I came here because the thumbnail made me giggle and caught my curiosity, and now I'm sitting here bawling because I feel deeply seen. :') The desire to be an animal really resonated with me. I remember when I was younger I used to fantasize a lot about being a werewolf, because the idea of throwing my ill fitting human skin off for a night and just running around in the woods for a night felt so freeing. I know now what neurodivergence is, and how its shaped me and the way I experience life, but for a long time I felt like I had missed the memo and my brain had mistakenly ended up in a human body when I should have been frog sitting on the bottom of a pond somewhere.
Honestly this track and its context are like a hymn for late discovered neurodivergency, which I too am very much a part of. Thank you so very much for putting it like that.
Your thoughts about wanting to be an animal has given me a lot to think about for my own craving. I love the therapeutic spin on your return to this format. I hope it helps you because I for one love it
Jeremiyaha, these videos really feel like sitting on a lawn chair outside when its almost freezing and talking about the darkest deepest thoughts with that one friend who understands, and sometimes when it gets a bit too much maybe, you just jam out. Thanks a lot for these!
Aran - I am so moved by this video and your work on this project - and by you and Jeremy’s way of putting the complications of your minds and incredible creativity into art. ❤
I've lost count of how many months I've felt lost, questioning what it is I really want to do with my life, questioning if I'm capable of achieving what I desire to achieve, questioning if the lifetime of mistakes I've made so far are too much to bear, if opportunities are for others and not for me. One certainty that gives me clarity in this time of confusion and feeling lost, is that I wish, from the radiance of my soul suffocated by the expectations of others for so long, to express myself creatively - I don't know how exactly I wish to do this yet, but I've narrowed it down to 3 paths: music creation, creative writing, and possibly something to do with film. I'm still undecided. More questions, inevitably. More weight upon my proverbial shoulders. More things I - should - be building towards but simply am - not -. The algorithm suggested me this video, likely from my interest in Synthwave and digital music composition. My only background in music playing/creation is years of playing my guitar along to my favorite songs, alone in my bedroom. That's the extent of my knowledge on music, at least from a technical perspective. I do listen to a lot of it. And yet, the interest persists. In regards to music, I continue to tell myself "I can't do it. It's not my thing. I don't have the talent". But the interest remains. I decide to watch this video. I don't have a MIDI controller, nor do I know how to use one. I know nothing about music composition. And yet I click, and yet I watch. And to my surprise, to my astonishment, this - isn't - just a video on music production. The subject of autism, the notes of existential suffering, and most of all, the feeling of someone else's experience relating to my own, shocks me. Suddenly, I feel ever so slightly less alone, in my bedroom, feeling a little bit less anguish and guilt about struggling to do anything with myself. This too shall pass. But I don't want to forget. I hope I don't forget, that I'm not truly alone, I only feel this way. It's a heavy feeling, and I acknowledge it, but it is still simply a feeling. Thank you for this. I am glad I have stumbled upon your content. I hope you know that artists like yourself have and continue to inspire others into artistic creation. I am forever grateful.
this video has everything - cool music - op1 strategies - fun dragon animations - asmr typography and editing - thoughtful thoughts i like to read that inspires self reflection - book recommendations neat!
I think this is my new favorite video. The way you manage to convey so much of the experience growing up as an undiagnosed autistic is incredibly visceral to me. As a kid I would sit in front of the mirror for hours practicing different faces and vocal inflections until I sounded more "normal", and I had absolutely no idea how to describe the way I felt. It was a very isolating experience that I never felt like I could share with anyone, and I wish a younger me had seen a video like this. + It's ok to not perfectly match up with all of the symptoms of ASD. Just because you don't have some traits, doesn't negate the ones you do have, and in fact it's less common for someone to fit every single criteria for autism. + + your style of editing, with the subtitles changing in time with the music and the "Red is recording" coming back like a chorus is a delight to watch and listen to.
