Yellow Room
By dadboy on January 14, 2026 2:27 am
So it's possible I may take this track down and replace it with something else before the week's end, but it's going to be a busy week and this is really growing on me.
I recently blew up my setup and sold a bunch of stuff, and I finally got around to reorganizing things. This inspired me to build a simple little modular patch (the arp) on my long-neglected skiff which was the genesis of this. I ran that through delay/reverb in Ableton, then added this chaotic pad I really like from the TEO-5, and a slow synth bass on the Astrolab. I initially tried to record some light guitar over this, but couldn't really figure out/capture something I liked, so I decided to keep this simple. This, to me, feels like an evolution of the things I was making when I first started with synths. Simple pieces, raw emotion, but more refined sound design and production than in my early DAWless days.
The other thing I really like about this track is how the emotional center of this has shifted for me over the last few days. When I initially made it, it felt anxious and somewhat aimless. I called it "White Knuckles," as I felt it represented this tense and constant enduring with no clear end in sight. But then, in therapy this week, I had to identify an internal resource that I can revisit that can help calm me as I prepare to delve into some rough stuff over the next few months. This internal resource was a room at my Grandmother's house - the Yellow Room. This room means many things to me - it was my mother's childhood room, and is a room I stayed with her in many times. It's one of the only places I can really remember feeling carefree and safe. It was warm and open and soft and bright, and I can picture the sun pouring in through the windows in the afternoon and catching the dust in the air. Even though I finished this song yesterday, I listened to it today, and it meant something completely different to me. It's no longer anxiety and hurt and tension as I try to cling and get through to who knows what; it's safety and warmth and comfort and belonging. It became the yellow room for me.
Anyways, I hope you'll forgive me if I'm oversharing, but even though this track is simple and maybe even rudimentary, I'm really pleased with it. I hope you enjoy.
EDITED TO ADD: Some folks in weeklymeets were saying it might be cool to hear this slowed down, so I quickly ran it through paulxstretch. I love the original, but I think the stretched versions are also really cool and meditative in their own ways:
Stretched 2x
Stretched 4x
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
