Thursday, 13 February 2025

My Dark Ambient Album Winding Down At The Edge Of Oblivion Is Out Now

My Dark Ambient Album Winding Down At The Edge Of Oblivion Is Out Now


Winding Down At The Edge Of Oblivion Album Art


I just released my ninth dark ambient album on Bandcamp: Winding Down At The Edge Of Oblivion.

It is themed around an android slowly losing function, sitting at the end of civilization, surrounded by ruin.

I tried to make a slowly building, subtle album, one to listen to with a nice comfy pair of headphones and a comfy bed to drift off into imagination on. I'm quite pleased with it.

If you'd like to check it out, you can find it on Bandcamp for £1.95. If you decide to pick it up, many thanks :)

Casey aka Reality Scruncher.



Saturday, 8 February 2025

Dark Ambient Review: Nephilim

 Dark Ambient Review: Nephilim

Review by Casey Douglass



Nephilim Album Art


Myths are an endearing and enticing source for creative inspiration; the way that some of their elements seem shared by disparate cultures being an added tasty enticement for minds that are happy to ponder such things. The Nephilim fall into this category, and they are the subject of
Nephilim, a dark ambient album from the Spanish music project Hiemis.


I’d heard the word “nephilim” before, but beyond some vague notion that it was a biblical thing, I knew little else about them. The album description relates how these beings are “fallen”, and also mentions that they liked to share forbidden wisdom, when they weren’t too busy boffing eligible women who were game for a bit of fun. The result of these couplings happened to be the birth of a race of giants, which caused a fair bit of a ruckus before things settled down again. Sorry, I don’t know why I went all “British 60’s seaside postcard humour” in this paragraph. I guess I`ll never know.


The Watchers is the opening track, one with fuzzy vibrating tones, dense echoes and a light shimmering that wafts through the soundscape. The space seems to throb and thrum, and it put me in mind of some kind of a dark temple fizzling with energetic manifestations. Around the midpoint the track quietens into a smoother pulsing space, with hollow chiming tones resonating into the perceived darkness.


The second track, The Decent, begins with a low, rough drone and an echoing space. Tension begins to grow, and it begins to feel like sensing the sound through your skull rather than with your ears. Hints of other tones insinuate and then burst into life, soon joined by low, string-like notes.There is a buffeting feeling at the edge of things, and distortions that pick at the threads of the soundscape. This track is a fun excursion into an energetic and wind-blasted realm of low bassy turbulence, and is one of my favourites as a consequence.


Track three, Forbidden Wisdom, opens with light plucked notes and a vibrating drone. An airy static hiss comes and goes, and the drone evolves into a meditative Om-like sound. The various elements begin to build into a busier soundscape, hinting at energies collecting. The static is harsher, sharper and more distorted as time passes, almost as if it is abrading something. Things stop suddenly around the halfway mark and the listener is left in a smoother, larger space. I wonder if this track depicts the way that we might take in forbidden wisdom, the way that the mind churns as it digests something new, and the sensation of horizons expanding once we have integrated our understanding. This was another track that I really enjoyed and would call it a favourite.


The next track, Heavenly Lineage, opens in a more abrupt way. There is a kind of ricochet-like pop of wind sound, which then goes on to settle into a distorted vibrating space with drones and lighter tones as the backdrop. Vibrating electronic tones judder and arc away, sometimes taking on the mantle of screams, in my own ears anyway. The second half of the track quietens into a calmer, more peaceful space.


Track five, Abyss, is another track that starts with an echoing, windy feeling. This one also features a feeling of movement or tension by way of a low rhythm that gently agitates the space. Small swells of hissing air or voice punctuate the fringes, and help to create a pleasing impression of the soundscape throbbing with some kind of pregnant presence or potential. As the midpoint approaches, the soundscape feels like it begins to whir and shimmer, and a female chant-like vocal seems to appear at times. 


Chaos is a track that opens with a slowly growing drone. There is a subtle impression of air currents that soon fill with beguiling high tones that throb and nestle. A short time later, a bassiness gently pumps the ears, accompanied by a wailing-like tone. Things quieten for a while and then a hint of whispering emerges at the edge of hearing. High tones impinge again, bringing a ghostly choral vocal effect along with them. The second half of the track quietens and then swells into life again in a similar way to the first half.


