Hey everyone. Thanks for checking in! It’s been a wild couple of weeks here. My mental state is up and down, but I expect it now and it’s easier to manage, though still as exhausting. I’ve written a couple of new pieces, mostly just some improvs and idea sketches, but I do have a piano sketch on Soundcloud I want to share. It’s just over a minute, but helped me deal with the cold and reconnection to myself.

My music is doing pretty well, actually. I’ve been trying to promote myself as much as my cognitive state allows. Some of my songs have been making traction on playlists and through social networks, which is awesome, and there is a solid group of folks who are listening and supporting each other. It means a lot, really, especially now.

I’m turning 50 in just over a week, and I started off this run at life thinking I’d be a musician of some kind. Either saxophone and jazz, or guitar and folk/rock, or synths and techno: they were all on the table for me growing up, and each one was cordoned off and nipped just after budding, which is far worse than the cliché version. I won’t go into the details, but by the time I was 19/20, I had lost myself to a patriarchal-capitalist mindset and fell into a blackhole inside myself.

So why I am I sharing all of this? Because I needed someone to share this with me back in the late 90s and early 2000’s when I was trying to reclaim myself. Instead, I fell further and further away from what has always — or at least since I was 16 — been a core spiritual truth.

It was like watching someone else act out my life against my will in ways I was barely present for. I understand why, now, and I can see that period clearly, if painfully. But it was 28 years of confusion and dissociative behaviors before I could recover. And that was through a lot of letting go, help from Danielle to the point of personal shame and working through that, and working with plant medicine. I’m just beginning to come back to myself. Now I’m figuring out what that means, how to exist as the person I actually am, and what it looks like to build a life from here forward. And for what it’s worth, there’s no schedule. It’s just doing the best I can with what the day gives me.

My music is always part of that reclamation and redefinition process, which is why I’m so glad it’s being heard and shared. I like to think that somehow my experience will resonate and help someone who’s on the edge or outskirts of something similar. I’m blessed to have the love and help I have in my life.

The playlists below are an example of that. The curators are people who reach out to independent musicians, so drop in on some of these and hear what people are making outside of the pop culture spheres we’re wrapped up in. There’s some good stuff here!

I want to specifically call out the write-up that Digital Wax Media gave me. It’s better than I’ve been describing my music myself.

A versatile artist who works in an array of styles, Sabin encapsulates his own personal experiences in an arena of sound. The results are raw and fluid, with seemingly disparate instrumentation coalescing to create seldom before seen musical colors which serve as a vehicle for the artist’s songwriting. Sabin’s work is available on major streaming platforms.

And that’s that! I’m still trying to get myself to the point where I can perform live: I’ve got a few songs from the album ready, and some local open mics to check out (98 Mill St, and Moog’s Joint), but burnout and PTSD are so real … Until I can invite you out to hear me, I invite you to stay in. Take a listen to some of mine and others’ songs, either from the list above, or anywhere you can grab music. This link will take you to a list where you can choose how to listen to my album.

Thanks for taking the time to read and drop in on what I’m up to. I always appreciate it.

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