Dude, I feel like so much of my life has been trying to figure out the unseen rulebook everyone else. You're not alone in this! Unmasking autism is an amazing book, glad you got good things out of it Great beats as always dude :3
That's so wild because I started watching your channel in 2020 shortly after I was diagnosed and found it really comforting. I think the attention to detail in your videos, the way you share your process and even the choice not to have a voiceover drew me in. A lot of the things you described about accessing a diagnosis and questioning if it's the right answer are things I went through, being late diagnosed, and despite feeling like it was 100% wrong some days, the more I have learned, the more convinced I am that it's the right answer. Even all the things you described after questioning things - not having control over being born and that sort of thing are literally the exact thoughts I had around the time I was diagnosed. I encourage you to seek it out further, knowing that the struggles may be worth the reward eventually. For me, the two biggest positives of getting a diagnosis were as you said, permission and reason for the reason my life has been so difficult - and more recently - access to occupational therapy and other supports that are changing my life dramatically. Regarding Unmasking and the complex diagnosis process in different parts of the world (it was fairly straightforward for me) I think it's important to keep in mind that one person's experience of autism is one person's experience of autism, and research into what autism really is is still relatively new all things considered and we a learning new things about it every year.
Welcome to the Neurospicy side of the world. Just got diagnosed with AuDHD at age 47. Ended up explaining alot of what you just said you were experiencing. It helped me to not stop beating myself up so much finally. You’re definitely not alone. Badass song too 😏
It’s so satisfying to hear the final product after sharing your story with us. Thank you! This honestly felt comforting, as I’m also going through an unstable time in my life.. yk, feeling like I’ve lost myself and all that.
thanks, i hope things feel better... i'm loving that you've return to the op-1 (field) and i have to say that it's hard to say what you do, myself, and some of my kids have similar feelings, and it's amazing that you feel able to say it to others. thanks!
This was majestically one of the few greatest music video I've seen. The entire video was so perfectly paced and kept my attention. RED MEANS RECORDING felt like the perfect pause for my brain to accumulate what Im soaking in. Brought up topics I've been wondering myself for a long time, questions and answers I scoped out for while following a sick ass beat. I think and follow thoughts through rhythym more easily, and I wanted to see this kind of genre of discussion. Im so glad this dropped in my feed, being so caught up in surviving life and I found this gem. I cant wait to binge the rest of your channel after this.
Wow, everything about this is incredible. Watching your process, your candor and self-reflection, your incredible music... and I really think everything you've touched on here is relatable to everyone on some level. Absolutely beautiful.
34 year-old self-diagnosed autistic here. I’ve been following you for years. A lot of pieces of your journey mirror mine: the difficulty getting professional assessment, the doubt, but seeing my mind through the lens of the autism spectrum has made it a lot easier to understand myself and my behaviors and made it a lot easier to know how to care for myself and to understand my needs and how to communicate them to other people. Self-diagnosis is valid. My therapist keeps telling me, “What we know is that the strategies that work for people with autism work for you”
Hi Jeremy First off, thanks for sharing your concerns and thoughts with us. On the other hand, I'm surprised as heck to see you make another OP1 video! Oh, but what a great track you and Aran have made!! One heck of a track and will definitely check out your new album in February.
Congratulations on creating such a beautiful video. It is a perfect balance of insightful and creative writing with incredible music production skills.
Loved this. Thank you for sharing. I always felt like an NPC watching the main characters go about their lives wondering how they got the cheat codes. Which book did they read, what did they know that I didn't, how can they move 10 spaces without even considering which dice to roll. Thank you again for this you spoke to me and I really appreciate it.
The best analogy I’ve heard of free will is: I explain it like a video game. Your previous karma generates your character and the world. The decisions you make day to day are like the decisions you make during gameplay. Now and then you have times in your life (like cutscenes in a game), over which you have little to no control. But, just like a game, those small decisions you made whilst you had control determine what Cutscene you get. Dope track!😊
I’ve just completed a 6-month trip where I used Tarot cards as guides to choose what intentions or signs I would look for every week. I didn’t plan in advance for any of the towns I visited, I travelled hitchhiking when I could and I asked strangers to host me. Everyday was an experiment. The correlations between the symbols of the cards and the events and people manifesting were crazy, to the point where I questioned self-will, prophesizing and whether I became utterly crazy or not. I managed to film the whole thing so I could show with a vlog I wasn’t mad… My understanding of determinism is now different. I think we’re all part of a great scheme that forces a role onto us that we’re not even aware of, but that doesn’t contradict having to decide ourselves what we do. I compare that to what the cells of our organism might “think” in comparison to what our big brain computes and plans. Every cell probably has its own intelligence and volition, but doesn’t realize (cause it can’t communicate with a much larger intelligence) that it’s been driven to play a certain function at the same time. We’re equally determined and shaping our own existence. And I believe this is because time is an illusion and things already have happened anyway. “Choosing” means the way we perceive time in a linear progression forces us to discover the path along the way, but the path is already there.
