Mess of it ALL Time Line 2002-Present

02.08.16
2nd Mess of it ALL album, The Depth of Layers, was released.

2007-2010
Graham releases 4 albums for other projects he's in.
Make You Dirty and Early Mourning, a soundtrack to the novel by the same name with Tim Kress as Diads, and Transitions and Reflections with Matt VanOpdorp as Colour the Moon. 

03.20.08

The video for the song Reply was made available for viewing online.

02.08.06

Debut album stages and cycles was released.

2004

In August, Graham graduated with an Associates of Applied Science in Recording Technology with an emphasis in Recording Engineering.

2003

Having a desire to expand his knowledge of recording and mixing his music, Graham started attending MusicTech College in May. (Now McNally Smith College of Music)

2002

The solo music project Graham started in the summer of this year would be named Mess of it ALL by year's end.

Credits: The Depth of Layers

Album
Music and lyrics written and performed by Graham Sedam
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Graham Sedam
Pierce Szulczewski - cat toy on "Tears for the Dead"
Art concept and sketches by Graham Sedam
Photography by Elisha Johnson Photography
Graphic Design by Christine Sedam

Copyright 2016 Mess of it ALL


Video

To Be Determined

Art: The Depth of Layers

The Seer

track 1 from the album The Depth of Layers

Throw your old life to the side. In the desert you'll be purified.
Are you sure you can live up to the hype?
If you want to see close your eyes. If you want success then sacrifice.
The answers all live inside your mind.

Your presence seems to inspire a call to set the universe on fire.
To what end do you aspire?
Close your eyes to fall within. Foresee the paths of possible events.
Don't be quick to criticize. You're so quick to criticize the prescience in your mind.

Do you feel as though a bomb's ticking away inside your head?
Your adaptation to the elements is your greatest defense.
If you want to find a way out of this mess, consult with consciousness.
Flee to your mind and whisper the memories of generations past.

Wronged and Hunted

track 2 from the album The Depth of Layers

The natives say to take shelter in the day's heat, and survival says it would be wrong to disagree.
It's better to travel by night in the depths of this desert. It's best to comply by the looks of this weather.

We live here in the middle of these forces pulling us. A time will come when there's satisfaction of justice.
Running and hiding to no end won't save our skin. Endless tomorrows will come, and we'll be on the run again.

We've been wronged, and we've been hunted, and now they've left us for dead.
I wish our situation could be better, but a time for wishing will come to an end.

Can the waters of your world quench my thirst?
Can the taste of your heart end my quest for domination?
Have you ever thought your own cunning would be your end?
Feel the edge of my blade threaten your future, threaten your place.

This Place

track 3 from the album The Depth of Layers

We came to this planet for a better life, for increased opportunity.

It couldn't be any more different than from where we've come.

My home was a place so plentiful, and now I stare out at a space so empty.

This environment is desolate and holds nothing but harshness in its heart.

Sometimes I feel as though this place, this horrible place, lacks any sincerity.

Friends turned to enemies and those I had never even met became close friends.

Virtues

track 4 from the album The Depth of Layers

Beliefs built one by one upon a society's preservation,

Their preferences in step and aligned to the state of the population.

Each generation evolves new values destroying the old,

These virtuous youth warriors with a sword of their own.

Placing value in collective concepts they defend, despite the consequence,

The threads that bind perceived significance.

They define a vocabulary and aspire to demonstrate their ambitions.

They examine the bounds of long held temptations.

They overcome what is thought to be the difficult phase and

Then grow their roots deep and firmly into place.

Conquerors of confidence, they build an empire out of hollow stones.

Under the smallest of weights, it will crumble alone.

Do you love your virtues with their norms and all of their restrictions?

Do you own your virtues and obey the laws of these convictions?

Would they be easy for you to forget or do they guide you from the onset?

Will they lift you up and shatter gravity or knock at your eyes and steal your dreams? 

The Depth of Layers

track 6 from the album The Depth of Layers

Stop everything. We don't know how deep we will get. The rush is on and we will be there yet.

Leave everything we once knew because we know it has to change. We can't keep on living this way.

Running when we should walk, we fall.

Tempt the fate. Are we prisoners of the heaven we throw away, a hell we seem bent on to make?