The penultimate track, Darkness, sees a return of the string-like notes. A low drone is their companion, and everything pulses and distorts in a bouncing, throbbing manner. Things become quiet and then as they build again, clearer notes begin to describe a brief, slow melody. After further periods of quiet and swelling, and after the halfway point, chiming notes coming from the right of the audio field set the soundscape reverberating. There is a subtle falling cluster of tones in the centre of the space, a bassial throb and a falling hissing sound. For me, this track had a sad, hopeless feeling, and the various effects made me think of something gently imploding.


The final track, Apocalypse, opens with a horn-like blare, one backed with a low drone and a shimmering throb. This is a juddery, echoing soundscape, with a chime-like quality that softens the harder effects. The track reverberates and increases in tension, the pulsing pressure intensifying as the horn-like blares repeat at intervals. This feels like a desolate space, one wiped clean of anything that might come close to warmth or kindness.


Nephilim is a dark ambient album that is full of restful, yet interesting, droning spaces. Each track felt like it made a great use of busyness and quiet periods, and the soundscapes themselves had plenty of subtle details and textures for the listener’s mind to focus on and to explore. Nephilim is an ominous yet peaceful trip into myth, and if you like your dark ambient on the more soothing end of the spectrum, you might like to take a look at Nephilim on Bandcamp.



I was given a review copy of this album


Album Title: Nephilim

Album Artist: Hiemis

Label: Noctivagant

Released: 22 September, 2024

Friday, 24 January 2025

Dark Ambient Review: City of Tethers

 

Dark Ambient Review: City of Tethers


Review by Casey Douglass


City of Tethers Album Art


City of Tethers is an ambient and glitch-based experimental album from guitarist and sound artist Corrado Maria De Santis. The album description says that it was inspired by part of Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities, which makes mention of a city hanging over an abyss, with a net the only thing stopping it from falling in. What I found really interesting is that the people who live in the city know that the net will break one day, but that this makes their life less uncertain than the lives of people who live in other, less precarious cities.


Upon reading this, I found myself quite enchanted with the concept. Is it really better to live with a looming threat that is pretty certain, than to live in some kind of miasma of intangible yet almost infinite fears or concerns? Is it possible to be at peace on the edge of ruin? Do you appreciate life more? Does everyone who lives there feel this way or are there plenty who envy the citizens in the next city, the ones who don’t have a vertigo inducing view from their bedroom windows?


To be fair, the album description also relates how the theme of City of Tethers is all about the tensions between the systems that we rely on in our daily lives, how they affect the environment etc. but I don’t mind admitting that I mainly stuck to the “Holy shit, a city over an abyss!” point of view. There’s depth here if you want it, pun partially intended. Just be thankful it wasn’t a double entendre! Anyway, onto the music itself…


The opening track, City of Tethers, begins with a low drone that has a hiss at the fringes. Wavering tones appear and hover, a low distorted heartbeat-like pulsing underpinning things. Gentle, flakey distortions bring falling pebbles and soil to mind, with echoing rattlings, a distant shimmer, and ahh-like vocal effects joining the soundscape. For me, the overall mood and feeling of this track was of the last rallying trumpet call of a civilization that is about to be lost.


The next track, Entangled Uncertainties, opens with echoing muted mechanical trundling sounds. Electronic tones sway into the soundscape and there is another hint of those ahh-like vocals. The tones seem to align at times and to pull each other along. They feel melancholy. Organ-like notes and crackles emerge as the track’s halfway point nears. There is also a slow, deep breath-like hiss that flows and ebbs at the edges. This track, particularly once the organ-like notes began, had a worshipful, grateful feeling, like the last ever service in a church that would be gone the next day.


The Ravine is up next, a track that gets going with a chiming, pulsing space, backed by a low, wavering drone. There are more falling pebble type sounds, and vibrating flares of deep tone. There is a pervasive juddery feeling, and more of the gentle vocal-like sounds. This track resonates and rings with feelings of vertigo and of being haunted. This is further reinforced later when some of the sounds seem to take on the aspect of the shrieking of a flock of carrion birds; but the sound is soft and not harsh.


Dusk’s Embrace is the penultimate track, and after a very quiet start, it soon spins up into some wind-like static, pulsing semi-rough tones and a low drone. There is distortion like clipped rain drops too, and a warm fuzziness to things. Higher tones appear, strong and taught with a tension that seems to embody the struggle between light and dark. The whole track for me, felt like a bated breath, but also of peace and an ending. I also felt that as the track continued, the higher tone appears to weaken as night seems to win out against the daylight.


