Quadraginta by Fond Memory Vacation

The first album/release I've ever put out that was made in 24-bit lossless audio. Only the best of the best for my father.

As a lot of you know, my father passed away on October 26th, 2025. I've experienced grief over deaths in the family before, but nothing as close as this. My father passing away marked the first time I had ever been to a wake and a burial. It was a very surreal experience.

He was first hospitalized back in the beginning of September, and until his passing in the end of October, me and my family dealt with a clusterfuck of emotions. My father's health would either stabilize and/or make a grand recovery, only for something else to pop and throw off his entire recovery process. We dealt with that constant back and forth for the two months that he was hospitalized.

In his fleeting moments of consciousness, we'd tell him how much we loved him. We provided him with the emotional support and reassurance he needed. Due to his intubation/extubation, his speech was limited, but he spoke to us. He responded to us verbally and physically, he prayed with us...his personality was intact, which was beautiful to see. We made sure he knew that we loved him, and that we hadn't abandoned him, and he'd tell us that he loved us too. All of that fills me with so much calm, but also sadness cause of the fact that he's no longer here. It just seemed/seems unfair that the only way that he would get better and stop suffering was to leave us. I still have a hard time thinking about it.

I started working on this musical project back in September, when Dad was first hospitalized. I wanted to channel all the emotions I felt, because when I first visited him at the hospital, he was in really bad shape, and I became overwhelmed with emotion.

I didn't know what I wanted this project to be at the time. It went from being a single, to an EP with 4 tracks/songs, to it's current album form.
My influences ranged from:

- "Geogaddi" and "Music Has The Right To Children" by Boards Of Canada

- "Fatigue" EP by Zach Farache/Verzache

- "Endtroducing" by DJ Shadow

- "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" by Injury Reserve

- "A Moon Shaped Pool", "In Rainbows (1 & 2)", and "Kid A" by Radiohead (Maybe "Amnesiac", too)

- "Silent Hill (2 & 3)" Soundtracks by Akira Yamaoka

- "Blonde" by Frank Ocean (tangentially)

- "Solace" by Earl Sweatshirt (tangentially as well)

and so many more, but these are the main ones I remember.

The title of this album is the Latin word for the number "40"; the approximate amount of days my Dad was in the hospital. For those of you that grew up in the Christian and/or Catholic faith, you most likely recognize the number "40" as a recurring number in the Bible, such as the 40 years Moses and his people spent in the desert, or the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus Christ spent in the desert as well. In my understanding of having read and learned the scriptures, the number 40 isn't to be taken as a literal number or amount of time, but rather as a catch-all term to refer to a period of time of testing, trial, purification, and preparation. I liked the symbolic meaning, because I know that me and my family definitely had experienced some trials and tribulations during those (almost) 40 days my Dad was in the hospital before he departed this plane of existence.

RIP Mi Viejito.

Nihilistic and cynical, but still full of love.

All aspects of my music (writing, recording, instrumentation, production, vocals, mixing, mastering, graphic design) is all done by me unless otherwise stated.

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