Rise in Love (album)

*Rise in Love* is the fifth full-length album by Mikaela Thorn under her alias ThornBrain. It is a concept album about a long dream where Thorn processes various events in her life from 2016 through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021, concluding with her coming out publicly as transgender in January 2021. It is the final part of a loose trilogy with 2018's *Buried Secrets & Old Lies* and 2019's *Worldbuilder*.

The album was released on July 30, Thorn's 30th birthday.

## About

The album is sequenced as a dream Thorn is having one night. The "Bloodstar" suite gathers various events from the previous five years (the deaths of David Bowie and Scott Walker, Thorn's first breakup, the collective hopelessness of Trump-era Americans, the death of Thorn's grandmother) into a stream-of-consciousness story that transitions from an airship over a dying world to suburbia to Thorn's own life. Thorn begins waking up in "Disassociation" and begins succumbing to her hopelessness and contemplating suicide during a sleep paralysis hallucination in "Supermoon" before deciding to keep living. The title tracks bookend the album; Part 1 is sung by the deep-voiced Patrick S. Barry, and then Thorn sings the rest of the album in an increasingly heightening pitch to symbolize her slowly coming to terms with being a transwoman.

The sequencing of the album, suites bookended by parts of the same song, is inspired by Pink Floyd's *Animals*. The sound of Thorn standing up and walking out of her room opens and ends the album and forms a cycle, a'la "Isn't this where we came in?" from Pink Floyd's *The Wall*. Musically, the album takes major inspiration from German music of the 70s (AKA: Krautrock or Kosmische Musik), namely the works of Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother collectively and separately. All of the tracks are at 145BPM, inspired by their music's ability to keep interest, beauty and excitement over long, repetitive tracks. She also took some inspiration from the works of John Foxx both with Ultravox and solo, particularly in the use of drum machines throughout the "Bloodstar" suite and the use of panning delay throughout the "Supermoon" suite.

The album began recording in February 2021 as part of the RPM challenge like *Worldbuilder*, with her original intent being to write music with a more impressionistic feel a'la Claude Debussy and Joe Hisaishi. This mostly fell by the wayside as recording went on, but it remains in the organ of "Afraid of Music", the acoustic guitar of "Supermoon", and the guitar of "Corvid Clouded Eyes". Thorn wasn't able to get far enough in writing or recording to finish the album for the challenge, so she instead released a free EP for it: *Rise in Love instrumentals*. She also aired the work-in-progress recordings during a February 2021 fundraiser livestream as thanks for viewers' support.

The cover and booklet art was photographed by Thorn, with character artwork on the front cover by Boods. The idea of visualizing a character "rising" by flipping a shot of them falling upside-down is a reference to the iconic climax of *Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse*, and the idea frequently gets deconstructed in-album with references to "learning to fly" by falling to one's death. The "Bloodstar" and "Supermoon" suites are also referenced in the front and back covers: "Supermoon" is visualized by the blown-out photo of the moon on the front, and "Bloodstar" by a single red dot in the sky in an otherwise starless, smoke-covered sky on the back.

**Back Cover/Tracklisting**

## Tracklisting

All tracks written by Mikaela Thorn except "Rise in Love" Parts 1-3 and "Bird Ghosts" written by Patrick S. Barry and Mikaela Thorn.

1. "Rise in Love (ft. Patrick S. Barry)"
2. "Bloodstar"
3. "The Singer Died Today"
4. "Afraid of Music"
5. "Disassociation (Rise in Love, Pt. 2)"
6. "Supermoon"
7. "Corvid Clouded Eyes"
8. "Woke Up Seeing My Killer"
9. "Rainborne"
10. "Rise in Love (Pt. 3)"

### Bonus tracks

11. "Bird Ghosts (Smell - ThornBrain mix)"
12. "Safe (Agitation Trips solo demo, album outtake)"
13. "Miles Away (instrumental demo, album outtake)"
14. "Rise in Love (proof-of-concept demo)"
15. "Bloodstar (instrumental EP version)"
16. "The Singer Died Today (instrumental EP version)"
17. "Afraid of Music (excerpt, instrumental EP version)"
18. "Supermoon (instrumental EP version)"
19. "The Singer Died Today (The Difference Engine SPX90 Mix)"
20. "Rise in Love, Parts 1-3"

### Rise in Love instrumentals EP

All of these tracks were also included as bonus tracks in the full album, see above

1. "Bloodstar (instrumental)"
2. "Miles Away (instrumental)"
3. "The Singer Died Today (instrumental)"
4. "Afraid of Music (excerpt)"
5. "Supermoon (instrumental)"