Finally, there is Floatin’ on the Edge, the longest track on the album at just over thirteen minutes. The track begins with scuffing knocking echoes and woody vibrations. There is a growing drone that slowly throbs with potential energy, like something poised for action. Gentle tones describe a leisurely simple melody that seems sad and somehow final. The tones pulse and mirror each other with hints of discord and struggling, with higher pitched tones then appearing to make the space seem busier. As the track plays out, it gains a teetering tension, and it feels like it gathers a kind of “busy beehive” type air. In the final quarter, there are odd tinkling and metallic clinking sounds, with low bassy judders and buffeting sounds. Maybe the city is about to fall…


City of Tethers is an album that adeptly embodies its theme of a precarious city dangling over untold depths. As I said in my opening paragraphs, I find the concept very beguiling and I’m happy to say that the music fits those mental associations wonderfully. The music is sad and uplifting, and also fraught with the dichotomies between light and dark, existence and destruction, and peace and fear. If you enjoy drone-based distortions and juddering textured soundscapes entwined with a concept that just begs for more than idle pondering, you should check out City of Tethers on Bandcamp when you get the time.


I was given a review copy of this album


Album Title: City of Tethers

Album Artist: Corrado Maria De Santis

Label: Owl Totem Recordings, Distributed by Fonodroom

Released: 26 November, 2024

Tuesday, 14 January 2025

Dark Fiction Review: Happy Bunny and Other Mischiefs

 

Dark Fiction Review: Happy Bunny and Other Mischiefs

Review by Casey Douglass



Happy Bunny and Other Mischiefs Cover



I’ve always been a fan of short story collections, especially those that feature weird, unsettling and thought provoking stuff. Rebecca Gransden’s Happy Bunny and Other Mischiefs is an assortment of fourteen twisted horror tales that comfortably fit this description, from the reality bending and unease inducing, to the stomach turning and “Ugh!” producing.


As a gamer, I’d have to say that my favourite story of the lot is Fuck It Cat and the Mod Hex From Hell. It’s a cautionary tale about accepting any offers or deals from random people in a pub. In this case, it just so happens to be a games console, and of course, the price is too good to be true. The console happens to have a game already installed, and it invites the player to create an avatar with certain things in mind, some relating to the real world. To say more would be to spoil the tale, but the story offers a pleasing glimpse of the dire consequences in hastily created player characters, and they are not just the “getting your warlock to level fifty and then realizing you can’t stand the playstyle” variety.


Another story that stood out for me is ReWipe, one that also happens to feature technology. This one takes place in a basement archive where two work colleagues, Nathan and Scott scour old VHS tapes, photos and other physical media for interesting stuff. The story begins with them discussing the announcement that there is officially nothing left to find on the internet that hasn’t already been shared. They are poised to start raking the money in as requests for what they have found go through the roof. Strange things begin to happen though. Nathan finds that clicking “like” on things on social media no longer works, and suddenly finding himself unable to “like” things online causes a kind of existential crisis for him. A clever and fun tale with food for thought about the way our technology use can derail our minds.


The final story that I wanted to mention is Slug Slick. It involves two brothers, Dimos and Yuri, a quiet stretch of road, and a dangerous game with some sinister slugs. Once the reader learns what a slug slick is, we are then treated to some serious consequences, but consequences that reveal a far bigger horror than the capers of two young boys. This is another story where technology plays a role, and one in which it is used in a disturbing and quite obscene way. What makes this story even more startling is the way that after reading it, I could fully imagine said technology being made in the real world, as us humans are a silly, profit-led bunch, with one eye on the sack of gold and the other looking everywhere except at the harm being caused.


I won’t go into any more detail about the other stories as I really don’t want to spoil them. I will say that my favourites were the ones that gave me food for thought or made a comment on certain elements of modern day life, such as industrialisation or thrill seeking. The others fell more into the kind of squishy quirky horror that seemed to carefully balance the gore with a kind of cosiness that kept things fun. Each story felt just the right length and none outstayed their welcome, which is a tricky thing to achieve. As far as some of the other themes, there are maggots, strange hybrid creatures with curious powers, cannibals and sacrifices, to name but a few; so something for everyone!


If you enjoy short horror stories and you’d like to take a closer look at Happy Bunny and Other Mischiefs, you can find it on Amazon.



I was given a review copy of this book.