Just stumbled across this, and I gotta say I love your jams, they bop hella hard. As for the whole, "I'm not sure I'm autistic because I don't have these same issues/symptoms this one person outlined" deal, it's a flawed mindset to approach the question from and is a nearly perfect example of the "Missing the forest for the trees" idea you brought up. You're so stuck on certain symptoms you're missing that it's about a grouping of some symptoms, not a checklist of all of them.
I subscribed to you a VERY long time ago. Every now and then I just click one of your videos because I just LOVE your "little music gadgets" and how you seemingly perform magic with them. Never had I particularly paid much attention to any of the written "commentary" above the music making because I've always been way too hyperfocused on the music making. OH BOY HAVE I LOST A LOT OF PURE AND UTTER KNOWLEDGE. I just want to thank you for putting in words what I've felt for my entire existence on this ol' round Earth. I'm terrible with coming up with such raw descriptions of my feelings to even start explaining them to """"""normal people""""" and this just became my new means to doing it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your art and those marvelous thoughts
Ive never been this early. I just want to say, thank you for providing your creativity on display. You provide a valuable source of inspiration and entertainment. 🤘
Came for the thumbnail, stayed for the existential challenge this piece demands of my AuDHD/cPTSD brain. I have never known "nornal" and never will. Growing up, i was taught to mask and ignore my instinct, so I replaced it with instruction and called it "healthy instincts.". Now that i am unmasking in a myriad number of ways, i find myself once again leaning into my instincts, except this time through therapy and shadow work and EMDR and a huge amount of trial and error, i now remember what MY instinct looks, sounds, and feels like. And when i dip into that well, and interact with the world from that place... the world is finally responding in a way that i can work with. Life isnt any "easier," but getting rid of the second guessing and internal (and external) gaslighting has my life in a beautiful place. This piece reminds me of that journey. Not just the song and the lyrics, but the journey of creation, collaboration, throwing a part of myself out into the world, then bringing back into myself what the world sees in me, and then using that information to create true beauty. Once again the algorithm leads me to that which i am seeking without knowing what it is i am looking for, and my life is richer for the experience.
So excited about a new album! I love your music. I hope you find a way to be free from suffering, at least mostly. Drugs and alcohol kept me down for decades. Getting those out of my life turned everything around for me. I truly hope you find your answer, and have the ability to act on it. Just know that I wish for your serenity.
That was amazing, the deeper content, together with your established format is just.. chefs kiss. Thank you and I hope you find your way. I know I have.. (finally)
This was very moving and I'm glad you are expressing it publicly as it helps others, including me, a lot (and I hope it continues to be therapeutic for you as well and not be a burden). Hope you stay safe and wish you all the very best. Great talent and, to me, you are very kind.
Just discovered your channel, plan on sticking around for whatever you put up. This track came out so damn good, and I loved watching your process and your thoughts along the way. Thanks for this ❤
watching someone make a broad piece of music from individual components on the fly while rejecting that they are a details-before-concepts thinker is wild. I'll keep watching but, my brother, you are one of us.
As a fellow neurodivergent human (sensory processing sensitivity) who only discovered the research four years ago at the age of 30, I empathise and relate. I found the research helpful to communicate my experience through language but also over time have realised that all boxes only are useful in so far that they serve us, beyond that we need not differentiate ourselves from the rest of nature :)
Don’t know if u care but ur og op1 videos were what plunged me into making music. I don’t make music professionally, just as a hobby, but it’s for sure one of my favorite hobbies. Glad to see another op1 video!
