Violent Lives by Nikolas Kozik

this album was written near the end of 2020 and in to the beginning of 2021, through the large majority of my sixteenth year. everything here was recorded primarily using guitars and a piano. all instruments were heavily processed through the destructive and looping chaos of tape machines.

much of this was written out of a need to translate the disorder around me, a consistently irrational chaos, in to something tangible that could represent it. a summation and a closure. this past year has been the most difficult in my entire life, and has rendered me despondent and unstable. i deeply resent the inactivity i've been immersed in daily. the witnessing of unsupported structures collapsing and my inability to do anything about it. disengaged systems and sputtering networks. my life has been reduced to something synonymous with the stucco drywall i spend hour after hour blankly staring at.

by the end of recording this album i could barely bring myself to listen to it. writing songs took weeks -- only for me to despise the end result. i still echo such a sentiment to a degree. i hope that's just a result of being too critical and over-listening. so be it. i want nothing more than to bring joy and fulfillment to others with my work, and if that goal is achieved, then this catharsis will have been more than worth it. this entire album is a reflection of a very vulnerable person. thank you for listening.
________________________________________________________

in memory of richard and christa kozik, as well as the tens of thousands who've taken their own lives in the past year