"I just have always been intrigued by that idea of creating different worlds with music. This one was a bit more of a reflection of what's actually outside the window. Because I was so focused on trying to make if feel like a really local record in that sense - that it expressed kind of the natural beauty - I think that makes an issue like climate change a little bit more real, to think that there's a possible future where someone doesn't get to experience that inspiration in the same way that I do. That's really sad to me".
Jamison Isaak, Themes For Dying Earth: A Short Documentary Film
"First Rain" is a great icebreaker to Teen Daze's Themes For Dying Earth (2017), offering a counter-intuitive experience of what a record that warns about climate change would sound like - and departing from his other more upbeat and denser (moniker-appropriate) songs. Instead of presenting chaos, ominous tones, or dire prescriptions that must be heeded to avoid impending catastrophe, the song opens with lush sounds of rain (which were recorded outside Isaak's home studio in Fraser Valley), which are soon accompanied by tranquil synths, a warm organ and soothing chimes.
After over one minute, Bon Iver member S. Carey's gentle and calm vocals begin evoking a narrative of personal escape into a poetic wilderness: “On the way to nowhere/ Fuel for a trip to nowhere.” It's easy to lose yourself in all this airy reverie, but the resigned fatality of Isaak's worldview eventually rears its inevitable head: "We look out for something/ Find nothing but endings/ It's funny it all seems/ To be leaving". The accompanying music video addresses this emotional trajectory in an evocative way, featuring a young woman who "takes a risk in falling for a mysterious stranger", which leads the natural world to fall "victim to the forces of the supernatural".
It's hard to imagine that such a heavy and politicized source of inspiration could yield such an intimate and personal record - but the approach works beautifully in retrospect. By evoking a deep sense of loss and the otherworldly wonders of nature, one empathizes with what a member of a future generation will experience - and is then hopefully compelled to act in a way that alleviates the problem.
