Hey kiddos, a couple things going down right now.

1. Mixing for the album is done! Everything sounds fantastic and flows really nicely from track to track. This album is definitely a journey, and I hope, once it’s out, people will sit down with it and listen from start to finish. 

2. Rehearsals are underway. There’s a lot to learn—new songs, new parts, new effects, new software, and even new instruments for some people. Progress is happening surprisingly fast because these people are amazing, but I still don’t foresee us playing a show for a couple months still. You will be the first to know once anything is on the books.

3. RELEASE DATE - While I don’t want to jinx anything, right now I am looking at a possible release date of late fall. There’s a lot of little admin/legal/creative things behind the scenes that need to happen before any of this goes out to the public. But I am going to be trying as hard as I can to get it out THIS year and not 2027.

4.Behind the scenes - enjoy this unfiltered little behind-the-scenes tidbit of the song “Dancing”

Until next time!

Love,
Rust

Hello Friends,

It’s been a few months, but I just wanted to check in and give you some updates that I’m personally very excited about!

ALBUM UPDATE:

Recording for the upcoming album, HYDRA’S RUIN, is done! After having to take a month off to recover from the flu from Hell, I was nervous for last weekend’s recording session because my voice didn’t feel 100%. But I am ecstatic and relieved that everything turned out great! Now for some final mixing and polish over the coming weeks and it should hopefully be completely done!

Once finished, I won’t be releasing the album via traditional methods—not right away, anyway. I hate being a slave to the streaming algorithm, Spotify is garbage, and I don’t want my work scraped for AI slop. Instead, I will be releasing the album here, on my website, as well as on a few select other spots like Bandcamp. I am currently looking into the logistics of a physical release—CD is likely, vinyl maybe, if enough people want it. It will stay out in these select spots exclusively for ONE FULL YEAR before going out to streamers. As soon as I have dates for any of this confirmed, you’ll be the first to know.

LIVE NEWS:

Last year after the show at The Mint, the live lineup fell apart a little bit. Eric, who played bass, decided to pack up his family and move to Costa Rica; considering the fast-deteriorating techno-fascist dystopian hellscape we’re living in now, I don’t blame him at all.

There were multiple other scheduling conflicts as well and soon much of my energy was being spent on a new 9-5, MMIX Art vending, and then, beginning in February, recording. But now that recording is finished, things are looking up!

I’ve beens able to recruit some very talented individuals—one to step in for Eric on bass, and another to play live synths. More details to come. Rehearsals will be starting later this month to hopefully play some shows this fall/winter around the album's non-streaming release.

That’s all for now. Updates will hopefully be much more frequent from here on out. Keep your eyes peeled for some BTS footage coming your way soon!

Love,
Rust

Hey kiddos,

Been a little bit, but I wanted to let you in on a couple things going on. 

Firstly, if you missed it, I played another Witchy Ways Market a couple weeks ago and it was a really great performance! 

A copy of the audio from the improvised performance is now up and available for Subscribers to download. Speaking of which…

Secondly, I’m restructuring/rethinking how I do my site subscriptions. All the different tiers are just going to be collapsed and simplified into one, single, cohesive, pay what you want tier for everything: ENCRYPTED+. I liked having all the cute different tier names, but the functionality to post something in one tier and have it auto-populate to all the other tiers isn’t there for some reason and posting everything 7 times feels like wasted energy. Additionally, I will no longer be pushing for the goal of putting up a new piece of audio EVERY week, because it simply isn’t feasible between my 9-5, my work as a visual artist/vendor, and what’s about to be occupying my time…

Lastly, I will be going into the studio starting this month to finish recording all the tracks on my new album, FUTURE MAGICKS: VOLUME 1, HYDRA’S RUIN. 