Sew ideals. We make ourselves pregnant with the stones that weigh us down with each passing hope.

The thirst was too much. We drank until the end.

We wander aimlessly as though we were smoke floating away.

Our bones will tire when the sleeping wakes. Emerging from the edges, they've come to make us pay.

A blank canvas for a new creation, the universe only knows the laws of balance.

It will connect sooner than later to a cyclical method.

Reacting to the ebb and flow of our interaction, parts to the ensemble, we are testing the depths.

Lift those who lift you up through the depth of layers.

Official Biography (Pt.2) by J. Thomas Omeara

Since the release of Mess of it ALL's debut album, stages and cycles, Graham Sedam has released four albums. These albums have been collaborative efforts being released under different names. As a part of the group Diads, Graham and co-creator Tim Kress have released two full length albums, Make You Dirty and Early Mourning, a soundtrack to the novel with the same name. As you might guess, their second release is in fact a soundtrack to a novel Tim has written. The other two releases Graham has been a part of is with co-creator Matt VanOpdorp under the name Colour the Moon. The first release, Transitions, is an EP consisting of seven songs with the follow up, Reflections, being an instrumental full length album. More about these can be found at their websites.

It has always been Graham's intention to continue writing and releasing Mess of it ALL music. Even though there have been no releases since the debut, he has accumulated a depth of material at different degrees of completeness. Graham's focus has always been on the "long game," and one could posit that this is his life's modus operandi. Having started his musical pursuits around the age of fifteen, he has been a part of bands writing and performing for over half of his lifetime. Every year, every band, he saw as a stepping stone to perfecting his craft and finding his creative voice. His formal education in recording engineering ten years later, which started out as a desire to learn how to record and mix his own music, has turned into a passion all its own and has helped him to continue to explore the outer edges of music and himself.

A new Mess of it ALL release will be out in early 2016.

Credits: stages and cycles

Album

Music and Lyrics by Graham Sedam
Graham Sedam - vocals, bass, keys, drum & percussion programming, guitar
Matt VanOpdorp - guitar
Engineered and Produced by Graham Sedam
Mastered by Dominick Maita at Airshow Mastering, Boulder, CO
CD Layout and Manufacturing by Copy Cats Media, Minneapolis (except for purchases through ReverbNation)
Art by Siko Design
Copyright 2006 Mess of it ALL


Video

Reply
Created, Directed, Produced, and Edited by Tim Kress
Filmed at Black Hawk State Park, Rock Island, IL

Art: stages and cycles

Video: Reply

Video for the song Reply from the album stages and cycles

Official Biography (Pt.1) by J. Thomas Omeara

Mess of it ALL is the pet project of Graham Sedam. It's also his solo project. What this means- in this case- is that, to listen to his debut album, stages and cycles, is to be exposed to the essence of Graham. He writes about extremely personal, abstract ideas. The music on stages and cycles is a lush exploration of what a guy can do with enough determination (it took him 3 years to complete this project), a basement, a PC, and a synthesizer. Graham did have some help though, his long-time collaborator, Matt VanOpdorp, was a big help with laying down the guitar parts that Graham wrote. The ones that he didn't play himself.

The journey that Graham Sedam took to get to Mess of it ALL was long, but in hindsight, seems a straight one. Mess of it ALL is one result of Graham being in bands, and being frustrated by the lack of control a lead singer has over the music in a band. So Graham decided to go it alone. But he'd do it the right way: he went to McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota for a degree in Associate of Applied Science in Recording Technology. The dude really doesn't do things half way, and you can tell that when you listen to his music.

Review from the former site InterludeMusic.Net

Mess of it ALL is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist and technical guru Graham Sedam. As an artist who holds little value in conforming to the norm, his music conforms to nothing but his own whims. The name of his project is a fitting moniker - there are so many styles and vibes on the debut album, stages and cycles, the listener is sometimes not sure what to expect next. This broad spectrum of music is not a result of a skittish mind, but rather the result of a mind that appreciates all forms of music and expression as art. Embracing art with an open mind seems to be an attitude that is encouraged by Mess of it ALL. Therefore, I would encourage you to take a listen to the debut album with just that kind of attitude.

