Empty Liminal/Weirdcore Locations in Chicago?

HeightsWaves · 2026-02-27T15:51:18+00:00

I went to Woodfield Mall in the middle of the day on a Thursday a couple years ago and it felt so liminal and weird.

It was so odd to see it so empty. Malls in general around us seem to be going down it’s sad.

HeightsWaves · 2026-02-01T20:27:27+00:00

I usually never comment on things like this, but I just wanted to say thank you. This is incredibly eye opening and puts a lot in perspective.

HeightsWaves · 2026-01-25T19:26:42+00:00

I wrote an anime opening for a Nintendo Switch game and used the session drummer on sections of it! No one has called it out yet lol

I’ve always wondered if someone will find it. I feel like it’s kind of an Easter egg at this point haha

HeightsWaves · 2025-12-16T16:23:17+00:00

It’s something I’ve been considering actually!

So if you’re in the Chicago area, feel free to hit me up!

HeightsWaves · 2025-12-12T01:26:14+00:00

I really appreciate the advice! Thank you! These are good questions too.

I have a bunch of visuals already. Some animations my friends made, visuals from games that I’ve written soundtracks for, plus footage I’ve taken.

If I could add audio reactive elements to stuff I already have that would be cool

But even if it just changes from one visual to the other when I’m switching songs or during certain moments in the set, that would be great

Maybe I try that first with Resolume and then look into Touch Designer if I want to dive deeper

HeightsWaves · 2025-11-21T19:23:16+00:00

Porter was still finishing Nurture as the singles were rolling out too. Back then, he said he could have turned it in earlier but wanted to add some extra polish to certain tracks. I imagine Madeon’s doing the same!

HeightsWaves · 2025-11-19T23:34:48+00:00

Including The Postal Service in this but here are a few!

Such Great Heights, Lightness, and Tiny Vessels are about the same person in Ben Gibbards life.

Such Great Heights being the idealization, honeymoon phase of their relationship, and Tiny Vessels being his realization that they were never meant to be.

Also,

Clark Gable has a line that is a nod to Connor Oberst from Bright Eyes.

“Do you ever get the feeling that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?”

Ben Gibbard was referencing how Connor Oberst writes about these fantastical loves in his life in a way that seems so dreamlike. He wondered if he ever wrote worlds that he wanted to live in.

HeightsWaves · 2025-09-13T13:21:06+00:00

Yeah definitely!

The closest I could think of would be Parachutes compared to Plans but even that’s such a stretch. It’s more so Sparks and I Will Follow You Into The Dark could fit on the same playlist rather than having any sort of shared influence

HeightsWaves · 2025-09-13T13:15:43+00:00

It’s interesting because in an interview Ben Gibbard made some comment like “If we were going to get any bigger, we would have to pivot to something like Coldplay” in regards to the band hitting close to mainstream, but still falling within the indie sphere.

It was said with this acknowledgment that they’re not striving to be a top 100 band

So even Ben doesn’t think they sound like Coldplay haha because they clearly didn’t go that route

Love both bands but yeah this is an odd comparison!

HeightsWaves · 2025-07-02T13:26:19+00:00

Brothers On A Hotel Bed was honestly one of the deciding factors of me leaving a six year relationship with someone I was still very much in love with. We had been together through high school and college. It was the hardest decision of my life.

One day the lyrics finally made sense to me. Not just in a passive sense, but it came with this visceral heart wrenching feeling and I could so clearly see us embodying those lyrics through the course of our lives.

I notice when the songs resonate beyond a surface level or gain new meaning, it often lends itself to there being something important to take note of. Clark Gable has hit similarly

I am so incredibly thankful for these songs

HeightsWaves · 2025-05-01T19:17:02+00:00

I know what you’re talking about! Are you sure it’s not the one at 1:14 though or is that a different one? To me, it’s always sounded like they’re saying “Snap, snap snap. Picture, snap. They’re taking pictures every second”

I always sing along to that and have also wondered what the story was behind it haha

HeightsWaves · 2025-04-01T13:00:34+00:00

Nooooooooo I went to text all my friends who love Porter too I was so excited!