I’m ridiculously excited to have some intensely talented folks helping get everything sounding as excellent as possible. Kellii Scott of FAILURE has recorded some incredible live drum tracks for five of the songs, and they absolutely fucking rock! And Travis Bacon of CONTRACULT COLLECTIVE will be producing, engineering, and helping put the final polish on the record. I am hoping to get the record out by the end of the year, but I’m also willing to tap the breaks any TLC is needed. Regardless, I’m absolutely psyched about what’s coming. The future is magick.

Thank you for being here.

XOXO
Rust

Hey kiddos,

Well, it’s finally done. My work on “Heaven’s Artifice,” my forthcoming instrumental album, is wrapped up like a holiday gift. 

About the album: 

“Heaven’s Artifice” was the result of several jam sessions with myself. Sessions 1 was just me playing around on the Moog Matriarch for about 45 minutes with a simple 4-on-the-floor beat going the whole time. Session 2 was me playing the guitar—yes, that lead sound is not a synth, it is a guitar running through a brassy synth pedal effect. From there, I took out a whole lot of the kicks to give some of the more atmospheric parts some breathing room. In Session 3, I went back over some of the lower notes I played with guitar with a bass synth to get some nicer low end in there. In Session 4, I built out drum parts using my drum machine, quickly building complimentary rhythms and moving on to next song/section. I was mostly satisfied by this point, but ultimately decided it was still missing something. With Session 5, I went through and improvised a bunch of parts on piano, most of which I ended up deleting; I found keeping the piano sparse allowed it to be more effective.

There is a loose storyline to this thing--at least, in my head--but I’m not really gonna detail that. My hope is your imagination conjures something in your mind that my explanations never could.

I am offering you all 10 tracks of “Heaven’s Artifice” for a Pay-What-You-Want sliding scale, almost a week before it’s available in streaming services or in digital music stores. Consider it my gift to you.

May your holidays be lovely. See y’all next year!

Love and cheer,

Rust

Buckle up, kiddos!
In this final Behind-The-Music interview, I talk about "Guillotine", the 4th EP, the concept album as a whole, happy accidents, French retirement riots, BLM, ex-LA Mayor Garcetti, eating the rich, ACAB, January 6th, the dramatic nature of guillotines, American complacency, Leftist in-fighting, the importance of symbols, the need for tearing down old top-down power paradigms, and the possibility of true equity through the compassionate and efficient distribution of resources.

Interviewed by L Faunt

Be sure to sign up for The Visionaries email list for more!

Love,
Rust

Hey kiddos! 

New interview about "The Visionaries", how hero-worship can go to your head, Kanye West, the absurdity of borders, top-down power structures, why you should DEFINITELY NOT overthrow our current corporate iteration of government, and other fun topics 😉

Interviewed by L Faunt.
Be sure to sign up for the Visionaries email list for more!

Love,
Rust

Hey kiddos,

I just realized I'm a little behind in posting these. Whoops. Trying to remedy that. In this Behind-the-Music interview, I chat about "Hero?", the song's history, repeating themes, scrapped guitar parts, nostalgia, and cults of personality.

Interviewed by L Faunt.

Be sure to Like & Subscribe on YouTube for more!

Love,
Rust

Hey kiddos!

It's time for another interview! The first of GUILLOTINE 4. Here, I talk about "Doxx", alternate realities, hacker fantasies, and taking action against the rich and powerful. Plus, a look at how this song ties into both Guillotine 3 & 4.

Interviewed by L Faunt.

Be sure to Like & Subscribe my YouTube page for more!

Love,
Rust

Hey kiddos!

Long time no talk. Sorry about that, I’ve been buried in school work in a way that was extremely poor for my mental health. I was invited to play a show in February, but logistics made it impossible and I had to bow out—which deeply upsetting. The video I had planned for “Abnormal” never came to fruition because finding a suitable location to go smash and break things on camera proved more difficult than anticipated. These failures, on top of my packed school schedule, really put me in a bad place. I was super off balance and miserable for about 9 weeks straight. However, I dropped a couple high level courses (that I was not supposed to be taking yet anyways) and, now, things have more or less evened out. Enough to where I actually have the mental breathing room (and time!) to enjoy being a little bit creative every now and again.

