FAINT WAVES

I’ve been looking for the light (heading for the light if you’re a Traveling Wilburys fan), and I’ll be honest, it’s been few and far between at times, both last year and this year. I am happy to say that this year has turned out better than last; a lot of that hardship has slowly subsided and I’ve gotten on with my life, even enjoyed a bit of it here and there. Unfortunately, what I’ve been through has taken an exhaustive toll that’s been hard to come back from. I’ve found myself extremely fatigued, burnt out, and just tired. Last year, I dealt with a lot of personal hardship, the loss of a relationship, and the heartbreak and grief that comes with that. In that time, I poured myself into music as much as possible and celebrated 10 years of Faint Waves, while simultaneously working multiple different jobs at different times. That carried over into this year, 2025, as I fought to find equilibrium. Without getting into the weeds of my personal life and health, I’ve struggled with mental health and mood imbalance for as long as I can remember. Needless to say, equilibrium has never come easy to me, even less so when my life is turbulent like it was in 2024. 

I ended up maintaining a couple of those jobs I mentioned and that kept me afloat while I tried to get back to “good” in 2025 (whatever that looked like). Sadly, that was no easy road itself. I put my best foot forward but was met with my usual struggles and another bout of grief, this time when my cat of 11 years passed away suddenly in May. He was my best friend and I loved him dearly, he helped me through the darkest and most harrowing points of my life. He did more for me than he ever could’ve known. It’s been strange navigating life without him, I think about him every day, and I miss him dearly. He held such a presence in my heart and my life, that his sudden absence has left an enormous and irreparable hole. I’ve done what I can to accept it and keep living my life, but I think it took a lot out of me at a time when I was already running on empty. I tried to press on with music but eventually, it wasn’t a sustainable outlet. In using it as a means of emotional survival, I think I just further drained the well. That’s where I’ve been for a while. Despite some emotional recovery and returning to some semblance of normalcy, I think it’s all left me in a lasting state of exhaustion. I’ve leaned on friends on and off in this time and when I’ve opened up to them, I’ve described it just how I’ve described it to you; I’m tired, extremely tired, more depleted than I’ve ever been. 

That fatigue culminated in my abandonment of social media. My personal hardship, my discontent with the modern world, the digital noise, the dissonance of the time we live in, nearly all humanity screaming into the online void at once, and the pervasive artificial intelligence invading every little nook and cranny. It proved too much for me and I broke, something had to give. It was a long time coming. It was no one thing, just a little bit of everything. I just needed to be free of it. For how long? I don’t know. All I know is I can’t deal with it. Not now and not for the foreseeable future. Any majesty or usefulness the internet had, it’s diminishing if not gone entirely. It’s in the throes of death, as far as I’m concerned. I’m using this website, my Bandcamp emails/community messages, and my YouTube uploads. That’s all right now. I still have a Facebook account, but I currently only use it to keep the Faint Waves page alive (this site posts to it automatically). In relinquishing these tethers, all that’s left is what brought me here: the music. For now, I have ideas and things that have been in the works for a while, but I’m not interested in brute forcing them into the world at this point. If something materializes organically, so be it, but it’s not a priority for me. I am simply trying to exist and rest, in hopes that I can heal, because I believe my spirit has been broken. That sounds dire but like I said, it’s not any one thing, it’s a little bit of everything that’s gotten me here and I’m optimistic I can recover. To paraphrase an old proverb that I first heard in a Michael J. Fox interview; I’m not asking for a lighter load, I’m just asking for broader shoulders.

Now, in the immortal words of Mötley Crüe, on with the show.

