The #FAWM website went back into hibernation yesterday. After seven intense weeks of interacting with thousands of other songwriters, listening to their work and leaving comments about it, having dozens of fascinating conversations about music in the forums, and (as a moderator) ensuring that conversations about the use of AI remain civil and keeping the place free of spammers and scammers, it's always a shock when it all just... stops.

I guess I need to get back to work on my next album.

(Again, I only finished three songs that way; let's not make this approach look more successful than it was). But back to 2023. The conditions in 2023 were weird. On the one hand, I had recently quit my job and had plenty of time. On the other, I was on an off-grid farm in Portugal with limited electricity and a small selection of tools and instruments to work with, some of which broke down at the very start of #FAWM .
I've polished up the #music I made for #FAWM into a mini album, under the new artist name Things only Cats can See. It sounds unlike anything I've made before, with more melody and less sound design. It's on #Mirlo, probably other platforms soon.
https://mirlo.space/toccs/release/february-sketches
February Sketches

An album by Things only Cats can See Released 2026-03-08 A mini album made for February Album Writing Month 2026. 12 short, quirky instrumentals in odd time signatures, with found sounds and the occasional burst of noise. **CC-BY-NC** Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Please feel free to download this album, share it, and use it for your non-commercial projects. Just be sure to credit Things Only Cats can See.

February Sketches
Just saw the hashtag #FAWM in relation to someone releasing an album, didn't know it stood for February Album Writing Month, so my brain filled it in as Fuck Around With Music

My new album of #music which I made during #FAWM is out, just in time for #bandcampFriday

https://headfirstonly.bandcamp.com/album/thats-what-they-said

That's What They Said, by Chris Harris

12 track album

Chris Harris
#FAWM this year was a disaster for me, a perfect storm of conditions that made it impossible for me to work on it. There are lessons to be learned about how to avoid that for the summer event, but one positive development is that I've been looking at my archives from FAWM 2022-2026, and some earlier work, to see what actual albums I could make out of those tracks. I've got some pretty good options based on the song's themes…
All told (#FAWM 2026 No. 28)

All told, all told they’re gonna need a bigger bunker all told, all told to hold all of history’s monsters They won’t fit, I fear jampacked from front to rear we push them down the hold it’s easier s

SoundCloud
Best fit yet (#FAWM 2026 No. 27)

Here’s the gist I am not an optimist so much as I believe I haven’t worn my best fit yet Keeps me digging in my closet Keeps me posing in front of the camera and the mirror I’ve no clue if things are

SoundCloud
Overhead, underfoot (#FAWM 2026 No. 26)

Overhead, underfoot in from sideways out of the blue it’s how things happen these days also the nights after the news and weather come the fights where they say they will put everything to righ

SoundCloud
Lie to me (#FAWM 2026 No. 25)

I don’t like the way you lie to me but I love the way it sounds Friends say they don’t love to listen to you they say with you the truth cannot be found But they don’t know how you put words togethe

SoundCloud