So.

All that said, I have a few things on the horizon.

***

GUILLOTINE, Pt. 4 is coming out May 5th! 
 

The theme of the fourth & final act of the GUILLOTINE story is UNITY. It is a divergence from our disappointing reality—a fantasy—and begins with me making good on my promise in Part III to do "whatever it takes" in a small but significant way. I hack through the security of one of the world’s elites & doxx them—irl I am legitimately awful at coding & at confrontation. But in the album’s narrative, the doxxing gains me a lot of admirers/followers who are more than willing to rally behind me if I say the right things & tell them what they want to hear. But in order to enact *real* change, I realize I need to resist this temptation, choose to set aside my ego & refuse to establish another top-down power structure. Fuck cults of celebrity and personality. No gods, no masters—those are how we arrived at this tenuous and volatile place.
 

GUILLOTINE'S story ends with all of us coming together, pulling the One Percent out of their homes, & executing them (which, for legal purposes, I do not condone). Whatever future awaits beyond standing together and rising up still needs to be written, but we can’t just keep repeating history, letting ourselves be owned, & expecting different results.

Tracklisting:
1) Doxx
2) Hero?
3) The Visionaries
4) Guillotine
 

As with previous releases, I will be releasing interviews (performed by L Faunt) exploring the meaning/inspiration for each of the songs.

I hope this EP, and GUILLOTINE as a whole, will inspire some of you. I hope you are inspired to share it and its sentiment/message to people around you with whom it might resonate. I hope that we, as a society, can change the toxic aspects of the ways in which we relate to one another. I hope that we find the strength to choose differently.

***

L and I will be filming a music video for “The Visionaries” soon. The video will touch on how our lives are ruled by money and how struggling with that can be extremely primal. There will be blood. Hopefully, I will be able to get it all shot and edited together in time to release alongside the EP, but if not, it will come shortly after.

***

In other news, I have, up until now, been using Redbubble as a central hub for merch. However, they will soon be instituting a policy that penalizes smaller vendors with more fees per transaction. This is something I cannot support and will be finding a new, less exploitative company to partner with for merch. Some of the current designs will be phased out with this transition as well. So. If you've had your eye on anything, the time to purchase is NOW.

***

Lastly, I am looking for band members! Guitar, drums, synths, and bass are all needed. Playing/programming everything myself is all well and fine for studio recordings, but I can't do it all myself in a live setting and would rather have as few pre-recorded backing tracks as possible. 

NOTE: although this is a serious gig, there is currently no money coming in to this venture. Please don’t hesitate to contact me about this if you play any of these instruments, are in the LA area, and are legitimately interested—or if you have any questions :)

***

That’s all for now. Thank you for being here. Thank you for paying attention.

All my love,
Rust

Hey kiddos!

It's finally here! The final Behind The Music interview of GUILLOTINE, Pt. 3!

In this one, I open up about "Whatever It Takes", the lockdown, the mounting pressure to achieve the impossible, and the disappointment that, post-pandemic, we hardly changed at all. Plus, what to expect from GUILLOTINE, Pt. 4!

Interviewed by L Faunt.
Be sure to Like, Share, Subscribe, Repeat!

xoxo
Rust

Hey kiddos!
Back with another one of those BLOCK ROCKIN BEATS! Abnormal is one of my most straight-forward rock-anthem songs, but a lot went into writing it.

In this Behind The Music interview, I open up about the raw emotions behind "Abnormal", the anxiety of living through lockdown, our dependence on technology, and the growing feeling that something has to change. There is no going "back to normal."

Interviewed by L Faunt.
Be sure to Like & Subscribe for more!

xoxo
Rust

Hey kiddos!

Continuing on through the Freaking Weird Genre songs of Guillotine, we come to "The Monsters Are Still Here." 

