On Planets

Emilia Ali and I wrote a song one sunny day in LA after long chats about death and loved ones and the whole thing just tumbled out all at once and we spent like 2 years trying to replicate the scrappy demo recording from that day and we eventually just ended up rolling with it because it was irreplicable and perfect and now the song is out and it’s called Skip</3!!!!

5 months ago | [YT] | 4

On Planets

Stream/Download: onplanets.lsnto.me/sabotage

There is a quote that I swear I read somewhere; I thought it was maybe in a Dostoevsky novel, but I have never been able to track it down. Maybe I just made it up. It’s something along the lines of: “everyone, from time to time, secretly yearns for their own undoing”. It feels good to get in your own way a little bit sometimes—a twisted sort of relief from the pressure of always getting it right.

I guess if I did make the line up and no one has ever said it before, you can just quote me on it now.

'SABOTAGE!' is out now

-OP

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 1

On Planets

Music sometimes comes easily to me, and sometimes it’s very difficult to extract—more and more, I’ve come to understand that there is indeed a “way” (perhaps many different ways), but rarely a paved path ending at the destination.

This one was one of the easy times. Writing this song reminded me of the way it all started: short trips where the route forward is obvious, my only job to be sure-footed in and deliver whatever it is I have to deliver. It is a great relief to experience these kinds of day-trips in between more arduous ones fettered with baggage and crossroads and distractions.

The song itself is about dying. I hope it gives you the same comfort and clarity as it gave me.

“The beach at the base of the hill,” my first release in over a year, is out now 🦉

-OP

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

On Planets

Uploaded a visualizer by my man Wilks for my 2017 cover of Bon Iver's Flume.

This is still one of my favorite songs of all time.

Maybe I'll even do another version :)

2 years ago | [YT] | 5

On Planets

Gus and I started this tune on a late and aimless night messing around with sounds, but mostly just eating snacks and chatting about the bigger picture. A couple days later, I had almost a whole song in my head.

This past year in my life has been a lesson in the pace of change—I’ve felt both as high and as low, and as big and as small as I ever have. It took a while for me to figure how to say it all, but I think I’ve started to catch the sound, and I’m really excited to be able to start sharing new music again.

This one goes out to all the people who have loved me through changes. Thanks for sticking around 🦉

2 years ago | [YT] | 7

On Planets

It's been a fairly turbulent year and my childhood piano ended up in a basement room mid-renovation, standing in a corner between piles of lumber, construction ladders and loose electrical cables. It looked a bit disparate and uncomfortable there and I found myself playing the chords to Gruesome in the dark, so I brought a desk lamp down and recorded what became the bedding tracks for this acoustic version.

I guess it really felt what the song is about—a sort of secret but familiar something, a movement in shady peripherals, simultaneously doing and undoing, scattering and organizing.

Acoustic version of Gruesome just dropped... Check it out.

2 years ago | [YT] | 5

On Planets

My boy ‪@shrimpnosebeats‬ went OFF on the remix of Droves—he flipped this thing upside down, inside out and everything in between, and I’m honoured that he blessed the track with a verse!!! Riley is a wildly inspiring dude, and his ability to think outside the box blows me away 🍤👃🏽

Out now on ‪@bitbird‬

2 years ago | [YT] | 2

On Planets

There is an immense amount of nostalgia baked into this song for me—hearing Too takes me back to a time when I was starting to remember my roots in acoustic music, the beginning of a long road that I’m still on today. It really captures a specific state of this sort of raw and flailing creativity, a state that I’m currently trying to find my way back to. To have had the chance to work with Emily at that time is one of a handful of greatly fortunate moments in my life that have led me to where I am today, and I’ll be forever grateful for those days!

*Too (2013)*
Vocals: Scoop (Emily Warren)
Production: On Planets

2 years ago | [YT] | 1

On Planets

For me, Too Bad / So Sad is like a song from a different lifetime—I wrote it during an especially dingy and confusing period of my life when I was spending most of my days toiling aimlessly and battling traffic. It became difficult to distinguish between my own bad choices and simple circumstance, and I guess one of the ways I got out of that rut was by channeling the feeling into a song; it kind of clarified some of the blurry edges so I could just move forward instead of stewing in it.

Here's a new visualizer for an old favorite.

2 years ago | [YT] | 9

On Planets

Just uploaded a visualizer for Tails' remix of 'So Long'!

peep dat/hear dat

2 years ago | [YT] | 2