This is the Red Means Recording that got me into your music. Seeing that small synthesizer be capable of doing so much work while also having psychological and insightful discussion in the captions. Witnessing the process of how this abstract driving technology music is created. Then having an amazing banger at the end to tie it all together. Keep up the work Jeremy, and I’m excited to be along for the ride on your mental journey. P.S. I’m also in the process of reading the book you suggested. Very good read.
Loving these new op-1 field vids, still watch the OG ones every now and then. Settle down is a banger and still have that on rotation on spotify. Great to see your workflow!
i honestly think this is the best music channel that exists. combining extreme knowledge about the gear, creative ways to present the videos and keeping it personal and real at the same time, with none of the pompous attitude sometimes youtubers get. nevermind the comments, the content is really next level.
Unexpectedly raw and honest video of something very personal. Thanks for making it, listening to someone else's experience made me look at my own issues differently.
Another creature here who was diagnosed as an adult. I grew up in a time/place where it didn't cause so much trouble for me, until I was a teenager, and everyone around me seemed to grow into a role and fit into a group. Then struggled as an adult in tech, feeling alienated and chronically exhausted, until I came across an article about "autistic burnout", and later got a diagnosis. Now I'm out of tech, back in university, and receiving some much-needed support. I guess you could say that I started over, and this time I'm following my own instincts. Thank you for sharing.
Stumbling upon this at close to midnight was a rare treat on youtube. The development of the sound, the message and tempo of the editing is wonderful. Added in that it struck a chord in me, as I am currently pending investigation on autism as well. And the whole masking thing as more than just being unable to commit or understand others was brought up in the last months... It's been hard to come to terms with and trying to figure out what "I" want to do and what "I" used to do to fit in... Great video though, will stick around for more. Keep it up!
Holy shit, that song is transcendent. Also I really feel all that you said in the video, amazing teary eyed bitter-sweetness to feel so connected to another human by so fully identifying with their struggles. A story I'm inspired to share: I recently finished up a tabletop rpg. In it, the players were magical girls. There had been a lot of darkness in the game, but in so many ways things were looking up. One character's boyfriend who had been merely a golem created by a fallen magical girl to be the perfect boy and lure other magical girls in to steal their souls (and the magic along with it) had been given a real soul and therefore free will. A conversation with the fallen girl (now a woman of indeterminate age) had left the group's ostensible leader feeling like she could be redeemed. However, after being pulled into her soul, the dice simply weren't with the players, and despite one of them manifesting their soul weapon for the first time, in a string of back to back failures they girls were consumed by their past trauma's, their lights snuffed out. Everyone sat in stunned silence, a game fundamentally about hope overcoming adversity had just delivered a hopeless ending. Then one of the players suggested that the boy be able to try to reach his mom/creator, to snap her out of it. I agreed, and asked for a roll. A natural crit. We talked at the table about how this should be handled, and decided that the girl's failure should stand, but their (including the fallen girl's) sacrifice should leave the world with more hope. A scene commences where the fallen girl rips her soul open, and the magical pets of all the girl's whose light she'd consumed flooded back into the world, and in epilogue it was shown that the formerly fake boy now had his mother's original pet and was a magical boy. We also followed each player's pet to the character (already established supporting characters) they'd choose to bond with now, to continue to fight The Dread at the heart of the world. I think that's sadly how it is, yet it also gives me hope. We probably can't succeed in making this world better during our lives, and we certainly can't on our own. But we can act to put more light in the world than we pull out of it, and by adding that bit more hope/love/joy, I believe our collective liberation will inevitably be found.
Im starting on my journey to learning what is going on in my head. I've found people who relate with me but sometimes even with them, I feel alone, because im a single person and there will never be anyone like me, no matter what we like, what we act like, or even traumas. Since I was younger, I've always been the "weird" kid, and looking back, I understand now but I never understood then. When I was young, I had no concept of what was "right" in social settings, I was just me, alone in my bubble that I expanded to people who were also cast aside by the kids who were "normal". I've grown now, but with that comes with the masking and shielding. I have a horrible relationship with my mother because she made me act like I was 20 while I was 14, and I matured that way. I hope that in my journey, I learn something about the way I function, and have a name for the things going wrong in my head. Because sometimes my brain tries to convince me that im faking it all for attention, and I hate it so much. Sorry for the ramble, hope everyone has a nice day :]
Song was sooo cool to me up until the 13:47. It was just perfect, moody, vibey. Could you maybe release also "raw" version without vocals. Final mix just feel too busy in my opinion. Anyway great video(:
Your videos are tremendously relatable, your music is thought-provoking, inspiring, and catchy as hell, and i truly appreciate the vulnerability and openness you provide to us all. I hope you find answers to survival as a human being; hell, i hope we all do, and that we end up thriving in this world that seems systematically built in opposition of joy through the dismantling of those systems, if that's even possible. THank you for sharing in my despair, and putting a funky groove to hope despite that terror.
