INTERVIEW: THIN AIR + ALBUM: BREATHE & BLEED

Thin Air is the experimental solo project of Brandon McKie from Chico, California. Melodic and atmospheric, Thin Air mixes components of dream pop, emo, and shoegaze to create mesmerizing tracks. After nearly a decade of increasingly impressive releases, Thin Air’s fifth full length album Breathe & Bleed released October 18, 2024.

Breathe & Bleed contemplates the existential struggle of persisting, and what makes it worth it when it feels it would be better to give up. The beginning of the album evokes the familiar internal ache that festers when what you imagined you could be feels lost. An incredible lyricist, this provocation is particularly effective through Brandon’s use of vivid imagery. One of my favorite instances is in the track “Balloon Boy.” The lyrics, “spit filled and tragic, should have been magic,” so clearly brings forward the defeated feeling of sitting with seemingly wasted efforts.

As the album progresses it becomes more hopeful. “Barely There,” the first single released to introduce the forthcoming album, begins to more optimistically step into what life could be. “Shoulder Blade” continues this theme with the still bittersweet lyrics, “and when I look inside, I find there’s still a light.”

“Standing Still” is a contemplative and brilliant final track, closing the album with the lyrics, “Sometimes this dream is the only thing that’s keeping me alive, but it’s killing me at the same time.” Though a heavy album, Breathe & Bleed still puts forth the idea that whatever beauty we’re capable of adding to the world and the connections we make with others around that beauty, however hard to find at times, can make it worth it to keep going. It’s a beautiful thing to keep breathing.

These connections can be found in the album itself, including collaborations with Josh of Eyes Like Lanterns on “Balloon Boy,” Elliot Green on “Faucet,” Pacing on “Another Year Older,” and Kelly of Foreignlocal on “Standing Still.” One of my overall favorite aspects of Thin Air’s music is the unique layers of vocal melodies lend to their hallmark mesmerizing quality, which is only amplified with these features. Breathe & Bleed was additionally mixed and mastered by Jack Shirley.

I had a fantastic time getting to talk with Brandon about Thin Air and the release of Breathe & Bleed. You can read our conversation below, slightly edited for brevity and clarity.

K: So, [Breathe & Bleed] is your fifth full album? That’s insane.

Brandon: Fifth, yeah. I have the sixth one like halfway done right now. I have plans for the seventh one too. I want to do just like a fully ambient album for the seventh one, because people always used to be like, oh, it’s ambient and I was like, it’s not supposed to be ambient. There’s ambient elements, but it wasn’t totally ambient.

K: How would you describe your music?

B: I feel like, if I’m going just genre-wise, emo-shoegaze kinda gets it. But also that term nowadays is so thrown around. I feel like people hear that and assume they won’t like something, like, oh that’s what everybody’s making these days. So then I feel like, if I spin it that it’s like psychedelic, dreampop, something like that. Or emotional noise rock. I always wanted to be emo, but now I feel like I don’t want to be emo.

K: You’ve talked before about how the first album you recorded was on your iPhone and edited it in Audacity. Obviously a lot has changed over the course of five albums. What has that looked like for you?

B: Yeah, it has. That first one was super lofi. I’m surprised any of that stuff even works together. ‘Cause normally when you do overdubs, you’re like, alright, I recorded this guitar part, now I’m going to listen to the guitar part and sing the words over it. But on the first album I would play and record the guitar part and then I would just sing words, not even listening to the song, and then put them in. So, there’s obviously a lot of tagging issues with it. It is kind of a miracle that any of it fits together at all. Yeah, it was just super raw and not organized at all. I started using Logic after that, and that’s what I use now. [Breathe & Bleed] was the first album that I went into a professional studio and had someone else be the engineer. For all the rest I did all the recording, all the mixing, editing, and arranging, and this time I had someone else mix it completely. Jack Shirley mixed this whole album. We recorded most of the drums in his studio, most of the bass, and also pianos. We did maybe 40% of the tracking at Atomic Garden for this one. I did still do a bunch of home recording, but handing off all the final mixes, all the final stems, to get mixed by somebody else was definitely a big decision, and kind of a scary one. But I think it paid off because it sounds like a real professional record as opposed to the rest that have kind of a home brewed feel. Which is cool and I’m fine with, but my goal with this one was to, like, I wanted to sound like a real record.