In this Behind The Music interview, I talk about working with Eric Malcom Schreeck, oppressive power structures, white nationalism, and channeling cabaret during a worldwide catastrophe rife with fucking nazis.

Interviewed by L Faunt.

Be sure to Like & Subscribe for more!

xoxo
Rust

Hey kiddos! 

During the beginning of the pandemic, we were all bored out of our minds and were looking for something to do. “The Culling” was a song that came from that need to do something. And when the conversation happened where L said they would love to dance to one of my songs, I threw it into the hat & they loved it. So much so I think they danced to it twice. This instrumental demo of “The Culling” was one of the first dance videos L & I made during that a) used a gimbal to stabilize the footage and b) cut between different takes, as opposed to just doing the whole vid as one continuous shot (at least I think it was the first…) Anyway, hope you enjoy this glimpse into the past! 😷😷 

xoxo 
Rust

Hey kiddos!

GUILLOTINE, Pt. 3 has only been out about a week, but I feel like I have lots to say about these songs! Starting with one of my favorites (just because it's so weird), "The Culling." 

In this Behind The Music interview, I talk sound design, conspiracy fantasies, industrial reggae, and the elites who saw the pandemic as an opportunity to make themselves even wealthier. Which definitely serves as a catalyst for some righteous anger later on in GUILLOTINE.

Interviewed by L Faunt.

Be sure to Like & Subscribe for more!

Until next time!

xoxo
Rust

Hey kiddos!

Once upon a time, we made a dance video to the instrumental demo of my song “The Monsters Are Still Here”. At the time we made this, I had maybe half the lyrics written, Schreeck hadn’t added his magic yet, and Jared Eakin hadn’t even begun to make things sound gorgeous yet.

This was one of the first videos L and I made where I started to incorporate some “music video style” editing into the things we output together. It was a lot of fun to make! Hope you enjoy this glimpse into the heart of the pandemic times from which this song was born! 😷  
xoxo  
Rust

Hey kiddos!

In the final Behind The Music interview for GUILLOTINE, Pt. 2, I talk about "Servants of the Moon," Big Brother, the men who run the world, finding community, and how this song relates to the rest of GUILLOTINE as a whole. Bonus points if you start to recognize reoccurring musical themes starting to pop up--a synth part in the bridge/breakdown is a callback to "Notice of Intent" and the lead synth line during the chorus is a callback to "Broken Promises." Interviewed by L Faunt.

GUILLOTINE, Pt. 3 will be dropping by year's end and things are starting to shape up for the possibility of live performances. Be sure to sign up for the Visionaries email list to get the latest and greatest RUST_VISION news straight to you! Talk soon!

Love,
ЯV 

Hey Kiddos,

In today's Behind The Music interview, I spill the tea about "The Awakening," unplugging from the Matrix, and how this song relates to the rest of GUILLOTINE. Can you see the strings?

Don't forget to sign up for the email list for more!

Love,
ЯV

Hey kiddos,

Buckle up, this one’s a doozy! Continuing the series of Behind the Music interviews from Guillotine Pt. 2, L Faunt sits down with me now to talk about the song “Broken Promises”! Spoiler alert: sad song is about sad things. Hope you enjoy!

Love always,
ЯV

Hey kiddos!

Continuing the series of Behind the interviews from Guillotine Pt. 1, L Faunt sits down with me now to talk about the songs of Guillotine Pt. 2. First up is “Namedrop City”!

Hope you enjoy this look inside my head :)

Love,
ЯV 

Hey kiddos!

I guess the cat's out of the bag now. GUILLOTINE, Pt. 2 is coming out September 23rd!

That's in less than a month! Very excited about this release. With Guillotine, Pt. 1, I think it might feel very easy to get to the end of those four songs and assume, "Okay, I more or less know what RUST_VISION is all about and how his music is going to sound." This installment of GUILLOTINE definitely subverts a lot of those expectations.