I have no idea how to form my words around this. Sometimes a piece of art is too big for words, and this is one of them. Because of this, I won’t try to go into detail on my feelings, but I’ll offer feedback to at least the core message. I am autistic, recently diagnosed. My whole life I never considered the possibility of anything beyond having ADHD, but here I am. Everything you described calls back to my own experience with it. The struggle with autonomy is one thing I’ve never seen put into words-and yet, you just did. That’s incredible. I want to say one thing: to me, the self and the free will is manifest in the struggle itself. It’s the cognitive dissonance, the desire to be a Thing and the struggle of embodying it. Not in a “life is suffering” kind of way, more of a “the hero’s journey is the point of reading the story” way. And this dissonance is, in itself, part of human animal instincts. There is no difference between an animal and a human, really; the idea of transcending our animal nature is a byproduct of industrialization and society. And in most cases, it is this societal pressure to escape what makes us animal that brings us suffering. What you’ve talked about in this video is mostly interpersonal, and I get that. But the thing is a lot of your interpersonal struggle might be a result of distress and lack of energy /from/ pursuing a life that demands you act like you aren’t an animal. The spillover is what causes us to be selfish, to self-protect at the cost of others, to fail and hurt others. True balance can only come when we create a life that aligns with the human animal in us, even if we have to pay lip service to a society that fetishizes the idea of being “better than” one’s nature. When I stopped forcing myself into shapes that hurt me, I found it a lot easier to simultaneously support my own needs as well as being there for others. It’s actually a lot less scary than it seems when we’re stuck in that loop. And the desire to achieve that-to be better for yourself and others, the desire to create-that’s where the free will comes from, and it really is nothing but animal. I promise you don’t have to be a bird or a cat or a snake for that.
This was legit one of the most enjoyable random videos I've ever clicked on. Subscribing for SURE. Dude I got CHILLS every time you played a sample with all the (current) layers together. The final product was phenomenal--I was sitting in my chair with my headphones CRANKED just jamming tf out. Thank you so much for sharing your process and your thourghts with us. I just downloaded the Audible version of the book. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 30 and suddenly so much of my life made so much more sense. I have several friends who are autisic and I've been wondering for a few years if I might be somewhere along the spectrum as well. Keep on keeping on my guy. You made my night.
Stumbled across this video through the YT algorithm and I wanted to say that I love the editing style! It's somewhat reminiscent of how Above and Beyond type their messages over the visuals to communicate with the crowd. It feels very personal and a very non-invasive method to go about it and I think you do it very well. Thank you for sharing! Love the song, it's an absolute banger and it was a joy to watch your process.
Thanks greatly for the book reference and talking about autism. Really helped me on my journey and the book was great. Very much appreciate it and keep making great music and sharing your passion.
i have no clue how i got here but dude can you video the hell outta your thoughts! it's like the perfect combination of watching someone create a pattern while conversing deep reflections and the nature of self and human in general. The changing of subjects, the freakin dancing lizard i'm in love it dances perfectly. and then changing the subject back and forth from autism which led me to pause the video and read some articles cuz yeah i'm borderline apparently. Thank you for this, it is very refreshing.