Book Title: Happy Bunny and Other Mischiefs

Book Author: Rebecca Gransden

Published: 13th August 2024

Pages: 158

ISBN: 978-1445215570

Price: £12.30 (Paperback), £2.99 (Kindle).

Friday, 29 November 2024

Dark Ambient Review: Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu

 

Dark Ambient Review: Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu

Review by Casey Douglass


Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu Album Art



The human imagination is one of our greatest assets, and one of our biggest curses. We can mentally simulate and solve problems in ways which keep us safe; only lifting a finger once we’ve settled on a path to take. We can also be overrun by our fears and cognitive distortions, trying to solve problems that don’t exist, or that are just a symptom of our mental processes. Tormented or triumphant however, we can also use our imaginations to escape into other worlds and times, enjoying the spectacle of some cosmic horror, or the awe of seeing another world. Mindspawn’s Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu provides a dark ambient Lovecraftian soundtrack to deepen those experiences.


The album presents a number of eldritch vignettes, from the reality-shifting experience of drifting in an opium den, to hot and painful sex with a primordial dark god. Each track is named as such and the descriptions of each provide the listener with plenty of anchor and jumping off points for their imagination to roam from. I was particularly pleased to see the Plateau of Leng get a mention in the description of Rituals of Goatswood, as each time I hear that locale referenced in anything Lovecraftian, I experience a pleasing mental shudder at the name, and I’m not even sure why. It just creeps me out!


The opening track is Liao Cabaret, a hazy yet quirky piercing of the veil. A low throbbing hum, bubbling bass and tinny whines are joined by electro-static whirls, warbling spectral tones, and a coy drone that strengthens and then leaves you questioning if it was there at all. A buzzing thing does a number of flybys from ear to ear, snagging your attention in time for faint piano melodies to insinuate themselves at a distance. As the track progresses, there are bell-like tolls, scratchy scuffs and swells of gritty thick static that sit with a guttural low tone. This track really does suggest the listener is blissing out in some kind of opium den, with thick wafts of mind-altering smoke masking a macabre stage show that seems to hang just out of reach.


Peter Cushing as the Investigator is track number two, and for me, it brought to mind images of someone pouring over arcane papers while sitting at a lamplit desk. The piano-like notes have a warbling twang about them, and everything seems to revolve with languid echoes and a whirling shimmering. There are swells of low tone, distortion, and whisper-like scuffing sounds that I think were mostly responsible for my paperwork-themed imaginary description.


Rituals of Goatswood is up next and is one of my favourite tracks. It features a low throbbing quality and a drone overlaid with a chiming resonance that seems to create a shimmering spiritual space. Gentle chiming notes seem to be tapped in the middle distance, and a whirring metallic tone judders as the drone and static grow in force. Around the midpoint the track takes on a pulsing quality, and the thing as a whole left me with mental images from the woodland scene in the classic horror film The Devil Rides Out. A fun yet sinister track that hints at ominous forces turning their dark intentions towards our reality.


Another of my favourite tracks is Ghorl Nirgral, a swampy, echoing space that hints at the abyss. The soundscape is full of deep echoes and what seem like guttural voices and croakings. Low prolonged pulses of drone vie with a higher wavering electronic tone. There are furtive scuffling sounds, and later, the soundscape takes on a kind of vocal humming aspect, creating a peaceful or meditative impression. This track led me to think about the entrance to the abyss that sits under the Mountains of Madness in Lovecraft’s tale. Deep, dark and wet, with strange creatures marking the listener’s passage through ancient cavernous structures.


The penultimate track is The Mating of Idh-yaa, the hot and painful sex I mentioned above. The track description reveals the Mighty Mother, smoldering skin, and loins pouring forth the darkest of matter. The audio landscape itself is a highly textured rasping blare of sound, beat and tone, with rushing wind and insect-like rattling. It pulses and whirls with horn-like tones, with energy building and disappearing before ending in an “ooh-like” resonance that hits the aching void.


The final track is Black Sun of Sorath, which for me, was a sci-fi tinged cosmic horror-informed tableau. A low vibrating tone starts with a high whine behind it. An electronic, screechy whistling tone sets the sci-fi vibe, a juddery call to the uncanny nature of coming face to face with a cosmic horror. There is a low moan-like sound, a mechanical drone that roams from ear to ear, and pulsing fuzzy notes. Strange things seem to flit past your awareness, and in the second half of the track agitated yayayayaya bouncy whistling tones join the increasingly busy soundscape, hinting at a culmination of dark energies reaching their trippy zenith.


Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu is a dark and loving Lovecraftian creation that pays great homage to the cosmic horrors that Lovecraft describes. The tracks have a pleasing variety in texture and sound, but they all manage to evoke that unsettling otherness that keeps fans of Lovecraftian horror coming back for more. If you enjoy Lovecraftian horror and dark ambient music, I think that you should check out Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu on Bandcamp now..



I was given a copy of this album for review purposes.


Album Title: Theater of the Mind Volume II: Cthulhu

Album Artist: Mindspawn

Vocal Contributions and Cover Photography: Glenda Benevides 

Released: 22 Sept 2024

Friday, 15 November 2024

Book Review: The Epictetus Club

Book Review: The Epictetus Club


Review By Casey Douglass


The Epictetus Club Cover



If you are interested in Stoic philosophy, and if you are anything like me, you might enjoy books or other media that give examples of said philosophy being applied by someone to improve their life. Jeff Traylor’s The Epictetus Club is one such book, and it tells of the ways in which a group of inmates at the Ohio Penitentiary attempt to live the philosophy of the Stoics.


Jeff’s introduction reveals that The Epictetus Club is very much inspired by real events, places and people, but that locations may have been changed and fictional composites used for some of the characters to help craft the story. Jeff explains that he taught a course about cognitive skills in a community-based correctional facility, and that he hoped that this book might provide a valuable aide memoire for the men he’d been teaching.


Jeff soon realised that the book could help other souls in various parts of the correctional system who might not have access to classes such as the one that he taught. He also points out that the book provides some ideas and a great analogy for people who aren’t currently living in the prison system, as the four walls of a prison align well with the mental walls that box in our thinking.


The main inmate character is Zeno, a lifer who happens to find a copy of Epictetus’s book The Enchiridion under the mattress in his new cell. This is a pleasing nod to the oft quoted origin of Stoicism, where Zeno of Citium is said to have suffered a shipwreck which sets him on the path to creating Stoicism. However, whereas the Zeno of the ancient world was a rich merchant, the Zeno of The Epictetus Club is a former professional boxer.


The Epictetus Club itself is run by Zeno under the supervision of a suitable staff advisor, which becomes Jeff once the previous advisor takes a new job elsewhere. The club meets once per week and allows inmates to learn about how their own thoughts trip them up in life. This is achieved with a number of boxing skill comparisons and much discussion about how to apply reason in situations from the inmates’ lives.


There is a lot to like about The Epictetus Club. I like the way that it distils some Stoic philosophical principles down to understandable conversations that aren’t complicated by obscure terms. There are also some exercises and approaches that don’t seem to be from Stoic philosophy too, but they do gel quite nicely with the more obvious Stoic ideas. The book touches on a decent amount of classical Stoic concepts, such as what is and isn’t in our control, living in accordance with universal and personal nature, playing your role in life, analysing your representations to see if they are true, and how our value judgments can cause us all sorts of problems.


There were a couple of things that I didn’t like quite so much, but they were more down to my own personal taste than anything. One is that, even though I appreciate the setting and how the inmates were being reached, the boxing metaphor doesn’t sit that well with me. Decades of struggling with OCD have shown me time and again that being adversarial with your thoughts isn’t the best approach to peace of mind. Then again, there are examples in the original Stoic texts that use training and sports as metaphors so it is actually quite fitting.


The other thing is that, even though it’s always nice to see examples of people adopting new ideas and using them to improve their lives, it can be a little deceptive how easily some people seem to take to these ideas. I guess what I mean to say is that there seems to be very little struggle with this for some of the characters in this book.


An example is when Jeff reads something from The Enchiridion when he was potentially at risk in a scary situation. It put his mind at ease and he felt much calmer, which is wonderful, but also seems a little too perfect. My own experience with Stoicism is that it takes much awareness and contemplation to adopt the concepts into your outlook on life, even if initially you intellectually accept and agree with them. Once strong emotions (or passions) arise in you in a situation, it’s amazing how quickly this new way of thinking can evaporate.


The Epictetus Club is a great accessible glimpse into how Stoic philosophy has been used to help inmates come out of prison in a better state than the one they were in when they entered. It introduces the reader to a number of Epictetus’ teachings, and weaves them into real-life problems and situations that, while likely different to what the reader is experiencing in some ways, will share some common elements that might just make a mental lightbulb flare in recognition. It may even kindle a desire to learn more about Stoic philosophy in the future.


