I come to you with a message:

Let the rhythm set you free. Let it all go. Just vibe with me.

No, I'm serious. Turn up the volume and for the next 4 minutes, I want you to dance like nobody's watching.

Be in the moment. Be present. Be free.

If a zombie can do it... then so can you...

I had so much fun making this one, I even created a music video for it!

Here we go, guys!

It's been a very crazy year for me, I honestly didn't think I'd be in this good of a place at the start of the year; things went downhill fast, but I'm in a very good place now. Sometimes, life blindsides you and you have to pick yourself up and go again. Just keep swimming!

So, what better way to express that than through music? Trust me, I've got some really spicy stuff coming up and I'm really excited to share it with you! We'll start things off with this, which I think is the weakest of what's to come. So, if you think the below is good, then you're in for a treat!

Also, it being Movember, I want to highlight the importance of your physical and mental health. I know not everyone is as priviledge to get access to something like therapy, so here are some things I learned this year that I would like to offer to you:

This may or may not help. Everyone is different. Some of the below might not work for you, but healing is all about gathering the party you need to take into battle. So, take whatever works for you, and find other techniques to cover the areas that don't work for you.

Let yourself feel, process and cry if you need to. Imagine yourself carrying a big tank of water. Every time something happens, it gets more and more filled up. You need to open the emotional tap every once in a while to drain the tank. The more empty it is, the less of a mental load you carry. The less of a mental load you carry, then new negative experiences won't risk overflowing the tank and make you slip and fall.

Gentlemen, check your balls! Do it every day! I can't stress this enough. My year began this way, followed by a few different screenings to get the all clear. Unfortunately, it tanked my mental health and my depression and anxiety came back with a vengeance, which leads me to...

Take care of your mental health, be mindful, and look up grounding techniques that help you stay present. Here's something to get you started. And here's another.

This video is a great way to find your inner confidence. I found this video over 10 years ago and it pretty much changed my life. Now, the power posing thing is contentious, and I don't do it myself, but the underlying message of "fake it till you become it" is something that has changed a lot of my life and belief in myself.

Your negative thoughts are nowhere near as important as you think they are. Don't be afraid of them, just let them be. They are intrusive thoughts and nothing more. If it helps, picture a crazy cartoon character telling you all these thoughts, suddenly they're not as scary anymore, are they? Which leads me to...

Personify your emotions, exactly like Inside Out! It's my favourite mindful technique. So, imagine your anxiety as something you won't be afraid to approach, for me it's my child self (I just want to comfort and love him). When I feel anxious, I imagine him, I give him a hug and tell him that everything will be okay and the anxiety goes away. You can do this with all the emotions that give you problems.

"What do I need right now?": whenever you feel angry, stressed, anxious etc. ask yourself this question and do what comes to mind! You'll feel better almost instantly.

In your mind, go back and find your past selves, the ones who needed you most, and talk to them. Tell them everything you wish you were told. Hug them if you need to. You may have gotten through it all, but they are still back there waiting for someone to rescue them. My friend, that person is you. Save them to heal yourself.

Build your own safety campfire and gather your other selves, your emotions, favourite characters and people: So, this technique is very imaginative and it doesn't have to be a campfire, it can be anything that makes you feel safe and for me it's campfires. I like the relaxing nature of it.

So, create the space in your mind and now populate it with your favourite fictional characters, the personified emotions, and people that inspire you. And then imagine a future version of yourself, this is your ultimate self, the person you want to become; imagine how they look and speak. This person runs the camp. Now, whenever you visit a past version of yourself, bring them to the campfire.

What you will essentially have is a safe space in your mind filled with things you love and care about to support you with your thoughts. When you feel anxious, talk to your anxiety, and then maybe ask someone in the group if they have something else to offer.

If you can imagine this and successfully pull it off, you'll be amazed at the discoveries you can make. Alternatively, when I'm feeling lazy, I programmed ChatGPT to have my campfire there with all the above. So, if I'm lacking the brain power, I can talk to them that way. And it's pretty incredible how even though you know it's just a computer, it's still very effective and can make you cry anyway.

DARE Response: For those who have to battle with intense anxiety and panic attacks like I do, I highly recommend the DARE response. You can grab a free digital copy from the website and use the app (also free) whenever you feel anxious. Seriously, it rescued my year - this isn't an ad, I just care about you.

Exercise is a great way to unload the mind, but you don't have to go running or hit the gym for that. A long walk is enough, or even something like yoga that you can do at home. Anything that gives you the time to process your thoughts. Or, do what I love to do, put on some music and dance like no one's watching! Do it when you cook, before getting in the shower, whenever man. Just dance. Let it all out.

Mental health is something that is very important for me and I'll always help people with theirs. So, please drop me a message if you need someone to talk to.

And, also, feel free to drop me a message if you need help with music! People have done it in the past and I've given them loads of tips and tricks!

Learn to truly love who you are, faults and all.

Look after yourselves, let it go and just vibe with me ;)

Stay tuned, I'm going to be fairly active as we head into the new year.

Hey, hey, hey. Don't think I've gone off and forgotten about you guys.

It's been a busy year, complete with a massive health scare (I'm fine, but it was scary), therapy which has done wonders for me, I'm an uncle nowadays, and I've gone through a break up among other things... including a very interesting new development that I didn't see coming, which is exciting! Anyway, there's been a lot to keep me occupied.

