By RJR standards, it's been an eternity since anything substantial — which in my view does not include Album Singles; those are merely promotional material that become irrelevant as soon as their home album comes out — officially released. If you've read my prior statement on the matter of future plans, this shouldn't come as a surprise, but still, I'd like to provide something more tangible in the way of Proof That Progress Is Being Made. And that's where this 'newsletter' series comes in!! Ideally, these will be published to the blog on a roughly quarterly basis, summarizing whatever I've been up to in whatever artforms have been most relevant to the quarter in question, items listed roughly in order of intended priority (which as we all know does not necessarily translate to practiced priority given my ADHD but is probably worth noting nonetheless.) This time around, that pretty much exclusively entails MUSIC and WRITING, though as an introductory bonus I'll also throw in a little update on the FILM side of things.
MUSIC
So far, music has been a fair bit less of a focus for me this year, both as a matter of putting nonessential side-projects on hold to make room for more urgent matters (AKA 'Alias Hiatus Mode') and generally slowing everything down by a reasonable amount to restore my sanity. March through May in particular saw a pretty significant dip in musical activity even when accounting for those factors though, thanks to a combination of WRITING FIXATIONS & GETTING A COLD IN APRIL WHICH TOOK LIKE 2 FUCKING WEEKS TO MOSTLY GO AWAY AND THEN ANOTHER WEEK FOR THE COUGH TO GO AWAY. Thankfully, over the last month-ish, I've definitely felt the auditory impulses returning, still sporadic in focus as ever, but undoubtedly Getting Shit Done in a way that is actually gratifying and not emotionally exhausting. I've rediscovered the indescribable joy of coming up with that perfect sound exactly like the one I had in my head, crucially remembering "oh yeah, I'm pretty much capable of producing literally anything at this point." This is how making music was meant to feel.
Anyway, here are the albums I've made a nontrivial amount of progress on this quarter.
That's probably the next LP, and theoretically should be my Main Musical Priority.
TRACKS OFFICIALLY NO-ASTERISKS COMPLETE:
3, two of which have been released as singles
TRACKS CONSIDERED COMPLETE AT ONE POINT BUT IN HINDSIGHT I'D LIKE TO REWRITE SOME OF THE LYRICS:
1
TRACKS WITH COMPLETE OR NEAR-COMPLETE INSTRUMENTALS BUT PENDING LYRICS/VOCAlS:
4, one of which is especially close to the overall finish line
TRACKS THAT ARE JUST STRAIGHT-UP UNFINISHED ON ALL FRONTS:
2, one of which should be the easiest of the whole bunch
ONE WORD OR PHRASE OR SENTENCE I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE ALBUM:
guys u do realize there's more 2000s indie sounds worth reimagining than just the "sleaze" ones right
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
65-70something%? There's really not that much left to be done; it's just a matter of sporadic motivation & having numerous simultaneous ambitions elsewhere. Everything comes together eventually. It'll most likely appear before Summer™ officially ends, at least, although I wouldn't mind if it ended up being in Autumn because that would be funny and also kind of thematically resonant on a metatextual level anyway.
Probably next in line after Reconstructing Summer. Began production April of 2025. It has a real title — as do all of these 'codenamed' projects — I'm just using their shorthand internal file names to maintain an air of mystery.
TRACKS OFFICIALLY NO-ASTERISKS COMPLETE:
56
TRACKS CONSIDERED COMPLETE AT ONE POINT BUT IN HINDSIGHT I'D LIKE TO REWRITE SOME OF THE LYRICS:
1
TRACKS THAT ARE JUST STRAIGHT-UP UNFINISHED ON ALL FRONTS:
30
ONE WORD OR PHRASE OR SENTENCE I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE ALBUM:
i am alive and do not live; i go everywhere and end up nowhere
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
65.51724137931%. And that's exact.
Probably next in line after [CODENAME: "FLAKE"] but we're reeeeeaally getting into speculative territory by that point. Remember, I officially did away with the whole Exact Predetermined Release Order thing like a year ago. This one began production October of 2024. It's a big one. Could break my personal record for highest-effort album to date, but then that record will probably be immediately broken again by the next album I'm about to talk about.
TRACKS WITH COMPLETE OR NEAR-COMPLETE INSTRUMENTALS BUT PENDING LYRICS/VOCAlS:
1, which will hopefully be released as a single by the end of this year?! Roughly one sixth of the lyrics/vocals have already been implemented.
TRACKS THAT ARE JUST STRAIGHT-UP UNFINISHED ON ALL FRONTS:
6
ONE WORD OR PHRASE OR SENTENCE I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE ALBUM:
storytelling NOT strictly autobiographical, for once
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
20% or so?
Maybe next in line after [CODENAME: "Wolves"] but again we're in super speculative territory here; it would probably be wisest to release some not-so-difficult-to-make albums between these instead. This one also began production in October of 2024, and will also probably break the record for my highest-effort album to date.
