Name: Shadient aka Morgan Hicks
Occupation: Producer, songwriter
Nationality: British
Current release: Shadient's Have You No Burden LP is out via Gud Vibrations.
Recommendations on the topic of depression: "It's OK That You're Not OK" By Megan Divine, "Mastering Creative Anxiety" by Eric Maisel and "Rethinking Depression" by Daniel R. Berger.

If you enjoyed this interview with Shadient and would like to find out more about him and his work, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.



You've suffered from severe depression since 2015. When was the first time that you noticed it - and how has it affected your life?

I first came to understand and recognize I was living with depression around the time I was at college in 2015.

It was a really critically vulnerable time in my life, I had a lot of personal things going on. But one thing that I'd always clung to as an escape from the feelings was making music. The moment it started inhibiting my creativity and ability to even start making any sort of music that felt promising was when I really noticed how deep the knife was. I spent a long time learning about reflection, self worth, self assurance ... all these things that amounted to the person I am today. Don't get me wrong I still struggle with it to this day, but I think it goes for all mental health issues; they never really go away, you just get incrementally better at coping with them and learning to speak to that cruel voice in your head rather than getting rid of it.

Depression, to me, is a conversion caused by exterior means to an important part of your mind that tells you whether or not something is a good idea to approach or tackle and, what it does, is that it pulls that part under the water so that you never even want to try to surface to the challenge.

You've spoken a lot about sadness in the press release to the new album. In which way was the shared sadness of the pandemic times concretely supportive for you?

I've been very careful with how I word this, because it's torn apart so many lives in the world, if not all. But for me personally, having lived with this depressive voice in my mind for so many years, the moment I found out that every country was entering some lockdown state and everyone's journeys (whether it be careers, lifestyle choices, etc.) were being inhibited the same way depression did my music, I almost felt obliged to make something that acted as a place for people to go when they're feeling sad.

I am one for coping with sadness by indulging in it. When I'm really struggling in my life, I don't listen to overtly happy music to avoid the feeling, I specifically find the most harrowing and painful music I can find so that I can really swim in the feeling, so I eventually reach a point where my mind naturally negates the feeling (I'm sure there's some scientific label for this).

Knowing that everyone in the world was in pain was like a moment of complete rest for me because finally, all of the happy people I'd always see online sharing their finest hour non stop every day were guaranteed to be in the same circumstances as me. The world was in an apocalyptic state and I wanted to use my existing pain as a way to let the people who like my music know "Hey, listen, shit's really bad right now. But this isn't forever. Here's some music for you to acquaint yourself with this painful space so you know that you aren't alone with the feeling".

Can you explain a bit the difference between depression and sadness on the one hand and how they are related on the other?

To me, sadness is a reaction to an event or circumstance in your life. It's an important one too, I feel every person should feel the full spectrum of emotions for an optimally healthy brain that reacts to things properly. People who indulge themselves in faux happiness I find are often driving themselves down a road of intangible chaos or disorder within their minds.

Depression is not a reaction. It can just be there. Depression can just find its way into you and you find yourself (at least in my experience) trapped in this inescapable mentality where nothing is worth giving a go, nothing is worth even trying.

As a depressed individual I so often would find myself giving myself shit for any remotely less than promising music I ever made "You're a loser, no one will ever care about this, you're going to be a nobody for the rest of time" and it's funny to me now because none of these things matter to me anymore whatsoever.

How does depression affect your music?

I've been making tunes as a hobby since 2007. I never really took it seriously until around 2014-2015 when people started offering me things for my music. Label agreements, deals, putting my tunes in tv shows and stuff ... but in a very odd way I find myself grateful for entering the depressive state. I've encouraged myself over the years to almost see it as my internal voice telling me to face the reality of the situation where I would've otherwise avoided it in recent years. It doesn't really affect my music anymore because I'm never really finding myself making music for anyone but myself these days.

But every so often that corrupt, evil word "compare" creeps into my head's vocabulary and I start basing my first steps upon people's final ones. Let me tell you this is completely irrational, but so so so normal.

Your new album Have You no Burden addresses some of the issues connected to depression in our times. How does the theme of depression run through it, would you say?

I think it runs through it through sonic representation.

I kept all the music slower, sluggish and brooding. I wanted the music to, as accurately as possible, depict the pain I have felt over the last 6 years. Whether it be through my voice droning out some intentionally bleak lyrics or an absurdly distorted synthesizer that sounds like a tornado siren. I just wanted to make a full body of art that truly speaks from my heart, and that is the heart of a person that has seen, felt, and lived some really fucked up shit in their life.

