Last Light was born at the piano, like most of my songs. The melody as a reminder of what love looks like – it came quick, as opposed to the lyrics that took a while to perfect.
I am proud of songs that work in this way – no fancy production that can hide songwriting issues or weak melodies. I love the simplicity and rawness of just voice plus piano. I believe it works well for Last Light.
I hope you enjoy.
My new single Last Light is out now on all streaming platforms. Listen anywhere.
Trust that essential connection is with another human being. This track, Last Light, began with a phrase: We wasted the Last Light on us both.
It hadn’t clicked yet, I wasted it on a simple video, until one of y’all got back to me, mentioning its truth, connection, reality. I realised this was a song waiting to be written.
Waste the last light on us two /
It feels good being with you /
Doing it all with you
Waste the last light on us two /
It’s warm inside you /
That does good to us two
Picnic with your ass out, quarter burnt cigarettes, grass longing for touch, centuries of understanding, thick armpit hair, lighters without fluid, stars drowned by faint city lights, fallen trees around forests, hard techno in the distance: kids, thick unmoving air, buzzing: mosquitoes.
It all came together as if the song had been waiting to be written, waiting for me to extract it out of the air, the air around us, the air around you and me, the air unmoving.
It would mean the world to me if you checked Last Light out, if you let it into your life, if you found a way to incorporate it into your own playlists, your life.
I know Playlists can be very personal, very unique to a certain mood. I feel like Last Light is special; melancholic, optimistic. I hope it works for your life – i hope you listen.
LOVE, forever
phlwest.
If you wanna check out my Playlist, including some of my newest inspiration and coolest sounds, check out LOVE:
My new single Pretty Pretty is out right now. You can listen to it anywhere, on all streaming platforms.
This is the first single off my project LOVE, forever. If you want to know more about LOVE, forever, go ahead and check out my last Blog.
I’m excited about Pretty Pretty – this song came together in a flash, like a moment you have with a person, maybe only once in your life. Your only aim: extend these seconds, stretch them, live in them as long as possible. Hear the echoes as far as possible, be one with the aftermath, good or bad.
I had no choice but to work on this track day and night – get it finished as soon as possible, keep the energy. No good in losing that energy working on a song, ’cause the energy is most important, it conveys through space and time; only music can do that. Something about the way I wrote this just made a whole lot of fucking sense, I was able to capture that energy.
Usually tracks take lots of time for me, not Pretty Pretty. Everything came to me in a flash, and I was able to put pen to paper and notes to Cubase in a suprisingly short amount of time.
This song is unusual for me – I’ve come to realize that I’m pretty hard on myself in trying to provide deep and meaningful lyrics. I want to make the best, the most referential, intelligent and unique and interesting music that I am capable of creating. That usually means trying to create sonic vibes in metaphorical ways.
In writing and producing Pretty Pretty I realized that there is merit in creating something stupid and simple as well. I learned that being blunt and open and confronting you guys with what’s on my mind directly doesn’t necessarily take away from the music or the art form. It’s simply a different way of approaching music.
An evolution in a way. This opened my eyes to the possibility of being frank, more direct, something I’m struggling with and have been struggling with not only in art but also in life. This definitely won’t mean all music going forward will be simple, in fact, the next song I’ve just finished working on today is more metaphorical and more intricate in ways, however Pretty Pretty opened up the possibility of doing this at all. It’s been a great exercise in songwriting and a greater exercise in giving less fucks.
Maybe the idea of trying to be more deep and intricate comes from being queer, a need to codify, a need to hide what we do, who we are. This bluntness is new to me, it feels liberating.
I’ve learned that I want to be more blunt with my existence, cause we deserve to talk sucking dick just as passionately as straight artists deserve talking eating pussy. I want to continue evolving into somebody living, talking, being truthful to both you and me, and our idea of life.
An excess of honesty in this world, maybe it can connect us more, without a need to hide. Also, a way of understanding each other: simpler language, less confusion. Something I usually work against, I love the grey areas, I love writing lyrics that y’all are able to interpret for yourself, so that there is room for you, so that you can insert yourself into situations that resonate with you, so that there is a space for you, in between my own words. To find hidden meaning with the hundredth listen, to come back to a song after years and seeing everything in different light, due to your very self changing.
That is the main way I make music, and I will continue to do so. Pretty Pretty is an experiment, a shot at something simple, straight forward. Usually this would end up on a harddrive on some random shelf in my basement, never to be heard again. I just felt like I owed it to myself to explore this way of working. And at the end of the day I’m proud of Pretty Pretty, it’s a different type of proud than I am of my usual songs.
Ultimately I want to make music that you listen to – that is the end goal for me. I want to make music that connects, makes you think, makes you feel, dance or love. So who’s to judge a song if it achieves just that?
LOVE, forever
phlwest.
