Borrowed Light

✦ The arc

This is water

Borrowed Light is an EP being built in the open, released one piece at a time. Every song on it is water: a river you stop fighting, a rip current you swim sideways out of, the open sea talking to itself. And over all of it, borrowed light: the moon has no light of its own, and neither does anything else here. Same low root, different neon sky.

Downstream. The river. Meditation as dropping the charges against yourself. "Put it on a leaf and let it go / River do the work, I do the flow." Boom-bap head-nod with glitch punctuation.

The Light seeds. One solo piano composition, refracted four ways: two orchestral seeds (Blinding Light, instrumental, and Borrowed Light sung), then the sung seed reworked half-time and through psytrance breaks. Each take sings its own subtle variant of the same prayer: "Half a step from home... hollow and whole."

Past the Break, twice. The rip current from both sides. His exit: "You don't beat the pull by pulling against it... Sideways. Parallel to the coast." Then her interior, fast: "If I don't know what you'd do without me, that is control."

Knives and Psalms. The reckoning between them. In the works.

Neptune's Narcissism. The bonus and the nautical callback, from the back catalog: the open sea as "a cracked mirror, spittin' saltwater sermons."

✦ Tracklist ✦ listen + read

The tracks so far

Grouped by song; final sequence still settling. Eight new tracks, plus a bonus. Click a track to hear it and read the words.

Yeah... my therapist asked me where the anger goes
I said watch the water

Put it on a leaf and let it go (let it go)
River do the work, I do the flow (I do the flow)
I'll let the rest run downstream (downstream)
Time changes all that you dream (all that you dream)
Sit still, run deep, run clean (run clean)

Told my therapist Tuesday, half of this is residue
Thoughts like leaves on the water, I don't rake, I let 'em move
Used to white-knuckle memory like a steering wheel
Ten-and-two on the trauma, man, that's a hell of a deal
Now I sit on the bank with my spine like a question mark
Counting breaths in fours 'til the water swallows the dark
I don't wrestle the current, I retired the lifeguard
Every intrusive rerun, I just wave as it drifts off
Cheaper than the copay, deeper than the small talk
Me and my own mind on a first-name-basis long walk

Sedentary visionary in a sanctuary of breath
Inventory every worry, then I bury the rest
Tributary of thought tryna carry a theft
of attention, no tension, I parry, I'm blessed
Fifty leaves on the freeway of the mind, let 'em glide
Locomotive of the noggin huffing loops I don't ride
I derail it with the stillness, watch the boxcars divide
Keep the engine, lose the luggage, travel light, travel wide
Catch-and-release every thought 'til the thinking's a minnow
Blink and it's gone down the stream through the sycamore shadows
Ego wanna grip it, flip it, script it in credits
I edit, shred it, let it go, said it, dead it, forget it

I'm not the flood, I'm the riverbed
I'm not the thoughts, I'm where they're said
Hold the stone... then open hand
The water's been teaching me who I am

I interrogated silence in a room with no ceiling
Both sides of the two-way glass, I'm the cop and the criminal
Ran surveillance on my own mind, patrolled my thinking
Filed every feeling, then redacted the healing
So I torched the whole precinct, pardoned the prisoner
Turns out the warden and the free man share a signature
Attention is the currency, presence is the ministry
I spend it on the moment with no interest in the history
The watcher and the watched finally shook hands
Dropped every case I ever held against the man I am
Docket cleared, the current carried off the remand
Downstream, all the evidence dissolving into sand

Kept the breath. Let the rest run downstream.

They teach kids the flag colors: green, yellow, red.
Flags don't wave in calm water...

She came back easy like a cold front lifted,
porch light amber, whole forecast drifted.
Two weeks of glass, the harbor gone quiet,
Unpack my chest like the weather wouldn't buy it.
First it's one call: "you're the only one listening."
Then it's a rope. Then a dock. Then a christening.
Every boat she ever sank got moored to my name,
me down at the pylons, we narrate the rain.
So I read her sky like a farmer's almanac,
logged every wind shift on the back of my hand,
got quiet in the kitchen, held my breath where it lands,
counting one-Mississippi from the flash to the slam.
And the water out front? Flat. Set a table on it.
That's the tell, though. Still is it comin?
One smooth lane shining in the middle of the swell:
if it looks like the easy way in... yeah.

I know tide charts. I know tells.
I know the shape of this hell before it swells.
But knowing the water don't keep a man dry...
here she come with that lullaby.

Come back in, baby, water's warm,
flat as glass, ain't no more storm.
The deep keeps a place for the ones who stay in,
and nobody swims past the break.
(nobody... nobody...)

Past the break (past the break)
nobody swims (nobody swims)
past the break (break... break...)