I wanted to damage the art in a way that still made it tangible too. I often would record some of the stems onto a tape machine and shake the thing around as it recorded the signal onto the tape. I wanted the actual sounds to have as much emotion and feeling as the lyrics and art does.

You've singled out "picture perfect social media timelines" as one big issue. In which way have social media made it worse do you feel?

I think it's slowly becoming a talked about thing now, but I am so completely fed up and tired of going on social media and seeing just how perfect and happy everyone is (seemingly) every single day of their life. People love to make their careers (specifically in music) seem like completely easy straight lines up to the top. But that's just not what real life is.

Of course I understand no one is going to post constant "look at how shitty my life is" pictures on stuff like Instagram ... but what I want to try and encourage is the ability to even ask "why can't I?"

In which way can music help with depression? In which way can it hurt? What are the concrete benefits of listening to music or performing it?

For me, music is the language and the voice that gives me therapeutic time to think and reflect on things in no other way a person ever has or will.

I think it can hurt if you try to negate feelings with seemingly obvious responses; "I'm feeling down today, so I'm going to listen to a really happy Beach Boys song" - to me that's just insane. I think you absolutely must indulge in the feeling, understand it, get to know it so you can see its weak points. Then you eventually find the strength to attack it with your own willpower.

I think music is like emotional training. Performing music is a great thing for me to do for my mental health. Just completely facing my anxiety, paranoia and depression all in one go. At any moment you could tip over the edge and fuck up completely and imagine a crowd of 1,000-2,000 people laughing at you like a total idiot.

I love that. It's facing a fear that not many things can offer in life.

There's a general trend towards "healing music", based on soothing harmonies, slow tempos and warm sounds. Do you see any merrit in this?

I've tried it myself, I've personally never really seen or noticed any sort of patterns towards bettering my mental health. I've gone through hours of playlists on Spotify where its just single tones that are supposed to "heal" so to speak, but maybe I'm doing it wrong.

I've heard many of my friends recommend it with the accompaniment of psychedelic drugs but that's not really my thing at all.

We are still in the process of learning how music influences our body and mind. What are some of the most important findings in this area from your point of view?

I think, for me, the music that heals me is the dramatic stuff. Tunes that do so much with very little.

Sometimes a single melody or lyric can just reach into your soul and grab your heart and let you know everything's going to be ok. I struggle to find the stuff that does that, so hopefully mine can do the same!

When it comes to the healing properties of music, in which way do you actively try to incorporate them into your music? Tell me about one of your works which expresses these healing qualities best so far, please.

I'm not sure if I do it consciously, but my song "In Your Absence" off my album definitely comes to mind here.

The lyrics

"Here I'm stuck and falling backwards, trapped in time it's all I know, collapse my head, erase me til I'm dead"

are about me feeling truly hopeless. When you really feel like there's no way out of this pain. When you look outside, it's still raining, you look in yourself, it's raining even harder.

But again, I think letting people know that someone else out there has and is feeling this way may act as some sort of shared pain process where they allow themselves to accept it. I think it's an extremely valid form of therapy!

Taking music's potential for healing as a point of departure, what would be suitable new approaches for appreciating music – from concerts to albums and new forms of listening – which could transport these qualities to audiences?

I just wish more people actually took time out of their day to sit down and REALLY listen to music. So much music now has this quality of being temporary or fleeting. It's capitalizing on how erratic and temporary the youth of today is. Tik Toks are short videos that loop. Nothing more, nothing less. No structure or anything.

To me, as I'm getting older, it feels like no one really makes time to be excited about most things, but especially art. I'm one who can't wait for that new album to come out, that new film, that new computer game, then once it's out and I can observe, consider and really live within it ... I sit and really think about why this was made, what it means to me and how this could impact both me and the rest of the world in and outside of their respective forms of media.

I just wish people cared about art more and were willing to throw away their fears of looking "cringe" or "wack" and just enjoy what they can't stop thinking about out of love.

When it comes to the healing properties of art, many use the word spirituality. What does spirituality mean to you personally and how does it inform your work?

I wasn't a very spiritual person for most of my life. But my girlfriend is a very spiritual person, she's a strong believer in guardian angels, karma and signs in the world that lead you to where you're meant to be going. Since we've been together I think I've naturally adapted to that way of thinking too.

I often see things in the world like road signs that say "go left", to me left is "leave" and right is "keep going" and I'll interpret that as "whatever's occupying you or making you wonder if this is the right thing to do right now, you should leave it alone" and vice versa.

It may be complete nonsense but for me it's a very meaningful way of guidance in the same way I assume many reach to religious beliefs for.