Ah, I have found my people in this comment section. Thank you for the music, which was more emotionally charged than I was ready for tbh after reading along in the first part of the video. And thank you for the relatable and thought-provoking concepts, that your words and perspective have brought to my mind
Love the new concept. I often watch these kind of videos because I really enjoy seeing the process of creation. But after 10 or so min of watching people create a song from scratch, I find that by the time I get to the end I am no longer interested in listening to the track in a complete form. Its like I'm a bit burned out on it by that time. But with this one the added vocals really captivated me! Such a powerful message as well! Really really enjoyed that. Can't wait to see what else you create.
this is beautiful, and resonated deeply with me and my own journey. dunno what else to say other than thank you for making me feel seen, and that i see you in return
This one hit some part of me that I can't describe so thank you for sharing this. I loved watching it grow along with your story and then hearing the final product
47 years of masking - I finally got my diagnosis in the context of getting my son evaluated. Devon Price's book is great. I have come to think of the process of 'unmasking' not as removing, but of unearthing and discovering. That's made sense to me anyway. It is a spectrum - and having a framework with which to examine myself and the way I approached the world has been helpful. Also this track is dope. Nice work.
I recommend watching this vid twice: once to focus on the words with the seemingly haphazard sounds providing the soundtrack; one more time in order to focus on the art of creating the music that is inherently relevant to the words. I have found myself in a somewhat similar situation and relate massively to this vid*. It's actually quite emotional. Kudos to you for combining aspects of your being that so many of us can relate to. Artists are 'different.' Blessed be, Jeremy. *Not the animal part though.
This track was awesome! I liked what I believe to be the meaning behind the video, too. A lot of times I can feel like that robot dog. So much time, thought, and engineering put into doing what others see as natural. “It’s only walking,” except that there’s a lot more to it than that. There’s feedback from accelerometers, gyros, motor resistance, imaging sensors, and extreme amounts of processing to turn it all into a fluid motion. “It’s only small talk…” “It’s only a gift…” “It’s only a friendship to keep…”
You are my favorite synth-philosopher! The release I felt when the finished song started - it was like all those words from before fell into place emotionally... And I think even Teenage Engineering didn't know it was possible to make music that slaps this much on the OP-1
New to your channel. No idea how I got here, but I am enraptured by your storytelling and format. Also very much digging the music you're making. Thank you for the reminder at the end 💛
OMG! around 10 years ago i first time knew about OP-1! and everybody think its just a toy. WTF this track amazing and level of big studio! mate thank u so much for your passion and videos!
Weirdly enough, I've been on a path of my own lately and discovered so much about myself. My whole life I've been questioning myself, facing existential crisis after an other for years and mostly doubting myself and my being/actions/choices. I indeed feel driven by the universe or whatever composes the present moment of my thinking/spirit, but passion and inspirations have been powerful forces in my life to go forward, giving me a vision of where I want to go, where I would be happy to go/be in my life. Like planting a flag of where and who I would like to be in the future. And I think free will is linked to love and acceptance of this love or attraction by the experience that we dare doing. To me, it's also linked to getting closer to that flag I planted, that future me that inspire me to be and "get better" according to me who I want to be and believe to be. So those new experiences ( the ones that take you out of your comfort zone ) always brings fear, hesitation and doubt which we have to face in order to attain something/what you want or would like. There's a form of "Trust yourself/your power so you can control it or you/where you're going". I do believe trusting is a big part of my plan, because if I don't believe in what I'm doing or what I'm going towards, what's the point of it ? So I decide to remain grateful to all these tribulations because they teach me so much and I'm trusting that they'll bring me somewhere greater so that I can help others. As an artist myself too, I do believe that helping others is what I want to do through my art and I do believe that you do too because you've always brought me happiness and inspiration ( and much more ) seeing your fingers deliver beautiful melodies and now seeing how your reflections are made to figure things out and try to go forward. Life is made of baby steps, and as uncomfortable and troublesome babysteps can be, I hope to wise up and "walk properly" in my own life, this one or the next one who knows, and maybe face/realize things I would've never thought doing or being capable of doing. ( and it's okay to fall from time to time, get up and keep growing up
I also think that our human side made us greater creators than animals in life, but we're very much like animals if not extensions of them... I see sharks, snakes, snails, birds, turtles,... in human beings sometimes... So I guess we're made to create, while making our path through this jungle, the human "nature" haha. ( and why not settle down sometimes ) Edit : You also just made me realise what everyone has always tried to say " Life is not about the arrival but the voyage, the travelling " and I gotta say, those 14 first minutes of your video, to me, are the greatest.