K: Scary in just, like, giving somebody else creative control?

 B: I don’t think I gave away too much creative control. It wasn’t like Jack was like, I want to mix it how I want to mix it, you know, he was doing what I requested, but it is still kind of scary knowing someone else was handling it all. But it definitely sounds better than if I would have done it myself. So it was a good decision, and also I was just kind of at that point tired of doing the mixing because I could never get it to sound quite how I wanted. I love recording and arranging and writing, so when I’m recording stuff I’m just having a blast. But when everything’s done and I’m mixing, and I’m not able to get it to sound as good as I imagined, then that would just be frustrating. So it was kind of a relief to pass it off.

K: Yeah, that whole process sounds like I would go insane trying to do it.

B: Yeah, I think I learned a lot having somebody else do it because now, like, all of those tracks I can have as a reference. ‘Cause I don’t think I will pay for the next one to get mixed, just because it is expensive and I’m feeling better about my own abilities now, too. This one I wanted to sound a specific way, and I think from here on out I’m gonna be like, well, if it’s not the best mix in the world that’s okay, I’d rather do it myself and just do the best I can do and save the money. I have this one that’s the one that sounds super pro, and then the rest, if they’re a little more home brewed, that’s okay. […] And it’s, like, mostly drums. I feel like I’m good at recording guitars and vocals, but getting really big, radio sounding drums is a challenge. Especially on the last record. I actually did pay Headroom in Philadelphia, where a bunch of awesome emo records get tracked, they recorded the drums on a handful of songs on my last record. So if you listen to it, you’ll hear on the first song the drums are like super lofi. Then on the second one the drums sound big. Then on the third one they sound lofi again. It’s because the ones where the drums sound really big were recorded in a professional studio, and the lofi ones were recorded at home.

K: What all do you play?

I play the guitar and bass and piano and the harmonica and, yeah, all the keyboard stuff. As far as my main instrument, and in the past when I had an actual band, someone else played the bass parts. So on the last album, somebody else played all the bass, but on [Breathe & Bleed], I played all the bass just because the band kind of fell apart and I just had to do it myself. And I was more confident playing the bass this time because I actually joined one of my friend’s bands and was a bass player for somebody else. That really made me get a lot better at the bass. So, coming into this album I was like, I can do this this time. That’s definitely I think what I worked the hardest on for the album was some of the bass lines. I did a hundred takes, just to settle on, like, the simplest thing. And I play the drums now. I bought a drum kit last year because it’s hard to find a good drummer, and working with them can be a challenge at communicating what you want. So, I’m gonna try and play the drums and see if I can’t do every single thing for a record at some point where I play all the instruments. But the playing drums good is really hard, and especially playing to a click. I think I have a couple of simple songs that I will be able to play the drums for in the future. But also, I realized hiring someone who’s just really good at the drums is worth it.

K: Do you want to get a full band back together?

