a more in-depth/academic explanation):

Existentialism: "Existence proceeds essence," - Jean-Paul Sartre. We are born and we live whether we like it or not. There is no determined path for us. There are no roadmaps on how we are to live our lives. We don't grow into the person that we are supposed to become because that doesn't exist. This isn't supposed to be a sad thing though, because that just means we can do whatever we want with our life. Granted, when you make a choice, you are setting an example for yourself and others about what you believe is the moral way to live a life. That being said, there is nothing besides you and society (built by other imperfect human beings) that is able to make moral judgments.

Absurdism: Nothing makes sense. The way we try to live and rationalize things as humans simply doesn't line up with how the world works. We search for meaning in everything, but the universe doesn't give a shit about meaning. It's a human construct. Searching for an absolute truth to anything just leads you to more questions. Our innate human longing for meaning/purpose does not align with the laws of the universe. It's absurd. To ask, "what's the point?" is an absurd question because there is no real answer. The answer is whatever the hell you decide it to be.

Originally, I wanted the tracks to look like they do in the image above. The capitalized ones would be the song-songs while the lower-case ones would be the stories/interludes. Sadly, the publishing website I used wouldn't allow that, so I had to do it differently. The stories/interludes will instead be capitalized like regular with "(Story)" added to the title. It is what it is.

Anyway, let me get into the concepts a little bit. I talk alot about life and death on here. I discuss drug use, escaping the mundaneness of life, religion, morality, politics, and more. If you couldn't tell by now, this project is personal. It can get pretty dark in places, but that's how the human mind works. I draw from my real life to write about what I was feeling at the time. It is music, so I'm obviously hyperbolizing in some places. For the most part though, I really felt a lot of this.

From the time I wrote the first lyric and produced the first snare drum to when I finally uploaded the master tracks for distribution, I had spent over four years working on this. Therefore, the content covers a lot of time. In fact, it's pretty much my college experience. A lot happened in that time, and this is essentially my reaction to it all. All the stories/snippets included are of people that I care deeply about, even if they don't happen to be in my life anymore. It makes me uncomfortable to listen to much of the album, actually. But life isn't comfortable, and I wanted this to be a reflection of life and my perspective of it. I included all of these stories because life is bigger than me. Existence goes far beyond my perception of it, and it's important to collect the stories of others in order to try to fill in that picture as much as you can.

One thing that I believe is that there is no such thing as perfect. The concept of "perfect" is bullshit made up to get people to work harder. I get the intent of it, but I still don't like it. To be perfect is to do your best, in my opinion. No human being is perfect. No work of art is perfect. Only mathematics can be completely true all the time. I'm not worried about math though, because what else is there to explore? Math is math. Life and death, however, will make you think about things that cannot be written down or measured. You are forced to think about worth. Life's worth. Self worth. The value of time. The way I see it, we only have so much time. So why waste it trying to be perfect when that's just impossible?

I really hope you give this album a listen. I hope it makes you think and I hope it makes you feel. If you don't like it, then I don't give a shit. Don't listen to it. But if you do, I'd appreciate it if you could share it with others. Share the music, but more importantly, share the ideas you get from it. Be creative. Love deeply. Think critically. Thank you in advance :)

Peace and love,

Sam Wolstenholm (Swolst)

Music video directed & edited by my brother Max Wolstenholm

I have included below the complete credits for every track 1-16. I am human and only one person, so it's possible I missed something (probably not, but still). Please let me know if you did something for the album and I neglected to credit you for it.

Special shoutout to Joey Fleming AKA Flemingo for making this possible. He mixed every track for me and let me record everything at his apartment. We literally set up a microphone in a closet and duct taped a blanket to the wall to sound proof it a little bit. He also did a lot of production on this thing. Be looking out for stuff from him in the future...and definitely some more collaboration efforts.

Existential Absurdity Credits

Executive Writer: Swolst (Sam Wolstenholm)

Executive Producer: Swolst

Executive Engineer: Flemingo (Joey Fleming)

Mastering done on bandlab.com

Album Artwork: Swolst

“The Curse of the Blue Balls (Story)”
1. Vocal Performance:
  1. Ravyn Anderson (main story)
  2. Kellen Karls (says title)
  3. Charlie Carillo (closing words)
2. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“My Essay”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Flemingo
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Tell Me What?”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
  2. Keegan Hon (opening story)
  3. Joey Fleming (closing skit)
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“No Warning (Freestyle)”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
  2. Keegan Hon (ad-libs)
  3. Jacob Bennett (closing skit)
  4. Alice Dweh (“umm”)
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
  2. Taely (Taely Bui)
“Control”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
  2. Anthony Weldy (stories)
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Dead Sprint”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
  2. Ray Dessert (singing)
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Bullseye (Story)”
1. Vocal Performance:
  1. Maddy Martinez
2. Produced by:
  1. Flemingo
3. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Caterpillars Can’t Fly”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
  2. Sean Smith (story)
  3. Flemingo ("why you write?" adlibs)
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“A Small Handshake”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
  2. RCB (Roderick Cameron Bland) (chorus)
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“A Beach in Michigan (Story)”
1. Vocal Performance:
  1. Flemingo
2. Produced by:
  1. Flemingo
3. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Burn Away the Bad Dreams”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Uncle”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Ghost Dog (Story)”
1. Vocal Performance:
  1. John Marsh
2. Produced by:
  1. Flemingo
  2. Swolst
3. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“This House”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Swolst
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“Absurd (Story)”
1. Vocal Performance:
  1. JJ Binion
2. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo
“I Win”
1. Written by:
  1. Swolst
2. Produced by:
  1. Flemingo
  2. Swolst
  3. Taely
3. Vocal Performance:
  1. Swolst
  2. JJ Binion (story)
4. Mixing Engineer:
  1. Flemingo

Swolst's Existential Absurdity - Concepts & Credits

By Sam Wolstenholm

Recent Posts

Comments

CONTACT