Round two: new narrator, same book,
now the flood's my fault for how that levee looked.
She quotes me backwards till I don't recognize it:
sworn deposition from a kiss, notarized.
And I ain't innocent, I over-explain,
I could draft you a transcript in blood like rain.
But she got sonar for that half-step back,
reads my weight through the floorboards, tracks
the temperature of "goodnight," the length of a pause;
silence in this house is probable cause.
"You'd leave like the rest of them." 3 AM. Send.
Then "stay." Then "don't." Then "answer me." Then
pressure drop: the whole kitchen goes loud,
August in her mouth, December in the doorway now.
And the old me dove in after every flare,
did the dead man's float in her dark water there,
treading whatever she was sinking in that night,
till my legs forgot what land felt like.

I know flare guns. I know the flags.
I know the smooth lane is the one that drags.
Swimmin against the current is how the strong ones drown...
here come the lullaby now.

Come back in, baby, water's warm,
flat as glass, ain't no more storm.
The calm is the shore, baby, why would you stray?
And nobody swims past the break.
(nobody... nobody...)

Feet can't find bottom. Okay. Okay.
Don't aim at the sand. Don't swing at the sea.
Lord, the water gets pretty when it wants you back.
Pick a point down the beach.
Breathe.
Swim.

Listen: a rip ain't rage, it's a channel.
A trap near the ocean. Cold. Mechanical.
It don't hate you; it can't; it's just pullin,
and personifying water is how to keep losing.
You don't beat the pull by pulling against it,
that's how strong swimmers wind up pretendin
Sideways. Parallel to the coast.
Not a fight, not a flight, just a change of approach.
No speech at the seawall, no verdict to read,
I set the rope down like you set down a creed.
I've swum out of dark water that played my game;
I let go too, I quit swinging at the rain.
Fifty feet left and the pull went slack.
The rip don't reach past the break, can't drag you back
unless you paddle in. So bless the deep, and the light on it:
Can't make the shore, love. The shore's too honest.

Come back in, baby, water's warm,
flat as glass, ain't no more storm.
The deep keeps a place for the ones who stay...
and somebody swims past the break.

(past the break... past the break...)
Past the break the water goes flat for real.
Past the break the pull lets go.
Past the break.
The shore is honest.

This aint for the first time, mother
I know its not the way you, father
I feel the same, what you've been through
But when you lie to me I know, I know, I know, I know

The jams I can't get you to savor
Here comes another, I'm walkin to the flavor
You pickin up, you listenin, no time to waiver
Acquired taste its not for the plain

So I'm a
Fucked up daughter
Fucked up waste
Makin noise around me
I want to feel the lonely now

But I don't know what to do
When i think of all the ways
I threw is all away

And now we're lost in the doubt
When I was gonna be someone else

And I don't think I know
If everything will be alright

And if I dont know what you'd do without me
That is control

And I feel so tired of it
Cuz I'm to dim to tell

Feet to feet, dis
Disassemble
God am I wrong
To miss this resemble

This is something, the proof came back to death

Forged where the spectrum's frayed
Where mercy shakes hands wit da rage
Not a bruise, not a phase
But a cage of love held up by waste

You spit fire in a hospital gown
I found my faith but not my crown
Stayed awake so you wouldn't drown
Called it devotion, called it enough space

You spoke in knives and psalms
Burned down the whole room to make calm
I learned the shape of your alarm
By how quiet I become

I mistook endurance for grace
Put my hands on a holy ache
Thought if I stayed, I could translate
The language of your pain

This wasn't balance, it was amplitude
Peaks so high they split the truth
No middle ground, no gentle slope
Just heaven screaming through hell's throat

I didn't stay because I'm blind
I stayed because I saw the fire inside
And someone has to stand between
The sacred spark and the gasoline

You learned to kill before you learned to pray
Learned how to leave before you learned to stay
Every kindness came with a blade
Every promise needed proof in hate

You made me God, then made me prey
Asked me to save you, then cursed my name
I held the door through every wave
Until I couldn't tell which one was you

You said love meant never being alone
I heard love and built a home
You meant panic in my skin-and-bone
Body afraid of the dark

I don't call you evil to feel clean
I call it what it felt like to me
Something ancient, something mean
Something starving in your heart and between your teeth

I prayed without expecting grace
Just asked for strength to hold my face
When hate wore love like a disguise
And mercy came bleedin out my eyes

I didn't leave because I won
I left because the war was done
Some battles teach you how to stay
Some only teach you how to pray

then pay

I see you clearer now from here
No halo, no horns, just fear
A soul that learned too young
That pain is how you stay alive

I forgive you without rewinding time
Without pretending I'm fine
Forgiveness isn't letting broke back in
It's my nerves and my joints worn thin

If there's a God who keeps the books
He knows the difference, he knows the looks
Between the man who stood in blame
And the man who set himself uh flame