B: I do. I miss having a band a lot. My drummer moved to Portland two or three years ago. He was really super supportive of the band, and was so encouraging, and just having other people be there to help you with it is really helpful. Because when it’s just me, it’s like, I  have to do all of it and, it’s just, without anybody there to be like, yeah this is cool, sometimes it’s just like you’re doing all this for nothing. Also, when I play shows, I can only do certain songs because I’m limited to the looping pedal. That makes it a lot harder to play songs that have the, like, verse-chorus structure. And having a band there’s more shenanigans and fun. Like, I record other bands, too- I engineer and produce- and whenever you get a band in the studio they’re always laughing and having fun and cracking jokes and the vibes are just high. Then when I went down to the studio, it was just me and the engineer. I hired a drummer, and he was a really nice guy, but it was business. Like, alright, I paid you to play the drums so we’re gonna get this done. Then it was just me and the engineer, and it was, yeah, it was very business. Not a lot of goofing off and having fun, which I think makes the whole process more fun. I miss having a band for sure. I want to get one together, but keeping a band together is really tough. Especially now that I’m almost 30, most of the people that I would reach out to play music with are around that age, which means everybody’s old and has a job and a partner or husband or wife. It’s like, yeah, we can maybe practice once a week and it gets cancelled half the time. So, I’m trying. This is one of those things where, if I want to make it happen, I’ll have to try really hard to get it off the ground, and I’ll have to decide that’s how I’m gonna be spending all my energy.

K: Especially with everything falling on your plate, how do you stay motivated?

B: It’s kind of the only thing that consistently brings me joy and happiness. I can’t really even imagine not doing it. I just love writing songs and it’s my main form of expression. I love experimenting in the studio. That’s my main source of happiness. I definitely get really discouraged on the promotional end of things. I definitely feel pretty burned out in terms of trying to get people to listen to stuff and sharing, because I’ve just never been successful on that. Staying motivated in that aspect is really, really difficult, but staying motivated to make music is just kind of inherent. I’ve been having less fun because I have been focused on promotions so I think my plan right now is to do my best and keep promoting this album and then just go back to focusing on recording and playing and kind of not even trying to promote at all anymore. It just takes some of the fun out of it, and I’d rather have it stay something that’s fun and keep making records and just make one post like, “Hey, there’s a new record out today. If you want to listen to it, there it is.” […] I got on Twitter late and I realized, like, dang, this is the platform that I should have been on because it seems like it definitely has the most active community of people that are actually willing to support each other. There’s more communication. Instagram and TikTok feel very much like this is a place for you to promote yourself and minorly interact with other people, where Twitter feels like a lot more of a space for interaction. And, I’m like, man, maybe if I would have been actively promoting my stuff when I started ten years ago I would have actually been able to have more of a fan base by now.

K: Yeah, I think that is the difference on Twitter. It’s the only one where, like other people are hyping you up. You aren’t just having to hype yourself up.

B: Exactly. There’s definitely bands that are down to support each other and that’s what makes it worth it. It also feels the most toxic for some reason to me though. It’s the most addicting because I feel like I can get somewhere if I just keep posting, whereas on Instagram I’m like, well, this is kind of just worthless. And TikTok has kind of just taken the place of TV for me, but I don’t really feel pressure to post on there. Even when something does take off. When you look at like, oh, this got X amount of views and a bunch of likes, but did anybody listen to the song? No. When that happens over and over, you’re like, I guess it doesn’t even really matter whether or not I’m posting and 300 people see it or 10,000 people see it. TikTok is probably the hardest app to get people to leave.

K: What’s your local support or local scene like? California, right?

B: Yeah, I live in Chico, which is like an hour, hour and a half maybe, north of Sacramento. It’s pretty far northern California. It’s a small but supportive scene, and pretty diverse for the amount of bands. There’s a handful of bar venues. Unfortunately, right now we only have one all-ages venue. At least on the DIY scale we have the Naked Lounge, which is a coffee shop, and they do three or four shows a week. If we had more all-ages venues, that would be really helpful.

 Then I guess you just have the house shows, which are fun, but also, you don’t wanna count on a house show. Because I feel like it’s like if you’re booked at a venue that is reputable, you’re a lot less likely to have them be like, oh our roommates are fighting so we can’t do this show anymore. Then, if you are on a certain scale, a house show isn’t even an option anymore. Also, even if you are a small band, I don’t necessarily want to play at somebody’s house because things can get weird. 