FAINT WAVES IN 2025

You might recall my optimistic threats of doing it as big or bigger than I did in 2024, naturally, those didn’t come to pass in 2025. Even so, I managed to get a little bit of music out there and I’ll kind of run through all of the releases for you. Chances are, there will be a few you knew nothing about (or even all of them you knew nothing about), that’s just the way things go these days in the post-internet, perpetual information overload we live in. I’d argue we’ve even hit “post-music” at this point, given that what used to be a year’s worth of music is now produced and released pretty much every hour of every day. That sort of saturation, well it’s easy to become disenchanted with the whole thing frankly, both as a listener and as a creator. Nevertheless, I still found music fulfilling for the most part this year, what I did manage to produce and release (and listen to). As I’ve mentioned before, it’s always been a balancing act and I’m not sure which side of the see-saw I’ve ended up on, but it’s an altogether different one than last year. I could never fully abandon any creative endeavor but as I said, I’m very tired, and I think my output sort of reflects that. As always, I just went where the music took me, even if it took me fewer places than usual.

The first outing was my impromptu, unauthorized tribute to David Lynch and his collaborators, Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise: The Big Dream. An unplanned release that came together shortly after the passing of David Lynch; The Big Dream was named after a David Lynch album and featured songs derivative of and inspired by Twin Peaks and Julee Cruise’s first two records. It’s free on Bandcamp and I produced a few tapes of it as a novelty as well. It was a fun little thing to produce and paying homage to three people who have inspired me so much, three people who are no longer with us, it was a cathartic challenge for sure. The next couple releases were on my label, A2K Recordings. The label launched with a debut single by Cut-Up, Big Beat act, Cut N’ Dry and a new DnB single from me under my Unlimited Oceans moniker. That’s all I’ve released on A2K at this time, but I’m hopeful to have a little something more there in 2026, we’ll see. After that, I had a deluxe version of my 2024 Unlimited Oceans EP, True Faith, come out on tape through Takeki Tower. It featured new masters and an all-new bonus track. Next up was Amore Mio Dolce, which came in two iterations, an A-Side/B-Side single and an expanded EP, because I simply couldn’t resist occupying that sonic world for a little while longer. Amore Mio Dolce was a slice of languid disco informed by soundtracks, library music, and Mediterranean Disco/Funk new and old.

Next came a trilogy of one-off singles that actually had their origins in years past, what I termed “Lost Waves”, these were unreleased tunes that had more or less just been sitting complete for over a couple years now. Lost Waves, No. 1 was “Fireflies”, a Fleetwood Mac homage informed by Mirage and Tango In The Night. The guitar-centric song took shape between late 2022 and early 2023 during the sessions for a full-length album that would never materialize: One True World. Fireflies was an outlier that never fit any version of the album, nor any particular single or EP, and thus remained unreleased. Lost Waves, No. 2 was “Acid Blue”, it came from those same sessions I mentioned and was complete by mid-2023. It really didn’t fit anywhere and came about at a time where I was listening to a lot of Chillout and Trip-Hop. Acid Blue originally had a different title, but due to the prominent TB-303 in the song, I re-titled it for release. Last was Lost Waves, No. 3, “Velvet Star”. “Velvet Star” began life in 2023 as a remix for a completely different unreleased tune, that will remain unreleased, called “Best Friends”. That song was was inspired by Fatboy Slim, Groove Armada, and The Wiseguys. It was piano-centric and in the background, featured audio of me and my friends taken from various hangouts and parties that took place close to a decade ago now. When I was working on the maxi-single for Best Friends, I wanted to do a remix that was informed by Air’s Moon Safari. It became so different from a melodic standpoint, very little of the original track was left, so it spun off into its own song: Velvet Star.