Together We Are Love is more than a distant memory still, more than those 14 songs; a way of being – and we’ll continue being love. You and me. These songs are with me still, I hope they’re with you in one way or another, to live to, to be rediscovered on old playlists in five years time. Music moves quickly nowadays, and if you’re constantly on the hunt for new, old loses shine. It will reappear if you love hard enough.
All good things come in two, and the best come in three, and even though that means less space in bed, less sleep, those memories are worth it. I’m working on singles now, but the thought of a continuation, an evolution of Together We Are Love fuels insomnia. I want to create, release as much as possible, without confinement, without ‘album mode’ at the back of my mind. At least for a while – I want standalone songs, I want continuation.
To combine the two I came up with the idea for a project I’m calling
LOVE, forever
This will be a collection of songs, of singles, that continue the thoughts I’ve been dreaming with Together We Are Love, yet allowing me to be more spontaneous, more free, more experimental and more intimate. Love lasts forever once you feel it, and these songs do too. If they’re with you, if they’ve made their way onto a playlist, into your heart; immortality. Love, Forever.
An idea out of necessity; I don’t know where this will take us, but this chapter is called Love, Forever. I don’t know how many songs I’ll make, or how long it will take, maybe endless. We’ll be finding out together, cause we are love, love forever.
Pretty Pretty is the first song of this project and it feels the way I’ve promised myself to be: more free, more experimental. Usually I would dismiss the idea that led to Pretty Pretty, ’cause it is simplistic and doesn’t contain much lyrical depth.
The more I been thinking about this, I realize that there is worth in that. There is life to immediacy, bluntness. Honesty.
I felt that I just wanted to say what was on my mind. Without the need to color it with metaphors or depth, references or style. And since the hook is catchy as fuck I decided not to be my own worst enemy – and continue to pursue this spur of the moment track – it came together quickly, which is very unlike me. I love it for what it is, and I am happy to be able to stand behind it. This is evolution – in a way.
Ultimately all I wanna do is make music that people actually listen to, and this track feels like something people wanna listen to. You’ve given me that feedback.
I’ll be talking more about Pretty Pretty in the release post, just remember it’s coming this Friday, May 09th!
I’m excited to be working in the studio again, on new music. New lyrics and productions have been forming throughout the push for We Are Love anyway, and I’m excited to be acting on them now.
I know I’m ready, see you friday.
Love, forever,
phlwest.
All these countless nights spent alone, making music; producing, writing, mixing, listening, testing – under night skies, with visions of something greater in mind, something more beautiful.
I do not want to be alone, anymore.
I want to take you with me, take you through my work, take you through my process.
This is Life As Art.
This first video has been in the making for a long while – I needed to figure out how I could best translate what I had in mind into video. I am proud of what I came up with – this first one takes you through my process of working on a demo, listening to it around the city, making ‘Heaven Hell’ and perfecting it in my studio.
This format will be anything, BTS of my work, my art, my life, song releases, deep dives, anything I want it to be.
I’m forever grateful to you who watch and who want to get to know more lore of these songs, which I will be talking about in depth.
I hope this series can be a visual expansion of the blog, a way for me to connect with you and a way for me to show off the work that I put into my art. There’ll be exclusive songs, previews, some leaks. I want to push this series with everything I have, hopefully you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.
I’ve got so much on my mind and I am grateful to have found this way of sharing it with you, visually.
Love, forever,
phl.
I’ve been working long and hard at creating another Edition of Together Magazine, after the first one was such a success. In this Edition you’ll find:
And so much more.
Been gathering pieces of love left on the cutting room floor, curating, pushing and pulling for all that love to make it to daylight. There is lots and lots of work left out of a final project – WE ARE LOVE – in this case.
Work that is neither bad nor undeserving, simply not fitting in the final album. It was important to me to rework those pieces into something digestible, something that makes sense, something that shows the endless amounts of care that is put into every piece of art I create. I found Together Magazine to be the perfect place for all of that.
Poetry that evolved into lyrics, poetry that made its way into the album, poetry that exists because it deserves to.
My art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, real life evolves into music and this magazine is created from real life as well.
The late night conversations that end up as lyrics months later. The technical studio setups that somehow feel romantic when it’s just me and the music. It’s all the stuff around the album that made the album possible. It’s also documentation, conversation, making all of that something worth looking at.
It would mean the world to me if you checked it out, purchased it if you can and shared it with somebody you love. I put a lot of work into all of this, including the exclusive live performances, photoshoots I did specifically for that magazine and all the audios I created to let you closer into my world.
Love you endless, phlwest.
We Are Love, my new album is out right now on all platforms. Listen anywhere.
Together We Are Love – the second part to remind us both that yes,
Together We Are Love is drenched in light now.
Can you see the light?
Can you feel the love?
We’re moving through TOGETHER into the light of
WE ARE LOVE.
Do you hear it all?
