Ever So Slightly

I have a tendency to spend a long time on an album, release it, and then go silent. The endless grind of distilling months—even years—of work into short-form videos is really unappealing to me. In March, I dropped Ever So Slightly, an album I spent two years producing, writing, and recording. I wanted to introduce it at more length.

At age 25, I found out I had autism. It wasn’t the most surprising thing ever. I had already been in therapy for about 6 years at that point, dealing with severe social anxiety and long bouts of depression. Among those who knew me closely, I had a reputation of being very quiet, serious, and obsessively habitual. My loved ones occasionally joked that I was probably autistic, but I never really treated it very seriously.

And still, it’s not anything grave. Serious, maybe, but it was not an earth-shattering revelation. It was just a label to explain things I’ve felt my entire life. Growing up, I turned so much blame and rage inward, as I felt simply incapable of functioning in certain social situations. A new label—autism—helped explain certain behaviors, and alleviate some of that blame and rage I’ve carried into adulthood.

25 years of lies, my head is messed up

I wasn’t really growing up, I was just waiting until death comes

Living every day deathly afraid of how pathetic I would end up

Couldn’t ever really get up; always caught by the fears that I fled from

I always felt off ever so slightly. I spent this album reflecting on those moments throughout my life and trying to reframe them. Instead of seeing myself as someone incapable of fitting in the world properly, maybe I could view myself as a challenge to the world as is. I’ve spent a lot of life being guarded; my quietness was a defense mechanism to hide unique parts of myself I truly thought would disgust others. Making Ever So Slightly, I wanted to share them instead.

Enjoy.

—DEADPAN ⚔️