There is like a whole crop now of younger bands that really have a bunch of support in their circle. They’re like college freshman or high school senior age. I walked outside of my house and heard a house show happening the other day, so I walked and found it, and it was like 50 kids just really having fun. It was a classic house show and it was cool too because, like, sometimes house shows just become a hub for kids getting fucked up and not even really enjoying the show. Which, I’ve been to those before, and it’s really, really uncomfortable. But these kids, they’re there for the music, and they have a great time, and they’re not getting fucked up. Or at least they’re doing a very discreetly. One time I played a house show and half the kids there didn’t seem into it. Then I went upstairs to go to the bathroom and there was, like, a 15 year old kid in the hallway like, “Hey, you want to buy some blow? Like, absolutely not, I’m gonna call your mom. This is not what this is supposed to be about. 

K: Do you have any favorite local artists or other bands?

B: My favorite artists… there’s a handful. My friend Matt, who I would want to join the band. He’s jammed with me a couple times. He has a project called Cat Depot and he also uses a looping pedal. But he’s an amazing guitarist and he does some really, really beautiful, twinkly, math-rocky stuff and also, because of all the layers of gift, just instrumental music that’s all loop-based. He’s incredible. I want him to join the band. That way I could have someone that is really, really good at guitar on the band. It’s funny too, like, Matt, the guy from Cat Depot, doesn’t give a shit at all about promoting his stuff. He’ll put out songs and he’ll make one post in his story like, “Hey, here’s this,” and never, ever talk about it again. Which I respect because I’m always like trying so hard, and to have that attitude of just like “Fuck it, I’m just putting it out” is cool.

There’s also a great singer, songwriter- Pat Hull– who has an awesome voice and is a great lyricist and always has a tight band. My friends have a band called Sunny Acres that’s like super psychedelic emo punk. They don’t play as much anymore, but they would play a show and everybody would be there and just go crazy. Their music was always right up my alley. Then there’s a really cool experimental band called XDS – it stands for Experimental Dental School- that’s just a drummer and a guitar player. He has this really extravagant setup that’s decorated and painted. Seeing them play just flawlessly every time is definitely inspiring. They’ve been around forever. I think they were based out of Portland for a long time.

And [Start-track] just put out Western Jaguar. He’s really nice. He’s one of the people on Twitter that I actually feel like cares. There’s a huge community and everybody’s kind of got their own buddies and I feel like he’s like one of my online friends. So it’s like, oh, I’m following like 1,000 people, and 1,000 people are following me, and it doesn’t mean much. But finding a handful of people that seem like they care and I like what they’re doing and they like what I’m doing- that’s cool. I really like all his stuff. I try and make an effort anytime somebody posts something like, “Hey, I put this out,” I go out of my way to listen to it. I remember when I had thrown his album on a playlist when I was driving somewhere and when it came on I was like, this is pretty cool, I like this! And then from there I’ve gone back and listened to his whole discography. I feel like we’re also in similar boats so I feel kind of connected in that way where it’s like, he’s been putting out music for just about 10 years, too. Just kind of grinding away.

K: He is so nice. I love him. You and Western Jaguar are both gonna be on a DIY Goes Country compilation, right?

B: Yeah, I’m really gonna try and get it done this time. I committed to two comps last year and dropped out of both. It was a lot tighter deadline. One was the one Ryan did- the DIY Goes Butt Rock comp. I was gonna do “Glycerin” by Bush. I had it like halfway done, but it was right at the time when I was trying to finish up [Breathe & Bleed] so I was just super busy and I was like, I just don’t have the time. So I have that sitting halfway done on my computer. But this one that Aaron [from Dull Frequency Records] is doing, the album’s done, so I think I can get it done.

K: What song are you doing?

B: I’m gonna do a Shania Twain one- “Forever and For Always.” I know somebody else is doing “Man I Feel Like A Woman,” but I wasn’t brave enough to go for that one. I feel like that one’s the most famous one, and it’s so good, that I would be afraid that I wasn’t gonna do it justice. So, I went with a little bit more low key one. And when I went and listened to it I was like, oh yeah, this one starts atmospheric, this will just work in my style better.