I don't get credit for surviving you
That's not how mercy works
I chose to stay, I chose the view
I chose the blessing and the curse

I learned my savior complex well
Built a cross, learned how to sell
My exhaustion as a spell
Called it love, called it faith

But I'm not ashamed of what I gave
I just won't die there anymore
Some doors are holy when you save
Some when you walk through and close

I still love you. That's the truth.
Love doesn't mean I stay with you.
It means I carry what was real
And let the rest be what it was

If resurrection's real at all
It's not the miracle that they sell
It's learning how to love the memory
Without reopening the way to hell

Half a step from home
Strange notes to open up the door
Sideways, sideways slow
Into the between, here we go

Same low root, different neon sky
Borrowed light, borrowed sight, borrowed high

Take me back...
Get me back...
Send me back...
Home

Hollow and whole

Take me back...
Get me back...
Send me back...
Home

Hollow and...
...whole.

Half a step from home
The wrong note is the door
Sideways, sideways, slow
Into between we go

Same low root, different neon sky
Borrowed light, borrowed sight, borrowed high

Send me back...
Take me back...
Home

Hollow and whole

Send me back...
Take me back...
Home

Hollow and...
...whole.

Half a step from home
The strange notes open the door
Sideways, slow, sideways, slow
Into the between we go

Same low root, different neon sky
Borrowed light, borrowed sight, borrowed high

Send me back...
Take me back...
Get me back...
Home

Hollow and whole

Send me back...
Take me back...
Get me back...
Home

Hollow and...
...whole.

Instrumental. The piano composition, orchestrated: the theme the sung takes grew from.

The sea's a cracked mirror, spittin' saltwater sermons,
Its waves cursive curses: "I'm God's drunk intern!"
Tumultuous petulance? Nah, it's just Neptune's tantrum,
A narcissist with tridents, drownin' ships for Instagram.
Benevolence? Please. It'd rather flex tsunamis,
Swallow continents whole, then blame the "climate crazy."
Relevance? Ask the coral: skeletons stacked in rows,
While the tide writes its memoir in disappearing prose.

I'm the janitor moppin' up the ocean's spilled ego,
Bucket full of mermaid tears and diesel-slicked legos.
A short stint spittin' words I never meant? Guilty.
My conscience is a piñata: swingin', split, empty.

Penchant for gettin' hella bent? Bro, I'm the pretzel king,
Twist my syntax into knots while the rent's a hangman's string.
Sellin' Girl Scout cookies? Nah, black market Samoas,
Stash 'em in a trench coat, whisper "sugar's the new cocaine."
Thin Mint fame? I'm the cookie monster's rehab relapse,
Crumb-trailin' through trap beats, dodgin' Nabisco contracts.
The sea's a washed-up rapper, I'm the riptide's mixtape:
Unmastered, raw, all basslines and duct-taped faith.

I verb nouns into oblivion, adjective the void,
Metaphors molt like krill in a whale's asteroid.
The ocean's just a vowel: A-E-I-O-uh-oh,
Spit a hurricane's hook, eye of the storm's a logo.

The tide's a washed-up hype man, slurrin' encore chants,
I'm the barnacle on Poseidon's mic, scribblin' rants.
Relevance? Bitch, I'm kelp: clingin', rotten, absurd,
The sea's a broke jukebox, I'm the skip in its last word.

These are working takes, shared as they're made; masters get evened out as the EP settles.

✦ Released

On SoundCloud now

Past the Break ✦ SoundCloud Fast Past the Break ✦ SoundCloud All of travisBREAKS ✦ SoundCloud

SoundCloud-first while the EP takes shape; wider distribution when it's done.

✦ Production notes

How it's being made

Borrowed Light started as a solo piano composition in B-flat minor: verses in the minor, a chorus that blooms into the parallel major (the borrowed light), a Neapolitan chord that opens the wrong door on purpose, and an ending on a bare open fifth that refuses to answer the question. That composition was seeded into Suno two slightly different ways, Borrowed Light and Blinding Light, and each seed grew takes: orchestral, half-time, psytrance. The versions are the point: same low root, different neon sky.

Around it, the water songs: Downstream (written from a real therapy session about leaves on a stream), the two Past the Breaks (the same rip current narrated from both sides of it), and Knives and Psalms still on the bench. Working takes get shared as they're made; masters get evened out in Ableton as the EP settles.

✦ Credits

Credits

travisBREAKS ✦ written, performed, produced, mixed, and mastered.

Released under Red Plastic Records.

Same low root. Different neon sky.

This is water

The tracks so far

Downstream

Past the Break

Fast Past the Break (juxtaposition)

Knives and Psalms

Borrowed Light (psytrance breaks)

Borrowed Light (original vocal composition)

Blinding Light (original composition)

Neptune's Narcissism

On SoundCloud now

How it's being made

Credits