101 Rooms by bvdub | Brock Van Wey

As an avid (see: addicted) reader, vast swaths of my life and psyche are formed, guided, and influenced by books. With Wrath and Apathy I addressed this directly for the second time... this album was actually the first.

Made over four years ago, it is my interpretation of, and reflection on, the leviathan that is George Orwell's 1984 - though from a different perspective than you might expect.

Like so many others, after reading it in high school I relegated it to that unfortunate classification of “books you have to read in high school,” and never thought of it much again. Decades later, for some reason, I picked it up for the second time. And realized, all too quickly, why it sits where it does in the annals of history... and why it will always feel like it could have been written yesterday – as much a portent of doom for life in the machine as it is a reflection of the unconquerable might of the human spirit.

For a good four years this album has lain dormant in my archives, over time sent to numerous labels, being met with either disparaging remarks or calls to alter its contents – the first of which I've never listened to, and the second of which I have never done. As always, others' lack of love only fueled my own, and I've never stopped loving this album. I never knew what I would do with it or when, nor, when I made it, the world of years that followed would grow exponentially closer to that of Orwell's prophetic vision. Perhaps it is also strangely fitting to that all the original project data was destroyed on a drive that didn't survive moves across three dystopias, and that these audio files in their unchangeable form are all that remain.

I chose now to let it see the light not because I want to make any kind of statement on our current state of affairs – I think we've all done that enough – but rather in the hopes that its reflections on the world and our lives in it can, conversely, bring a note of solace in even a minor way... whether that manifests as inspiration, reflection, distraction, or anything in-between – not just “now” but always.

In other hopes of bringing a bit of beauty to a dark year, the first $365 from this album will be directly donated to Charity:Water, a foundation that uses literally 100% of all donations in the field to bring clean water to the 800 million people in the world who have none. We'll even be able to track exactly where our money went, and who it's helping. So when the rest of the internet beats you down as always, you can always go there to realize something good is happening somewhere. And hopefully, in some small way, the same can happen when you hit play on this long-forgotten journey...

* This album will only be available direct through Bandcamp, and will not appear on any streaming services.

I make music about my life. I make music about life. I make music for life.

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