K: What’s your favorite song off your latest album?

B: I think “Shoulder Blade” is my favorite. The lyrics, I think, are some of my best and I feel like they’re personal but also universal. That one just really means a lot to me. Even though it’s pretty plain language. I think that’s cool. And that one sounds, I think, the closest to how I imagined it sounding. It did feel like it just came together easily. Nothing on that one took very many takes. Sometimes it was like, I did a hundred takes to try and get this one right, but on that one it was just like, oh, that first take that was pretty good. Let’s just go with it. […] I feel like there’s definitely not any filler [on Breathe & Bleed] in my mind. They’re all a unique thing that contributes to the whole. I wanted to have there be something special about each song. Most of my favorite albums, each song has something to make each song stand out from the rest.

K: Yeah, I feel like I pick a different favorite every time I listen through it. What were you listening to while you were making Breathe & Bleed? Any artist or anything that was particularly influential?

B: There’s this guy, Jim O’Rourke, and his album, Eureka. It’s from the 90’s, but that one’s a perfect example of, like, every song has different instrumentation and different stuff to make it stand-out. The mixing is perfect and production wise it’s super layered and trippy. There’s also lots of horns and stuff. That one’s an inspiration for all my stuff. Then there’s some very indie albums that I’m always taking references from, like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. But I think stuff that I was actually actively listening to throughout this one- there’s an album by Paul Westerberg called Stereo. He was the guy from The Replacements but I think I actually like his album from his solo career more than the Replacements. And the album Stereo in particular, is 10 out of 10. Awesome album. Even if I wasn’t trying to emulate him at all, that is something that I’ve listened to all the time because he actually gets it done without anything fancy, which I really respect. I want to try to be able to do something like that eventually, ‘cause all my songs right now I feel like depend on layers, an atmosphere and texture, and everything to remain interesting and, most of that album, it’s largely just him and the guitar. The songwriting is just so good, like, his lyricism and voice and the structures are just perfect that it still feels really rich and full even though it’s mostly just him and the guitar. It’s great. I only heard it for the first time, like, three years ago and I was like this is the best thing I’ve ever heard, and now I listen to it like once a week. During the period of making this it was definitely more than once a week. It’s definitely a hard record to wear out.

K: Is there anything new you did or tried as far as your process for writing this album?

B: I think this is the first time I ever actually scrapped songs for an album. All the other ones it’s been like, I made the songs and that’s what’s coming out. But this one, there was a working version for like a year that had three different songs on it that were all fighting me when I was trying to get it done. So then I wrote new songs and was like, well, these are just going to be for the next album. So like “Shoulder Blade” was actually gonna be on the next album, but I ultimately decided to scrap those three songs that weren’t working and put three new ones on. I’m really glad I did because it made it so much better. Like, yeah, now, I think that’s my favorite song. And it kind of replaced what would have been the weakest song on the album, so I was really happy with that choice. And, yeah, that was something I haven’t done before.

K: What did you do with the ones you scrapped?

B: They’re just on my computer. I haven’t decided what I’m gonna do with them yet because they’re not bad. There was a different intro track, and it’s actually a song that I really like a lot. I was just really struggling to record it and get it to sound how I wanted, so they’ll definitely come out at some point. I do have a bunch of odds and ends because, over the course of ten years, there are a bunch of extras. Like for other albums there were a bunch of extra ones that just didn’t fit, but I never actively was replacing and rewriting stuff. They were just like, oh, this will just go somewhere else. So I have like 25 songs or something that I could release as an odds and ends thing that I might do one day. Maybe that’s where those songs end up, just a compilation of extra tracks. It would be pretty interesting. It would definitely be all over the place, which would be fun.