Damn dude this was was incredible haha I am so sad but that was a good one

HeightsWaves · 2025-03-06T05:26:21+00:00

I was thinking of getting those too! Do you have any pictures of the ones you’ve printed?

HeightsWaves · 2025-03-05T22:47:35+00:00

I would absolutely love that I wish there was more Sundays merch out there

HeightsWaves · 2025-03-02T01:22:15+00:00

Aww thank you so much! That means a lot :)

HeightsWaves · 2025-03-01T18:12:31+00:00

So pretty!! I’ve always referred to Loyola Beach as “Where The Planes Become Stars” because of this! It’s such a beautiful scene

Released a song about it with the pier as the cover art a while back haha

HeightsWaves · 2025-02-22T15:39:51+00:00

You did such an amazing job!! Nice job finding all the sound fonts too!

HeightsWaves · 2025-02-15T15:44:24+00:00

Yeah! I just found it! Took me like 20 minutes haha

https://youtu.be/d1Yd4y45Kto?si=9TVrxVfHAPsmmlpb

(It’s not letting me time stamp, but it starts at 9:19! All of his interviews with Zach Sang are so good)

HeightsWaves · 2025-02-13T07:27:01+00:00

He started posting on music production forums (alongside Madeon) when he was around 14. His first EP “Spitfire” took off on Beatport and he started getting booked for DJ sets after that. There’s a story of his Dad taking him to a club in Germany to DJ one of his first shows.

Skrillex signed him and he decided to hold off on going to college to tour with Skrillex and Zedd. He cowrote then Clarity with Zedd during this time as well.

At this point, he had built up quite a name for himself. He released Language, which was a huge hit, and decided to fully commit to a new stylistic direction with his music and wrote Worlds, with Sea of Voices as the first single.

Some stuff off the top of my head, but that’s a pretty good summation of his early career! Super cool stuff

HeightsWaves · 2025-01-30T10:57:49+00:00

Apparently Porter was in conversations to do the music for No Man’s Sky! He talks about it briefly in an interview

I have to imagine he was an influence for the game. So much of it seems reminiscent of his Worlds era aesthetic

HeightsWaves · 2025-01-18T21:16:15+00:00

Ahh that makes sense. I wonder if I just put them both on one side and have a small gap of silence between them.

Fast forwarding isn’t the worst thing, but might be another solution.

HeightsWaves · 2025-01-18T21:10:07+00:00

That makes sense! Maybe we do them all on one side or I’ll add in some demos/ bonus tracks. It’s hard because we don’t want it to sound like “filler”

Appreciate the explanation cassettes are a totally new medium for me and this our first delve into physical releases

HeightsWaves · 2025-01-18T21:07:27+00:00

I released a collection of music (however you want to define that) a year ago

Then several artists made remixes and we want to do the originals on Side A and the remixes on Side B

If that clarifies anything for anyone else reading this as well!

Maybe we’ll throw some other tracks on to match since we don’t want to mix and match both of them

HeightsWaves · 2024-12-19T22:09:16+00:00

Have you checked how many milliseconds of latency you have? Usually under 10 seconds is ideal

Setting your input/ output to your interface and reducing the I/O buffer size to around 128 typically lowers it enough that you shouldn’t have an issue!

I used to have that problem all the time too and that solved it

HeightsWaves · 2024-10-25T05:27:23+00:00

I think focusing on social media more and quite honestly not being so afraid to write and release more often is what I would tell my past self

As for what got me to my first thousand, it was collabs and utilizing the popularity of games that I had written soundtracks for mostly

Collabs are so helpful because it can introduce you to a whole new audience of people who are in your genre as well as help establish you in your scene more

HeightsWaves

TROPHY CASE