After 7 long and dark months of work in this silver studio – words reflected in mirror finishes, sounds bouncing off walls – these 7 all new songs are out right now. I’ve been pouring everything I got into it, love, life, sex. Creating these tracks from scratch – ideas first captured on my phone. I sat down at the piano a lot during the beginning stages to create melodies and chord progressions that capture feeling, change, honesty without anything other than these two most crucial and most basic sonics taking spotlight – I want songs that can stand on their own when played at the piano.
Later during production everything came together more beautiful, more peaceful than I had hoped for. Recording vocals took its time, as always, but I am proud of what I came up with.
Rented as the lead single still feels right – it’s one of my favorite pieces of music I’ve ever made – although I can usually only tell months and months after release which song sticks with me for good. There’s shards of every other album track in Rented, its a sort of capsule of the EP in ways, it touches the melancholy of lost love while celebrating the freedom and universality of shared time.
My favorite lyric must be the hook:
SELL ALL THE SHIT THAT I GOT
LET THESE DIAMONDS BLIND SOMEBODY ELSE
Filming the music video early this year was a blast – it came out stunning.
Gang as a second favorite off the album. I knew this was the opener as soon as I wrote it – the tracklisting kinda came together by itself – I spend lots of time writing lyrics and figuring out what I wanna say in each song, so the ideas are set from the start. I’m trying to tell a story within these 7 lyric-driven songs – I finished the words before anything else. Still, melody is most important. That means tracklisting is basically done right at the start. Each song brings its own surprises but the process follows the initial storyline.
Love, Life ain’t fair, we could gang up on ’em gang – fight this life as two. Coming from together the perfect intro to We Are Love, continuing the spirit and turning toward the sun.
These drugs, your love through my veins render me non verbal, let’s kick it, let’s kick it together. Blinded and star gazing, head off roofs, they can see us as anything and if they dare see us as less than, I know we still got each other.
Cause DNA talk no lies, this shit is inside, our love for each other, we don’t let us be dictated by others.
This one relies on production heavily, took ages to finally get the chorus to hit like I wanted it to. In the end I’m glad its song number two, here’s a scrapped verse:
we no more than doll doll
good with me me
good with you
no more than doll doll
The line ‘Slutty little waist and the rest all thick / You look good bouncing on that dick’.
Now fr this song horny as hell but lemme be clear it got some deeper meaning to it too. With that bloodline and our love that’s thicker than blood i’m talking family, chosen family and what we can create together. I’ve seen so many definitions of chosen family and love over the years, don’t let anybody tell you it’s less than. This love is thicker than blood. Fuck your bloodline if they ain’t with you.
Fuck their view on us if they ain’t with you. We need to continue living as we do, acknowledging history, cause if I look around the world today I can see what happens if we forget history, if we forget where we come from. Our community been through a lot, let’s make love for everybody who can’t love anymore or doesn’t get the chance to.
No matter what this is with you, no matter what we’ll call it after tonight, I want it. I know I can’t place it cause I don’t know a red flag from good, but with you I feel good no matter what we do. No matter where we are.
This as a continuation of Thicker, now the morning after – how to look into the future with you? Is what we’re doing good, are we made for more than one night?
Ain’t a fan of any obsolete ideas of togetherness, you and me, we can be anything we want to be, and whatever this is, if this is hell I want it with you, if this is heaven I want it with you. And besides, they been talking about us burning forever anyway, so at least let’s make it beautiful and burn together, put some glitter on, and burn together.
Another one of my favorites. This feels like a phlwest pop song, something close to a pop song anyway.
NA THESE AIN’T WASTED NIGHTS / THIS THE TIME OF OUR LIFE /
AND SINCE I’M WITH YOU / I’VE LIVED A FULL LIFE
Pounding bass and a kick heard through a rattling bathroom wall with a hole in it, for pleasure. I wrote those lines while watching three guys stumble out of the neighbouring stall. These ain’t wasted nights, this the time of our life, and since I’m with you, I’ve lived a full life. I was with somebody I met two hours ago in the line to the club, eyes wide, second berlin night, looking inward. Sometimes there is not much talking involved, and there wasn’t any needed. We collided on the dancefloor and our skin stuck for the rest of the night.
WHEN YOU THINK OF GOD
DO YOU
DO YOU THINK OF US
THINK OF US
CAUSE I
WHEN I THINK OF GOD I
THINK OF YOU
I do not believe in god, but I do believe in us.
This is all me, this is all me in sound, in lyric, in production, in imagery, in visuals, in mastering and mixing. It took a lot, so I hope you will give it a chance. Listen alone or with a loved one, share with a hookup or your partner. Tell me what you’re dreaming of, I hope you get to live a little life to these songs. I hope you will find parts of yourself in this music and these lyrics. I hope these songs will be part of your soundtrack to 2025 and I hope you get to share life to them – with a loved one or with a beautiful stranger. I‘ve spent months perfecting this, now I need your help in sharing and listening.
Together We Are Love.
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