Music often offers us space to pause and process the chaos around us. The tracks that comprise I’m Alright, I’m OK gave composer, producer, and arranger Dan Langa that much-needed space after three recent moments of uncertainty. The Northampton, Massachusetts-based artist employs detailed texture and sweeping layers to make music that meditates on the ups and downs of his own life over the last two years. In the process, he offers us a place to ponder our own experiences through music.

I’m Alright, I’m OK, Langa’s debut album, employs his skills as both a producer and composer. Langa has extensive experience in composition, working alongside film composers and studying with composers like Julia Wolfe and Robert Honstein at New York University. But he’s always had an eclectic range of interests: Growing up near Detroit, he was surrounded by a plethora of musical styles, from folk to soul to classical. In recent years, he’s expanded his production craft, gaining inspiration from electronic artists like Burial and Tim Hecker. The resulting album is made of wafting ambient, techno beats, and cavernous statements, showcasing Langa’s interest in creating lattices of blended sounds. Each track on the album weaves personal field recordings from moments in Langa’s life with electronics and acoustic solos by guitarist Evan O. Adams, drummer Josh Harmon, violinist Isabel Ong, vocalist Sabeth Perez, and saxophonist Stratøs.

Throughout I’m Alright, I’m OK, a lo-fi quality cloaks every melody, serving as a vehicle for thinking about the past. Many tracks on the album unite small, personal memories with expansive melodies that balance darkness and lightness in gentle waves. “Intro” opens the album with this pattern: At Christmas a couple of years ago with his family, Langa recorded everyone rubbing their fingers along the rim of their drinking glasses, which made a ringing sound. Throughout the track, that field recording is abstracted, and the drones Langa forms bloom from a gravelly crunch into a rainbow of vibrant colors. It’s not about the specificity of the memory, but rather how it feels to remember it.

Those moments of ambiguous warmth morph into icier atmospheres and back again as I’m Alright, I’m OK continues, highlighting the dichotomy between good moments and bad ones—and how you might need one to get to the other. The only cover on the album, of Daniel Johnston’s “bloody rainbow,” hammers home this idea, a ballad that blooms from a swarming drone into emphatic guitar plucks and simple vocals. Other tracks, like “speak,” foreground an upbeat, dance-inspired sound mixed with ecstatic saxophone; the extroverted sound of “speak” ventures into “interlude,” a melancholy, rippling track with slowed-down, chant-like vocals and watery gurgles. In these constant shifts, Langa illuminates how uncertainty teeters, never fully dark nor fully bright.

But the album’s overarching trajectory suggests hope: It moves from warmth to jaggedness and back to vivid, rounded edges. In Langa’s music, that balance creates a feeling of wistful reminiscence. At its core, his music is personal, derived from his own experiences over the past couple of years. Yet in the delicate balance he strikes, we’re able to forge our own connections, joining together in reflection.– Vanessa Ague

All songs written, produced, and performed by Dan Langa © 2022 Tree Town Music Publishing (ASCAP)

except:

Track 9 – "bloody rainbow" Music and Lyrics by Daniel Johnston © 2000 Eternal Yip Eye Music (BMI)

Additional Writing By:
Stratøs (4)

Additional Performances By:
Evan O. Adams - guitar (9)
Josh Harmon - drums (4, 11)
Isabel Ong - violin (9)
Sabeth Perez - vocals (5, 7, 9)
Stratøs (4)
Mix by Dan Langa in Northampton, MA
Mastered by Toshi Tsuruoka at Ecotone Lab

Liner Notes by Vanessa Ague
Art and Design by Luca Civita & Justin Cook