Welcome to the Elazion Weekly blog, I am happy you are here!

My mission with this newsletter is to have a space where I can write a little bit deeper than I can on social media.

Recently my song Even was deleted off of Spotify for nearly 2 weeks, wiping 800k+ streams off of my catalog, and taking me from 180k monthly listeners down to 60k.

I was super disappointed this happened, and it has actually happened before to the same song! Luckily the label was able to get it back the first time and all of the streams were still there. This time I’m not so sure.

The last year has been one of the best years of my life. From adventures to the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Zion, the Oregon coast, Mojave Desert, to amazing concerts like Odesza at the Gorge, Shambhala, Swedish House Mafia, John Summit, Hans Zimmer, and Taylor Swift, to finding out I am going to have a daughter in February… It was a hell of a ride!

On a Psychological level though, the art of Alchemy is starting with our bad habits, character flaws, and shadow contents, and turning them into gold, or turning them into positive traits that are channeled into healthy directions.

Heraclitus had a saying that I think about often, “No man jumps in the same river twice, for he is not the same man, and it is not the same river.”

Lately I have been really enjoying playing some of my hardware synths. I upgraded one of them from a Moog Minitaur, to a Moog Subsequent 25, and I have sold a couple of the others. The more I learn sound design and synthesis, the more fun I have using my hardware synths.

All of the exploring was really fun, but the major thing that happened that day was that I found out I’m going to have a daughter.

There is an old symbol from medieval alchemy that is strangely similar to something in Harry Potter, and that is the Golden Snitch

Life has been a wild ride for me this summer! So many amazing things have happened, and it just feels like they keep getting better. I find that things happen and I have a tendency to just keep moving, but upon looking back it’s crazy to see how much has been accomplished!

Recently I was nominated for Electronic Artist of the Year at the Fraser Valley Music Awards for the second time and this time I won!

This honestly took me by surprise, but I am very grateful that they liked the music I put out this year, and thankful to the people who voted for me! It’s an honour to be recognized as the Electronic Artist of the Year in my hometown!

In the past week I had 9 songs get picked up by 4 different music libraries, one song got added to 3 different libraries! I am stoked to see where some of these songs end up! Some of these libraries have had placements on EA Sports, The Olympics, Capital One, Klarna, ABC, NBC, MTV, and many more.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how many creative people I know who have struggled with self-doubt. Some have learned to push through it and become a force to be reckoned with, while others have let it erode their self-image from inside and withered away the spark that once lit them up.

My new single ‘Sanctuary’ is out now on Enormous Vision!

What you most want to find will be found where you least want to look

The last few weeks I have been practicing piano a lot through the app Pianote. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically an online course that teaches you piano from real teachers, with lessons and exercises that are engaging and kind of addicting to be honest.

I just recently got back from a 10 day road trip across the United States, going through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and California. My wife and I built a bed in the back of my jeep and hit the road to Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Sedona, the Mojave Desert and many more awesome spots! I really wanted to write about my experience on this trip, so this one will be a bit of a longer one, but it will have lots of pictures!

My new single “Even” is out now on the amazing Loud Deep, the Deep House imprint of Loud Memory, and it is quickly taking off on Spotify already!

This song started when I hit up Sam Welch to see if he had any inspiring acapella’s around. He sent me a few ideas and I really loved this one, I knew I could write something really dope to it.

“Take education. What a hoax. As a child, you are sent to nursery school. In nursery school, they say you are getting ready to go to kindergarten. And then first grade is coming up and second grade and third grade… In high school, they tell you you’re getting ready for college. And in college you’re getting ready to go out into the business world… People are like donkeys running after carrots that are hanging in front of their faces from sticks attached to their own collars. They are never here. They never get there. They are never alive.” - Alan Watts

This week I had the inspiration to research my family history online and see how far back I could trace my name, and where the name comes from. There is a cool website called www.houseofnames.com where you can look up the history of your family, which country it originates from, details on your coat of arms, early settlers to America and so much more.

Lately I have been pretty busy with work, music projects, and training jiu-jitsu and I’ve been thinking about how I manage my time without getting burned out. Over the years I have burned out countless times and end up having to take breaks to recharge, sometimes even for a month or two.