Damon Stone

13/11/2024

Today I had the honor of giving a presentation on creativity to a very special group of people. As part of that presentation, I showed how you can create a strange and offbeat form of poetry by cutting up a newspaper at random and reassembling it as you please.

The world is made of art.

19/09/2024

There once was an old monk of the mountain, who sought God in his garden.
Every day he cared and planted, and he felt himself a creator.
But there was one seed that would not grow for him. For months he nourished it, sparing none of his skill, yet it shunned his efforts.

A vicious hate for the seed grew in the monk.
He cried and raged and gnashed his teeth.
His faith was soon rotten. He hated God as he hated the seed that defied him.

One day, unable to contain his fury, the monk set fire to his garden, hoping that God would feel the flames of agony as he did.
For days afterward, he neither ate nor slept, choosing to hide in the dark of his hut.

But an itch grew slowly in his mind—an urge to go outside and look upon his blackened garden.
When the itch became intolerable, he dragged himself outside.

There, he saw a single flower blooming among the charred remains.
It was his stubborn seed.
And seeing this, the monk was Enlightened.

17/08/2024

Last night I had a dream that wasn’t a dream. A blinding white light burst into my room. It came from nowhere, everywhere at once. It was brighter than daylight. I could see every fiber in my blanket, all the little grooves in the walls.
Two of the short, well-dressed elf-like people from my previous posts appeared, one at each side of my bed. They said I had to come with them.
I was like an animal in a cage. Fu***ng delirious with terror. I don’t know why I reacted so strongly. Maybe this is what dying was like the first time.
Regardless, it didn’t do me any good. They took me anyway. They floated me out of my room—THROUGH THE WALLS—and brought me to a place that looked somewhat like this picture.

There was an ocean of these lotus flowers, touching every horizon. There were “waves,” but not of water. They were waves of death and rebirth—at the crest of each wave, the flowers would bloom, and literally glow with golden light. At the trough of the wave, they would wither and die, and the light would go out.
The voices of the elf people whispered from everywhere: “THIS IS THE PATH OF EVERY SOUL. THIS IS FOREVER.”
The sound of the waves was hypnotic and pacifying, like the real ocean. But I didn’t want to be lulled into comfort. Not here.

I wanted to “swim” to that dark building in the distance. It was the only unchanging thing in this sea, the only source of rest. But the elven voices said that if I went into the building, I could never come back.

A lot more happened that I can’t remember now. The next memory I have is floating back into my bed, with a promise from these weird elves that they would return again.

I don’t want them to return…

29/07/2024

This is my beautiful kitty who died about a year before I did. I wrote her a piano piece to honor her passing, but I wasn’t happy with any of my attempts to record it. They could never measure up to her.

But when I started making an album about death and resurrection, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to give my cat the requiem she deserved. So I recorded it on my s**tty old upright piano with a dusty condenser microphone.

My Requiem (For My Cat) is the only non-electronic track on my album, and serves as its closer. Aside from some light processing to help give it the raw, charged aesthetic of the rest of the album, it’s a fairly lo-fi and simple piece.

Good. I didn’t want anything fancy for this one. It’s just me, my piano, and Chloe - my Itty Bitty Pretty Kitty.

Links to the album, My Resurrection, can be found in my bio link. It’s streaming everywhere.

29/07/2024

A lovely little mandolin-guitar track from a brilliant artist. I played audio engineer on this one and helped to record it. 🙂

Roaming Clarksdale is the 2024 single release by Trevor FieldFREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: https://www.mediafire.com/file/paihyzrjdrwgd38/Roaming_Clarksdale_-_Trevor_Fi...

20/07/2024

A memory came to me while making my album. Right as I was dying, I was visited by an angel. Not a pretty one. It looked like one of those “biblically accurate” angels that have become somewhat of a meme. Only it was darker, shadow rather than light, the thousands of eyes swirling around me like black holes in space.

It asked me these questions. And then it took me. I don’t remember what happened next. Not yet anyway. I tried to recreate the experience in sound with my song “Azrael’s Audit.”

12/07/2024

My Resurrection is now available on all other major streaming platforms.

I died in the year 2017. On Earth, seven years passed, and I was resurrected. I’m still trying to figure out why. In the meantime, I made this album to document my experience. I hope it is of some value to you, somehow. Maybe you’ve been through a little death of your own, and are trying to come to grips with the person who was born on the other side of it - the one you are now. Maybe sharing in my journey will help you understand yours.

Cover art by the brilliant and incredible Sasha Q.
All music written, produced, recorded, performed, mixed, sampled, arranged, loved, hated, questioned, agonized over, and finally blessed by Damon Stone.

