The Austin, TX-based singer-songwriter—whose decades-long career has seen six fulllength studio albums, three EPs, countless collaborations, and an illustrious supergroup project in Glorietta—spent a season of rest away from his focus on writing songs. In the wake of the end of a long relationship, he wanted to prioritize processing his grief as a human, not as an artist bleeding on the page.
“The last thing I wanted was to write a heartbreak record. So I stopped writing altogether, and I just waited until I saw my heart start coming back to life. I wanted the next thing to be hopeful and sweet and beautiful—a testament to music and my love forit.”
David’s new record All the Not So Gentle Reminders, which comes outMarch 21,2025 via Blue Corn Musicis exactly what he was waiting for. The 12-song album is an expansive succession of dreamlike songs that tell his stories, yes—but more than anything lean into the possibilities of the trip that music can take us on.
“I’ve been a songwriter for a long time. I love words and stories. But this was about music. I wanted the long musical intros and outros [as on “Dirty Martini”, “Twin Sized Beds”, “A Bigger World”, and “Dreams Come True”]to contribute to the stories and be a part of them.”
The leadout track, “Maybe It Was All a Dream”, sets this theme of the ethereal and dreamy from the outset. It’s a three-and-a-half minute musical tour de force—at first a simple synth line over a subdued drum machine that eventually morphs into a grandioserollick of organ, drum rolls, and electric guitars. All the while, staticky, broken voices repeat the almost-haunting coda that gives the record its name. In the end, this “dream” is interrupted and punctuated by a recording of Ramirez’s own mother saying, “David... David... it’s time to get up.”
Maybe it was in another life,
Maybe it was just a dream
...
Was it a memory passed down from another?
A cosmic sunflare?
Or just deja vu?
from “Deja Voodoo”
In “Deja Voodoo”, Ramirez questions his own memory, wondering if he remembers his life as it really was, or if even the past itself is a dream colored by time and distance. It’s easy to wonder whether the not-so-gentle reminders are themselves facts, or just figments of our imagination—something to be trusted or something to move on from and get back our lives.
I’m over the anger, the sadness, all the not
so gentle reminders of my nature
I’m moving forward, I can see it coming soon.
from “Waiting on the Dust to Settle”
The songs for the album were written during a writing getaway David went on for two weeks, where he holed up at Standard Deluxe—a music venue and art space in the tiny 100-person town of Waverly, Alabama. His goal was to get out of the noise of Austin for a while, to be alone, to get back to writing with the “uninterrupted silence [he had] been missing.
No matter how it adds up
Subtract all the shit holding you back
Stand up, shake off all the excess
You got a long way to go
Ain’t nobody meant to slow you down
from “Nobody Meant to Slow You Down”
All the Not So Gentle Reminderswas recorded at Spectra Studios in Cedar Park, TX just outside of Austin, engineered by Charlie Kramsky at the helm. He tapped local staples as the house musicians for the sessions, including Barbara Frigiere, Jeff Olson, James Westley Essary, and Christopher Boosahda (who also helped to produce the album alongside Ramirez). And in the spirit of the exuberance and joy of the recording, he also called upon a handful of friends to contribute and sing background vocals throughout the album.
“It made sense to bring in this group as we were so tight musically and relationally from touring together the last few years. Like all my albums before this I never want to repeat what I’ve previously made. This was no exception. I brought in Boosahda to co-produce because I had never tried my hand at the captain's wheel, and I wanted someone experienced and with a different musical background than me to bring some extra shine.”