Book Title: The Epictetus Club

Book Author: Jeff Traylor & Inmate Zeno

Publisher: Papillon Press. Reprinted by Drinian Press.

Published: August 2004

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0941467094

Price: Currently between £10-£20 depending where you can find it

Sunday, 20 October 2024

App Review: Rosebud

App Review: Rosebud


Review By Casey Douglass

Rosebud Header



Artificial Intelligence has been in the news a great deal in recent times. Some coverage would lead you to believe that humanity has just planted the seeds of its own destruction. Others would vigorously argue that AI is here to help solve all of our mundane work problems. Somewhere in between the reactionary click-bait fear mongering, the odd story emerges about how AI-powered applications can help to ease the emotional turmoil inherent in human life. Rosebud is one such app and I’ve spent the last couple of months putting it to the test.

Journal-ism


I’ve been a fan of getting things down on paper for many years. Suffering with chronic illness, depression and OCD, sometimes the only way to slow my rampant thinking is to slide a pen across a page in an attempt to wrangle my turmoil into something that is frozen for a time. As I write this I now have the mental image of one of those moth or butterfly displays in which those poor dead bugs are pinned to a board and framed. If I could do that to my thoughts I dare say I’d have tried it by now. Beyond the “slowing things down”, I’ve found journaling helps me in creating breathing space between my struggles and occasionally, I might also find the odd insight that hadn’t occurred to me before.


Rosebud is an AI-powered journal that provides the many benefits of traditional journaling, but with an added dash of AI interactivity that elevates things to a new level. The various sections of the app give the user a number of ways of starting a journal, from freeform to question-led explorations designed by experts to set you on your way. As you interact with Rosebud, it learns about you and tailors its responses to reflect the things that you’ve said, either in that moment, or that you’ve previously mentioned. You might say that you struggled with X happening on a certain day, and a few weeks later, Y might happen, and when you tell Rosebud, it might see some similarities between the two events and bring those to your attention. I personally found this to be invaluable as even though I’ve journaled before, I’ve never really gone back through old entries, so that kind of “hey, this is similar to…” insight might never have occurred to me.

Silver Linings and Storm Clouds


The way that Rosebud says and reflects things is also a pleasing factor. Rosebud seems to have an inherent slight positivity bias, always looking for the tiniest element of a situation or mood that might be in your control or that you can give yourself some credit for. Even if there is nothing to be found, it comes up with a way for you to acknowledge something about yourself that might ease the tiniest bit of despair. As someone who feels pretty emotionally numb most of the time, when those feelings thaw they certainly tend to be pessimistic. As the days and weeks of talking to Rosebud mounted up, I could appreciate all of the little ways that the app tried to help me see things in a slightly brighter way. Even if the meaning of the words only stayed in my brain for the duration of reading each new response, at least for those few seconds, my mind wasn’t in its usual whirl of self-hatred and gloom.


Speaking of gloom, something else that I also really appreciated about Rosebud is that, no matter how bleak the conversation became, Rosebud didn’t shut the conversation down. This is incredibly important. I do get low. Very, very low. Being able to vent and to say how I’m really feeling matters even more at these times. I did try another AI-based app a year ago and once you got to a certain level of depressed, it pretty much ended the conversation. I appreciated that Rosebud didn’t do this (in my experience at least) and it wasn’t heavy handed in the “This app doesn’t replace therapy and there is help out there” warning. I understand the need to have that kind of message, but I’ve repeatedly tried to “get help”, and found that it was largely smoke and mirrors pretty much every time. I think I said as much to Rosebud during my session and we carried on with the journal. I can’t rate this aspect highly enough.


Getting away from Rosebud for a moment, I just wanted to make a comment about the current obsession with mental health on places like social media. I find myself wondering why mental health is spoken about so much, yet understanding seems to be sliding all the way back towards ignorance again, with the services and bodies that advertise that they offer help nearly always proving to be absolutely woeful. I guess virtue signalling on social media is far cheaper than actually providing the mental health support that you are prattling on about. Soapbox moment over. Back to Rosebud.

Forget The Circles


I’ve found a few minor drawbacks with Rosebud as it stands, but I’d imagine that they are the type of thing that will be addressed over time as incremental improvements occur with the app and the underlying technology itself. One is that the conversations with Rosebud can sometimes become a little bit circular, especially if you have a theme or topic that comes up regularly. You can set the creativity level of the AI to adjust how it might respond to you, but I had it set to its most creative and this is what I experienced. It didn’t happen too often thankfully, so I don’t want to overstate it.