After those tunes came my long-awaited reunion with the Eclectics label: Bird Of Paradise. It was my first appearance on the label since 2019 and first original material for the label since 2018. Bird Of Paradise was a maxi-single produced for the label featuring two new songs and two mixes. The tunes themselves were sort of tropical, Exotica-tinged Synthpop joints. The mixes were more Chillout oriented and took inspiration from Yello and Dancing Fantasy. I enjoyed making those tunes, they’re very “classic” Faint Waves, in my opinion. Last but not least was Another Sunset ’25, my long talked about reissue of my 2020 single, Another Sunset. Back in 2020, I released the original Another Sunset, my homage and tribute to José Padilla; José sadly passed away October 18th, 2020. Five years later, I wanted to revisit Another Sunset for its anniversary. It had to matter though, it had to be a worthwhile exercise, so I made new artwork and produced an all-new, all-different take on the titular song (it’s better in every conceivable way in my opinion). In addition to the newly produced “Another Sunset ’25” are the original tune, the cabana edit, and the wonderful James Bright remix (each newly mastered). As was the case 5 years ago, it’s impossible to encapsulate or truly pay tribute to the entirety of José Padilla with a single release, but I really wanted to reflect and distill a few of the varying elements, sounds, and colors present in José’s own music and his mix selections. Another Sunset ’25 is my final release of the year.

Reflecting on it now, it’s still a fairly active year, even prolific by some standards. Even so, not quite to the level of last year maybe. However, despite this, I’m happy to report that Faint Waves had it’s biggest streaming year of all-time in 2025. On Spotify alone: 61,500+ listeners, 176,000+ streams, in 155 countries. As I’ve said before, this may pale in comparison to some, but it’s a bit hard to fathom for me. I’m not a big numbers person but to see those, it’s truly surreal and I appreciate anyone and everyone who took the time to listen, whoever you are, and wherever you are: thank you. It’s unfortunate that Spotify, among others, have shown themselves to be woefully corrupt and anti-art. They are a grotesque and inescapable goliath in the industry and while I love that people are listening, I wish these numbers came from a better run platform. An inconvenient truth is that being a musician (or even being online at all) is an exercise in constant compromise, Spotify is one of the biggest compromises musicians are making today (both financially and ethically). So, again, thank you. I appreciate it. If you wish to support me or other artists, I invite you to support as directly as possible. Reach out to them, find their Bandcamp, buy direct, just do literally anything else. Spotify is not operating in the interest of you (the listener) nor us (the artist). If you don’t care about that, there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. All I can say is that Spotify is advocating for a future where art and artists are wholly disposable, they’re taking steps to usher in a world without artists, and that’s not a world you want to live in. I promise. That’s all the soapbox you’ll be getting from me. Thank you again for listening.

WHAT COMES NEXT

This is where it gets hazy for me. Contrary to years past, I don’t know where we go from here. I can’t commit to anything with any great certainty, I can only speculate and hope that some things come to fruition. This year, you might recall I started dabbling in prints, which was a lot of fun. That’s slowed down but it is something I’d like to continue fiddling with in 2026, time permitting. Music-wise, as I’ve said in the recent past, I hope to have something completely new for you soon. As I’ve said in this writing though too, I’m not going to force it or push something out because I feel obligated to. I’m taking it easy (handling myself with care even), if something comes, it comes. There have been a few ideas and projects floating around for Faint Waves and Unlimited Oceans that could come together. On the FW side; I did send some things through to Personal System for a collaboration on his next outing, which sounds lovely from everything I’ve heard, that will probably come out in 2026. I’d also like to get something more up on A2K, like I mentioned earlier in this writing. This site will obviously remain active, sites like my own (as in, small-time sites run by real people, with no outside interference of any kind) are some of the only websites worth visiting. I do hope to write more when I can. I managed to write a few articles and a handful of reviews this year and I’d like to get a few more up soon. That pretty well sums it up, sorry I don’t have anything more concrete for you. I’m playing it by ear. I do want to say, dour as this writing may seem in places, I am doing better than I have been. It’s a strange time, it’s a strange world, and there are things we can’t control and cannot change, but there is light and if you fight for it and really search, you will find it. It won’t look the same for everyone, but we all find it the same way. It will be through (real) connection, kindness, love, and temperance. Let these things be your guide, do it with heart, and you’ll find you had most of the answers all along.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year from Faint Waves. See you soon.

~ FW.