Artist of the Week Aries Deng reflects on her EP Unexpected Encounters. Read about her backstory to the EP below:
Unexpected Encounters is a journey of all of the emotions and experiences I went through in the past year. The people that I’ve met, the ups and downs, and an expression of all of those feelings in music form. I would describe my music as a digital escape to a world of fantasy or dreamland. It is very anime and video game influenced. It is filled sonically with depth, percussive elements, and emotions. It is a raw representation of what I feel whether it is happy, reflective, hopeful, or sad. The following is a quick breakdown of each track of my EP.
“Something Pretty From Afar” – I just wanted to write and capture the feeling of seeing something pretty, simple as that. “Mirrored Lights” is inspired by a trip to San Francisco. I went to The Twin Peaks, and as I looked down at the city lights and its reflections in the water, it was so pretty and impactful. I wanted to capture that with music. “The Place Where Stars Align” is about how I felt after a breakup. We were so happy, made lots of fun memories, played music together and now everything has faded away, and I’ve moved on. For “I Met A Metaphorical Boy”, This is one of the most important stories behind my EP. It is about how I met a guy once who at first glance, was everything that I had pictured in my head when I was in high school. It was the mosts ideal and “perfect” guy that I could not believe was actually real. I was ecstatic. I had to approach and meet him. Everything was going to be perfect. However, after I got to know him, I realized he was not what I was looking for. The image that I had for him all this time, was just a fantasy. He’s just a metaphorical boy that lived in my dreamland. The feeling of being “let down”, where this ideal guy was not what I expected in real life was what inspired me to write this song. I translated this significant experience into the song you hear now, and it is exactly how I felt through all of this.
I hope fans are able to get the element of feelings, thought, and storytelling from my music. I want to inspire others, bring happiness, fun, and give strength to those who need it in whatever they are going through! It keeps me going and want to constantly improve. I hope I can keep bringing them the most authentic version of Aries. I really appreciate everyone that takes any time to listen to my music, it really means a lot!
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