Product

track 2 from the album stages and cycles

Tell yourself what you want, I’m just a product.

Drugged with thought unfolding me, fastened too firmly

The ticking of the clock inside my head, showing reluctance towards the indifference

I’m just a product. I’m artificial and limited. I’m just a product. I’m artificial.

Removing the care every now and again, social dignities are blades in the wind.

The machine chugs on imitating perfection. I’m just a product. I’m just

The amputations from the operations - An assembled life - Artificial and limited

I’m just a product. I’m artificial and limited. I’m just a product. I’m artificial.

Face to face with obligation, give me a reason not to medicate creation.

I've lost my identification. I’m past my expiration.

Give me a reason not to medicate creation, a reason not to retain the information.

I’m artificial and limited.

Without a Trace

track 3 from the album stages and cycles

Without a trace led to chase dreams - Wish I knew what was thought when I think

Instead of being anything less - Individually something

Instead of being left in the dark to guess which way my mind will lead

Held up in captivity, feeling the weight of gravity

Combusting from the dense solid state I’m in

Without a trace led to follow dreams -Wish I thought the way I think when I think

Breaking down and giving in to this life giving addiction

Stuck on this vision, an open eyed gaze, waiting for the right time to be drained

Pouring out my sanity, reruns of history

Iridescent philosophies are born again

I can’t help the way I feel today. Couldn't it be a different day that I felt this way?

Is there ever going to be a day that this could actually change? I left without a trace.

The Real You

track 4 from the album stages and cycles

Where are you? I've been looking, but I still never have found.

Just leave me here. It seems you’re never around.

I couldn't tell whether or not you wanted me to see the real you.           

                                                                                               

Curiosity got the best of you accompanied by this intense side of you.

I wish to speculate you can’t really live until you die.

We are all dead inside along with the real you.

                                                                                               

How casual is it to be a casualty? Would you, could you show me?

Incompatible with you - Incomprehensible to you

Would you, could you show me the real you?

Reply

track 5 from the album stages ad cycles

Show some sign of life, specify, describe, confide.

Say a word or two to get me by. Let these words from motionless lips form a reply.

Only yesterday I mistook - Though many times I wish I could

Change the way I look at you - The same way you used to

But our conversations crumble and tear apart my head

Scatterbrained and cast away - Is this the end?

But still there comes no reply - Just way too preoccupied

Our conversations become dead - Scatterbrained and cast away

Scatterbrained and cast away -Our conversations become dead

Signify the simplicity. The reasons we give, on the reasons we feed.

Pallas Athena

track 7 from the album stages and cycles

Allowing who is you to live so blind, producing these lies consuming my life

Holding in the truth you won’t reveal, nursing these wounds that will never heal

It will never heal.

Hard to fit the pieces together, unsure of so much more than the trust

I’m having trouble dealing with this denial left, having trouble dealing with this sickness

For miles and miles I've been waiting for an explanation,

But still I can’t digest your reasoning.

I've trudged through the mud in the pouring rain

To hear you say the words, to hear you cry in vain.

My eyes are grey, she’s stung with the pain, pawning a rage so easy to follow

Allowing you to get to me, it is I, I have denied.

Who have I become laying prey? Allowing myself to become a part of you

Unable to see the unity of apathy you’re inviting

Unable to see the unity you’re inflicting

Driven with an avenging spirit, driven with your hate

Your ways imprisoning eager deity

My eyes are grey; she’s stung with the pain

Gone Sour

track 8 from the album stages and cycles

Sitting back, watching the turnout of events, many moments of silence,

It’s all the same in the end, keeping the confusion in my head.

Sitting back watching confusion invade my life, senseless noise I can’t handle anymore.

Confessions overflow my mind as sure as the days go by.

Treating the sickness as if it were dead

Indulging in attachment knowing only to accept

Surrounding all perception is a pause

I can see sometimes the truth creeping I’m still alive

(Ridden of fulfillment, it’s all gone sour.)

Moving forwards, moving backwards, falling in line, falling astray,

Like all the times before, it will never change.

Sounds in the distance, sound all around, but

Every time I turn around no one’s there.

Thoughts in my brain, chemical impulses, but

Every time a thought transmits I become more aware.

An answer to a question, a stage within the cycle