Ambient composer Six Missing shares music for burnout on ‘Gentle Breath’ out now!

 In this whirlwind of a year, after being subject to endless new cycles, a barrage of social media trends, and keeping up with the daily grind—feelings of burnout become more common than ever. Austin-based ambient composer and producer TJ Dumser, aka Six Missing, shares his new EP at a poignant moment. Aptly titled, Gentle Breath, Dumser opens up about his own mental health struggles with depression and burnout, encouraging listeners to find a moment to rest, heal, and work through their anxieties and pains. The six-song journey sees the evolution from rock bottom to resurgence, through nuanced and textured synth pads, lush guitar-laden atmospherics, and deep drones.

TJ Dumser explains more about the project’s theme: “Let’s set the tone: Anxiety and depression take center stage here. This is the type of depression that makes you start to forget if you actually ate that day or if you even went outside. The depression that makes you feel like you’re angry and sad simultaneously at nothing and everything. And all the things that you used to enjoy doing suddenly feel colorless and more like chores than anything else. We’re also talking about burnout. Classic burnout from overexertion, when you realized you needed a break a year ago but kept going… These were the feelings I had when I first started working on what became the “Gentle Breath” sessions.

I had no energy at all to do it. In fact, I didn’t even want to begin because I knew how much work is required to make a record worth sharing.

But little by little, I began taking those steps up the mountain. Because even with a broken leg and a bandaged arm you can make progress – sure, it’ll be a lot slower and less efficient. But you’re still moving forward. And so that’s what I did – each day, just a little step towards the light. I tried not to place any pressure on myself to actually make anything or to complete it, which actually had an entirely wonderful and freeing effect on the process.

Gentle Breath is a journal in that way. It captured my lowest point to a higher point, taking the listener on that journey.”

Six Missing has quickly integrated himself as an innovator in the ambient music space. His artist name takes inspiration from a supernatural experience he had in a cabin in rural Pennsylvania that once was the site of the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Brandywine, where six participants’ remains were never found. Since launching in 2017, Six Missing has curated thoughtful soundscapes meant for inner-journeying logging collaborations with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, St. Lucia, Ann Annie, Jamie Lidell, Clariloops, and more. He’s amassed millions of listens and received critical praise from Headphone Commute, CLASH, Inverted Audio, and others.

Listen & Share Six Missing ‘Gentle Breath’ Here:
https://sixmissing.ffm.to/gentlebreath

TJ Dumser’s new EP as Six Missing is a lushly iridescent and unexpected turn in what’s already become an impressive discography in the realm of ambient music. Inky and gorgeously spread, Gentle Breath finds Dumser immersing himself head-first in complicated emotions and feelings of uncertainty, resulting in the most striking music of his career thus far. As a project, Six Missing has already come to represent a wide range of aural ambient tapestries; the devil is always in the details with Dumser’s work, and Gentle Breath is his most richly complex work yet.

The project arrives following a period of highly visible industriousness when it comes to Dumser’s musical career. In addition to Six Missing’s exquisite and lovely Here For Now LP released last year, 2024 has already seen the release of counter:point, an intriguing electro-acoustic collaboration with Ruby Lulham of Clariloops. As it turns out, however, this spate of incredible productivity came at a price, and in the summer of 2023, Dumser found himself staring down a mental health crisis as a result of being overworked.

“I was in a really low spot,” he recalls. “I was feeling out of gas and completely burned out, and it did a number on me.” While Dumser says he’s still processing the “ramifications” of this mental crash period, he also stresses the creation of Gentle Breath helped him in processing how to take care of oneself and move forward. “By having these little sessions with myself, I started looking back on my experiences with a new sense of perspective. I could really hear how anxious and depressed I was feeling.”

Refers to himself as “a classic workaholic,” Dumser cites his decade of sobriety as a driving factor for the level of activity that he eventually found too much to bear. “There’s these external accolades that come along with being a workaholic, but it’s still an addictive part of my behavior,” he says. “I’d been running this marathon that felt like my life for a few years post-pandemic, just because I had the good fortune of becoming very busy.” Eventually, he hit a wall that seeped into his own perspective regarding the creative process.

Possessing a dark, uncertain sound that breaks from previous Six Missing material, Gentle Breath came together over the course of half a year and represents Dumser finding a new place of confidence when it comes to his musical voice. “It all came out so unconsciously and without thought,” he muses. “Instead of apologizing for that, I started to stand a little bit taller and trusted that the listeners wouldn’t need their hand to be held. It gives them a place to process what I was processing, too.”

Of course, processing and acceptance by no means go hand-in-hand, and so Dumser initially felt self-conscious about the new direction that Gentle Breath represents. “I was like, ‘Oh no, that is not my sound,’” he recalls. “Then I was like, ‘Well, fuck it, it is my sound. It’s me and my honest, unfiltered journey working through these feelings, which are just constantly evolving—and a real task, because being a human being is just fucking hard.”

Indeed, these six new pieces of music explore fascinating new territory in Six Missing’s landscape; at times, this music recalls the chilly loveliness of Kompakt co-founder Wolfgang Voigt’s work as GAS, as well as the nocturnal reveries of Tangerine Dream’s black-hole cosmic journeys.

“That’s what art is about,” Dumser reflects while discussing the EP’s difficult origins, as well as where it gestures towards the future of Six Missing’s sound. “There are painful moments, and through it we can get to these brighter days. As much as I need to be able to recognize when I need a break, it’s also OK to push yourself here and there to capture these extreme emotions. There’s nothing more honest than putting out a side of yourself that you’re just kind of a little nervous to share with the world.”