The theme of the second act of GUILLOTINE is DECONSTRUCTION. These next 4 songs begin with me becoming so desperate to fulfill my dream that I try buying into the bootlicking, name-dropping thing—selling out, if you will—then hitting rock bottom when it doesn't work and coming to a profound realization. The reason everyone’s so broken is not because the people around me are the problem, or because the system is broken. The system works exactly the way it’s supposed to, but the world we live in is just systematically built on subjugation. My youthful disillusionment with Los Angeles was never actually about Los Angeles. It was about capitalism and imperialism and devaluing human beings because you know someone is desperate enough to suck your dick for exposure. It was about everyone devaluing themselves just to survive in a world that makes survival unnecessarily fucking difficult for most of us so that a few at the top can live like kings. There’s an eye-opening there, an awakening, and an attempt on my part to forge connections with like-minded people whose eyes are also open, which is what I went through in my early thirties. A directionless sort of “fuck the system, fuck Mark Zuckerberg, burn it down, be kind to each other” sort of philosophy. And there's a certain comfort in knowing that even though the world is terrible, you're awake enough to see the puppet strings on everyone. That realization is empowering. The problem is that sometimes that empowerment acts as a soporific and no one who's awake ends up taking real action with any sense of urgency. Which leaves room for the monsters at the top to make their move instead.

The next single will be a funky little jam called "Namedrop City." Musically, it feels like what might have happened if Flea had played on "Mechanical Animals." It will be coming out September 9th, the day before my birthday. Luckily, some very successful shoots happened this week, so a music video will be coming out for "Namedrop City" as well.

Looking forward to sharing with all of you. Stay tuned!

Love,
ЯV 

Hey kiddos! 

We've finally come to the final GUILLOTINE, Pt. 1 interview (with a few hints at what's to come in GUILLOTINE, Pt. 2), with L Faunt continuing to delve into my writing process and into the meaning of each song. Today's interview is probably my most spastic song ever, "Zero Fucks Given", the apathetic culmination and response to every song prior to this one on the EP. If you've ever felt frenetically antagonized by overwhelming amounts of apathy from people about the things you're passionate about, this song is for you. One of my personal favorites, as it just devolves into sheer chaos at the end.

If y'all enjoy this sort of thing, please Subscribe to my YouTube for more video updates, and to my Official Mailing List for other updates going forward! Thank you so much for all your love and support!

Love,
ЯV 

Hey kiddos!  

I'm thrilled to bring you the next GUILLOTINE interview, with one more to come out around the same time next week! L Faunt continues to delve into my writing process and into the meaning of each song from GUILLOTINE, Pt. 1. Today's interview is on my lead single, "We Are Fire", probably my most anthemic song--one of my life goals is definitely to get a stadium full of people to sing along with this at the top of their lungs, so be sure to share the song with all your friends! And if y'all enjoy this sort of thing, please Subscribe to my YouTube for more video updates! Thank you so much for all your support!

Love,
ЯV 

Hey kiddos! 

I'm very excited to bring you the next of GUILLOTINE interviews that will continue to come out over the next several weeks. L Faunt is digging deep into my writing process to expose some of the backstory of each song from GUILLOTINE, Pt. 1. Today's interview is on "Galaxies", the most synth-pop song I've ever made, but still with plenty of emo angst. If y'all enjoy this kind of thing, please Subscribe to my YouTube for more video updates! Thank you for all your support!

Love,
ЯV 

Hey kidddos!

Today I'm kicking off a series of interviews that will be coming out over the next several weeks. L Faunt (my partner/MMIX collaborator) will be asking me questions that dig deeper into my writing process and reveal some of the backstory of each song from GUILLOTINE. Today's interview is on "Notice of Intent", GUILLOTINE'S abrasive album-opener. If y'all enjoy this kind of thing, I highly recommend you Subscribe to my YouTube for more video updates! Thanks for being here!

Love,
ЯV