TRACKS THAT ARE JUST STRAIGHT-UP UNFINISHED ON ALL FRONTS:
7, but one of them (the opening track) has like 15 minutes' worth of pretty-much-complete instrumental material; it's just not quite enough to qualify as a "near-complete" instrumental yet. I would also love for this track to release as a single by the end of this year, but that's far more of a pipe dream than the [CODENAME: "Wolves"] single; realistically, we're looking at like, Q1-Q2 2027 or some shit. Beyond that, what tangibly exists of the album is reeeally scattered initial sketches of concepts of plans. The vision is totally there, but it's still got a pretty long way to go before entering reality.
ONE WORD OR PHRASE OR SENTENCE I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE ALBUM:
ANIME IS REAL
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
12% or so?
I think this one could realistically come out before [CODENAME: "Recur"] by virtue of not demanding quite as much of me, despite being somewhat lower priority in my mind. Began production September of 2024.
TRACKS WITH COMPLETE OR NEAR-COMPLETE INSTRUMENTALS BUT PENDING LYRICS/VOCAlS:
1, which has 8 minutes of complete instrumental and a decent amount of lyrics written and will probably be the single (perhaps even by the end of this year but we'll see.)
TRACKS THAT ARE JUST STRAIGHT-UP UNFINISHED ON ALL FRONTS:
6, one of which has a more-or-less-fully-produced first buildup & hook amounting to about 3 minutes.
ONE WORD OR PHRASE OR SENTENCE I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE ALBUM:
Absolute
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
15% or so?
WRITING
There's been a lot of it lately, albeit mostly in a literary context, AKA the logical conclusion of writing numerous songs with essay-length lyrics. There are so many words and they all need a home!! Here are the writing projects of note for this quarter.
I haven't gotten nearly as much of this script written since that initial burst of renewed motivation back in March as I would've liked, but oh well. It'll come back to me when it comes back to me. At least my March self gave my future self one hell of a substantial foundation to build upon, with 5 complete parts of Act 1 amounting to an estimated 1 hour and 45 minutes of video runtime. (Keyword being estimated; I obviously haven't recorded/edited anywhere near that much of it yet.)
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
Who Fucking Knows
Let's address the Debut Novel that I've only twice acknowledged. You've caught me at a weird time with this; the thing is, what I previously referred to as "Aspenhaps" might actually become part of "Nonerusted" (a simultaneously-in-development 'Post-Truth Absurdist Dystopian Comedy' novel I've never publicly spoken of until now.) Or if they aren't literally combined, then they'll at least release simultaneously as companion pieces of sorts. But I do think it would be wonderful if they could merge into an even greater clusterfuck. The "Aspenhaps" side of things currently boasts around 91,000 words, and the "Nonerusted" side of things currently boasts around 20,000 words.
I've got a special surprise for you though!! Available for download here is a SECTION 1 [as of JUNE 2026] DEMO of Nonerusted containing the first 26 pages in their entirety. Seeing as this is a "DEMO", do understand that small details may still be subject to change, and small errors may have slipped through the cracks in this version. But most importantly: please do not read any of this novel if you're the kind of person who requires big red flashing fourth-wall-breaking text stating "THIS IS BAD" every single time something immoral is depicted in satirical fiction. Like, there's an in-universe r-slur drop on the very first page. Don't say I didn't warn you.
ONE WORD OR PHRASE OR SENTENCE I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE NOVEL(S?):
EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE!
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
Who Fucking Knows
FILM
Barely been a thing this quarter besides jotting down additional ideas for my next film, which I will speak vaguely of below.
This is definitely gonna take a whiiiiiiiile. But I feel incredibly lucky that my current 'dream film' so to speak is pretty much entirely feasible even with the DIY resources currently available to me. I think I've really found my footing in a particular cinematic language that somehow feels like more of a technical wonder than it actually is, sort of bruteforcing a warped appearance of higher-budget ambitions through clever employment of widely-overlooked tools & sheer multimedia eclecticism. It's hard to explain, but I'm very happy with how things are going here, and greatly look forward to sharing the next step in my filmic journey in like 2029 or whenever the fuck. Also it's probably gonna be over 4 hours long, because of course it is.
ONE WORD OR PHRASE OR SENTENCE I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE THE FILM:
The Existential Threat of Division
OVERALL COMPLETION STATUS:
Who Fucking Knows
CONCLUSION
That's all for now! See you next quarter. Or next album, if Reconstructing Summer happens to drop prior to the next newsletter. We'll see what happens. Everything Is Always Coming Together.
(wait goddamn it i forgot to mention in the WRITING section that there's a whole new page in the blog directory of my site called "the roxy reality" so go to the blog homepage to read more about it or click here to just rawdog it with no explanation i guess [all you really need to know is it's a super duper casual barely-formatted sub-blog where imperfection is to be expected])