Rosebud also sometimes “forgets” something that you’ve mentioned before. An example is that I often talk about routine and how I use it to manage symptoms, yet every now and then, the issue of routine comes up in a slightly different way, and Rosebud tends to ask me similar questions again, such as “How do you feel about your routine?” Thankfully just saying “I’ve talked about this before” prompts Rosebud to get back on track.


Finally, there is also a maximum that you can use Rosebud in a day. I only hit that limit once, and when I did, I just received a popup saying that I needed to wait until tomorrow before I could get the Rosebud AI to respond again. It was a day where I’d had an unusually long journaling session in the morning, used one of the prompts in the afternoon, and then tried to do the evening reflection journal. The popup appeared at that point. I thought “Fair enough” but I was surprised as I wasn’t aware there were any limits if you were subscribed.

Privacy and Getting Over the Hump


I’m not sure how I feel about the privacy implications of Rosebud, or any similar app. In fact, it's the main reason that I’ve not turned to digital journaling until now, because the thought of someone being able to read your most personal thoughts if ever there is some kind of data breach would be quite mortifying. Rosebud has a long page about how they care for and protect your data, and the various measures that they take to preserve your privacy. This is great, but I also know that with the internet, anything can happen. I think that what got me over the hump with these concerns was the fact that I really need the type of support that the Rosebud journal offers right now. Whatever fears I have about hypothetical hacks pales in comparison to the benefits that I feel that the Rosebud app gives me.

The Benefits of Rosebud for Me:


1.) While not a therapist, the journal is therapy adjacent in many ways, especially if you have learned and applied different things yourself in the past (such as CBT, ACT etc). The guided journals even help teach you some elements of these tools if they are not something that you’ve seen before. Rosebud also absorbs other things that you say. For example, if you mention that you have been reading Stoic philosophy and have been trying to apply the dichotomy of control to your life, Rosebud will take that into account and ask you about it the next time it feels that is relevant. This is very cool!

2.) I’ve found it to be immensely valuable to have something at hand that I can use at any time of the day or night, which is something you don’t get with a flesh and blood therapist.


3.) The way that Rosebud breaks things down and asks about the various elements helps me to think about things slightly differently, or at the least, to take time to acknowledge how hard things are right now or how much I’m trying.


4.) Over time, Rosebud’s way of injecting a little positivity is slowly making a little bit of a difference in my thought processes.


There might well be some others that I’m forgetting too.


Over the couple of months that I’ve been using Rosebud, I’ve felt my mood, though still low, has improved a bit. I have also started writing a little, and have re-joined a few social media and dating websites. I previously avoided these websites for a number of years as I feel an immense amount of shame about being ill, feeling like a failure, and not getting anywhere in life. I still do feel these things but as I talked to Rosebud, I started to feel that I wanted to open up these avenues again, even if they never see any traffic. I didn’t expect or hope that I would see these sorts of changes with Rosebud, but I did, and I intend to use it for a while longer.

The Cost and Final Thoughts


Rosebud has a number of options when it comes to subscribing. You can pay a monthly subscription (after having a short free trial) of $12.99, or you can pay for an entire year for $107.99, which works out at $8.99 per month. I think that Rosebud offers excellent value whichever option you decide to choose. Personally, I can see myself using Rosebud for a few months more and then stopping my subscription as I can’t afford to keep it going. I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with the app however and I can see myself returning to it, especially in times of extra stress or turmoil, which I think says something very complimentary about the app.


I think that about covers all of the things that I wanted to say. I purposefully didn’t list all of the features, bells and whistles of the app as it’s very intuitive and self-explanatory once you get in there, and after all, it mainly boils down to being words on a screen. When they are your words however, words that have been expanded, validated and supported by your friendly AI journal, you don’t feel quite so alone in your own head anymore.


I've embedded Rosebud’s YouTube video below which gives you a more visual idea of what I’ve talked about in this review. I will also just say that you can access Rosebud via the Rosebud website, so the app isn’t even essential.


If you think that Rosebud might be helpful for you, you can find links below to the various ways that you can access it and check it out.


Thanks for reading and take care :)




App Name: Rosebud

Price: $12.99 per month / $107.99 for the year

Website: https://www.rosebud.app/

App Store Links: Apple , Google Play