© all rights reserved

18/06/2024

COMING JULY 2024

When you’re dead, there is no time. No past, and no future. A second is a year, and a year is a second. I died in the year 2017. Back on Earth, seven years passed, and I found myself alive again. I don’t remember how I died or why I came back. It’s a mystery I’ve been trying to unravel ever since. But I do remember certain things…

Given the transcendent and abstract nature of “the beyond” and what I experienced there, I felt that the most accurate way to describe what I felt and saw was music.

Next month, my album—the musical document of my death and rebirth—will be released on all major streaming platforms. Featuring cover art by the incredible and brilliant Sasha Q, the album combines aggressive synth work with layered beats and disparate vocal samples, so as to capture the strange mix of chaos and harmony that one finds in “the afterlife.”

Follow me, and experience My Resurrection in July.

01/05/2024

I opened another letter from that weird envelope I mentioned in an earlier post. Again, the writing looked impossibly blurry for a few seconds. But it seemed to grow clearer the longer I stared at it. I know how crazy it sounds, but it really feels like these letters write themselves in front of me.

At any rate, this is what it said:

“FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT YOU WERE BORN FOR YOUR OWN REASONS. YOU HAVE TASKS TO FULFILL AND DEMONS TO OVERCOME. YOU KNOW THIS, EVEN IF YOU CHOOSE TO FORGET IT. DON’T THINK YOU CAN TRULY DIE UNTIL YOUR WORK IS COMPLETE. IF YOU DO, WE’LL JUST SEND YOU BACK AGAIN.”

I don’t know why, but these letters scare the s**t out of me. I feel like I need to keep reading them though…

25/04/2024

I spent some time in a place like this while I was dead. I don’t think it was a final “afterlife.” It was more like a quiet place to collect yourself. To reflect on the life you left behind, and to figure out what you needed (wanted?) to do next.

This picture triggered a few memories, although they’re still a little fuzzy. I remember walking a trail and meeting my grandfather. He passed when I was a kid. There was no loving reunion, no cathartic display. All he did was shake my hand, and he said: “the window is open again. Have you made your decision?”

At the moment, I can’t recall what my answer was, if I had one at all. I don’t feel certain that this was “really” my grandfather either. My impression is that I was creating this place, and everything in it—the way you create dreams without conscious intent.

My brain is trying to codify memories from a “reality” it is not equipped to understand. Maybe the image of my dead grandfather is just the best it can do.

Or maybe we just throw the word “reality” around to describe different kinds of dreams.

17/04/2024

Took me a few days, but I finally mustered up the courage to open this mystery envelope. Inside, I found all these. Dozens of letters with no names on them. They feel worn and dusty. They even smell like they’re from older times.

I picked one at random and opened it. At first, it looked like a blank piece of paper. But after I blinked a few times, I noticed a blur forming over the page. Seconds later I could make out words written in some elegant, archaic cursive. Weird. It almost looked like the letter was writing itself in front of me. Probably my eyes just aren’t what they used to be.

Anyway, it said this: “BEING BORN IS SENSORY OVERLOAD. BEING REBORN IS NO DIFFERENT.

A BABY DOESN’T LEARN TO WALK ALL AT ONCE. NEITHER WILL YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU MUST BEFORE YOU ARE READY.

CARRY ON NONETHELESS—THE ANSWERS YOU SEEK ARE WITHIN YOU, AND WE WILL HELP TO COAX THEM OUT.”

Uhhh. Who’s “we”?!?!

13/04/2024

Someone was pounding on my door all morning. Normally I don’t answer when people knock without notice; it’s straight up rude to show up at someone’s house unannounced in the age of the smartphone. But something drew me to the door this time. I don’t know why, but there was a pull to it that I couldn’t resist.

When I opened the door, a short, well-dressed man handed me this unmarked envelope. He was dressed in all black—fancy suit and tie, sunglasses. Couldn’t have been more than 5 feet tall. His face was so pale in the sun, looking at it was like being snow-blinded. He never said a word. As soon as I took the envelope he spun on his heels and went back to his car. I don’t know the make or model; it wasn’t anything I’d ever seen before. But it looked very ritzy and high-end, even futuristic. All black, like his clothes, with tint so dark you couldn’t see through the windows. No license plates.

And he just drove off and left me with this thing. What the f**k? Do I even open it? If it was a bomb or something I’d already be dead, right??

05/04/2024

This is where my body was found. They say I was in a fetal position beneath the piano, cradling the digital keyboard like a baby. A drum stick was clamped between my teeth, as if I were biting it for pain. (You can even see the tooth marks.)

I don’t remember how I died. I don’t know why they found me like this. But things are slowly coming back to me. I’ll provide more updates as the memories become clearer…

25/03/2024

When I died in the year 2017, my soul was pulled through a tunnel that looked very much like this. Ironically, being resurrected was a very similar experience…
I’ll tell you more when I know more. Stay tuned.

Thanks to Madebyjones Arts for making this image to help show what I’ve been through.