But, I've managed to find time to work on 3 new tracks that I will be uploading throughout December. There might be a 4th, but I'm not sure it'll be ready in time... but who knows?

Watch this space!

Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/@syphonmax

Coming back to Newgrounds after a long time of inactivity has been a really wholesome experience, I didn't realise how many people still followed me! I also forgot how much I loved producing music. It's crazy to think that the music I was making back then was actually having an impact on people.

So, thank you to those who've welcomed me back with open arms.

I'm sure there's plenty more to come from me this year! For now though, as requested, I'm reviving my YouTube channel and have begun uploading my stuff again. The channel will be reserved for the "best of", split into "classics" (old stuff) and my new stuff.

If you think a song in my catalogue belongs on YouTube as a "best of", do let me know.

Below is a taster of the "new look":

And the classics have a slight different look to them:

Until next time, Syphonmax out!

To those who care to read. I've been on Newgrounds since about 2005, and I began uploading music in 2006 when I was about 13 years old I think. Things were very different back then.

Musical artists were ruthlessly fighting for top 5 every week, zero-bombing left and right to get theirs in front! The audio portal was buzzing with exciting artists like F-777 and my man Kr1z!! I remember the collabs I did with HelthRMX and all the chats we had back when MSN was still a thing.

Back then we couldn't even post links, we had to split them up like this:

https://syphonmax.

newgrounds.com/audio

Anyway, I came to the realisation that Newgrounds is kind of my own little time capsule, there's a lot of heart I put into this place, so in light of all that, I did the brave thing and listened to every song I've uploaded here since I was about 13/15 years old!

So, if you care to come on a little journey with me, read on!

WARNING: I grew up when Basshunter and Cascada were peaking! It was Europop all the way!!

Some of it made me laugh:

"DO THAT! DO THAT!" God, it's so bad.

"I didn't think you'd be so feminine" -- the hell does that even mean!? Hahahah

Others left me confused as to what people were hearing, but it clearly spoke to some of you!

I created the above for an RPG game I made in RPG Maker XP. What was the title? "The Ultimate Battle", I wasn't very creative with titles back then...

I did it for our year 8 exhibition (13 years old), unfortunately for me, no one believed I created both the RPG and the song! So, I was disqualified. Hurts to think about, but at the same time it's quite the compliment, ain't it?

Others made me go, "hmm, not bad!":

I still get PM's about the above every once in a while.

Some reminded me of being absolutely hopelessly in love.

She once asked me to shotgun kiss her (where you kiss and blow smoke in each other's mouths) and I blew the smoke all over her face instead! Sorry for being such a goof :D

I never got with her, but I wouldn't change a thing. The stories that make us want to curl up in a ball of cringe are the best ones.

[Edit: 06/11/24]:

So, yeah, about the above... well, life has a funny way of doing the unexpected ;)

Others made me go "HOT DAMN!"!

It's funny listening to this because I'd absolutely NAILED the style of music going round at the time, but to me... it still wasn't good enough!

Muddy mixing aside, this is FIRE! Man, if I showed this to my teenage self and told him I made it, he would have laughed me out the room. I wish I still had the project file for this, would love to fix the mixing.

I actually remember making the two above. I was bored, we were on summer break from uni and I had nothing to do. So, I fired up FL Studio and came up with that bassline you hear. And then it kind of escalated from there.

Then there were the many many many attempts I tried to get close to John Asterick's version of Neverland:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ruNpqiHWo

I allllllllmost got there in the end, I'm sure if I gave it another go (and maybe I will this time round) I would have!

You can hear the inspiration from John's version in there, a lot of the ideas are there.

Others reminded me of my very supportive friends who always banged on about my music and asked me to make more:

We cranked both up in my mate's bedroom and danced around.

The above was made for one of my closest friends at the time, we lost touch over the years, but I'll never forget you, Pembe.

And this user here used to send me really supportive PM's, always encouraging me to never stop, to never be disheartened and to keep going and going:

https://sailorsdream.newgrounds.com/reviews/audio

The kicker? It was my dad all along! Although, he has no idea that I know :)

He was the reason I started making music in the first place and he did upload some of them on my account, which I recently went back and remastered / even remaking one, as a birthday present.

Then there was the Would You Wake Up series, where each iteration was me experimenting.

I think I should create one more to show how far I've come musically.

It was also fascinating to see my style of music evolve, you can see the early hints of where I was headed as I powered through song after song, until I got to my true genre of uplifting trance (at the time anyway).

Which leads into my uplifting trance phase highlighted below. The darkest period of my life. These were not easy to listen to in the slightest and had me on the verge of tears:

It brings me right back to what I was going through at the time. Depression, anxiety, lack of a will to live on. I had it all. The interesting thing about them is how much hope there is in each one.

For those struggling with the same thing, there are many resources available to you. I even wrote one up, so please check it out. It might help :)

https://moondear.notion.site/moondear/Mental-health-UK-Based-7242fc3375494a508d5e4aba1fc87f9e

But this song here, these two were the turnaround. They are my "you know what? I'm gonna be alright" tracks:

Anyway, for those that have made it this far into the post, thank you for taking the time to read this and go through this journey with me. I've gone through so much and have come so far. I can genuinely say that I am absolutely, positively, happy with who I am and how my life has turned out.

Something tells me you might hear a lot of new things from me this year. It all feels "right" this time.