But yeah, some of them might get moved, and some of them might get put out on odds and ends album. I feel like as singles they wouldn’t be that cool but if I compile them into an album it could actually be pretty cool. I don’t like singles, though. I know that’s the new way of doing things, but I just like albums way more. It’s just way more fun. Since I was a little kid I’ve listened to albums start to finish. I got a CD player when I was like seven and I would just put a CD in and listen to the whole thing. So that’s always been how I listen to music and like, whenever I fell in love with an artist, I fell in love with their albums. I do feel like listening to an album through is not as common. I don’t know. I think there’s plenty of people out there that [albums] are still their preferred format, but I feel like just singles are more popular now. I mean with TikTok and social media just the attention span is definitely, on average, people are probably listening to singles more often. I mean, I put out one single last year. It was an outtake from the last album. I knew that this album wasn’t gonna be done and I was really trying to stay consistent releasing stuff, because it’s important to just have something the way the industry is right now and, at my level, it’s like if I’m not putting something out then you’re not in anybody’s mind. But this year I think I’ll definitely have this album I’m working on ready to go.

K: Do you make all the album art for your releases?

B: I did for the first three. The first album was just some pictures that I took on my phone. I was just learning Photoshop, or, not even learning it, I was just fucking around in a cracked Photoshop. Which I should have kept doing because now every time I need to Photoshop I have no skills and have to hire somebody. That would be a very useful skill. Then the second album is a drawing that I did. I also used color pencils and watercolor. The third one is just watercolor. Then, the last album I didn’t want to do it. So, my friend Zach is a local visual artist, and I just love his art, so I wanted to commission him to make [the art] for the last one. But for [Breathe & Bleed] I did a collage for it. The artwork for the singles that I put out were like snippets or segments of the whole cover.

K: Yeah, I’ve seen some of the collages and all that you’ve posted and I absolutely love them.

 B: Thank you. Yeah, I really love doing them. In high school I was all about colored pencils and watercolor and stuff, but then I got burnt out because for my second album I actually hand painted, like, a hundred individual cases. After I did that I was kind of done with that for a while. Then I discovered collage. Me and my friends did a giant one on my dining room table, and it was so much fun, and you can cover so much space so fast. So, that’s when I kind of started doing them. I got really into it, and that’s why I decided for this album I wanted to make a collage for it. I thought it would fit the vibe the best.

It’s hard because it makes a really big mess, so that’s another one of the things where I have to choose whether I want to be recording music or doing collage. If I bust out all the collage stuff, then it just sprawls out over the entire band room, and there’s little scraps of paper everywhere, and that gets in the way of trying to record stuff.

K: Yeah. And yours are so detailed. It’s one of the things I love about them. I can’t imagine what your studio would look like.

B: I have like two school binders full because once you start cutting stuff up, you’re like, well, every little scrap could be useful. So I have two binders with the see through page protectors and then they’re just full of scraps. I use them all the time, so it’s totally worth it. I plan to eventually try and do one where it’s a collage where I just get rid of all the scraps as a challenge.

K: Do you have any physical releases coming out

B: I’m gonna get CDs made for this one. I definitely like having physical media. Records are way too expensive for me to be able to afford on my own. I’m hoping that I could do a Kickstarter type thing where I get some preorders and then maybe do records. I’ve never had records and that’s definitely a big goal. I have a big record collection. Then the art works really big. But just CDs happening. Also I have some friends that run a tape label in Chico, so there’ll be some tapes, too, I think.

K: Oh, yeah, that’s exciting. That was one of the first things I thought when you showed me the collage. The way it’s set up, I feel like it’s perfect for a front and back cover for vinyl.

B: Yeah, that’s how I designed it. That’s what I had in mind. I was actually worried because it’s pretty big in detail, like I don’t even know if it’s gonna look right on the phone, like, I don’t know how the details are gonna come across. But on a record it’ll look great.

K: Any final thoughts?

B: Just thanks a bunch for checking out the album!

Be sure to follow Thin Air on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok @the_thin_air to keep up with future shows and releases and keep an eye out for merch! You can also find them on Bandcamp and  Facebook. Huge thank you again to Brandon for taking the time to talk about Breathe & Bleed

Written by Killian