re(COVER)ry
Posted on May 28th, 2026
Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 10:56 pm
So, not long after dropping my most recent Drum n’ Bass album, I had the great misfortune to partially lose hearing in my left ear (frequencies over about 5kHz) on the flight descent back home from vacation. It was accompanied unbelievable pain throughout my left side of my neck and face, as well as strong tinnitus and even hyperacusis and distortion in certain ranges (even my own voice could trigger it if I was loud enough, let alone other people, especially in reverberant enviroments.) Now, I wasn’t initially immediately worried as I had similar issues with drainage in that ear on flights, and I finally have a family doctor here, but yet, over 6 months later, it’s all only starting to relent a little just in the past week or so. It’s taken a chase involving various doctor visits, dentist visits, hearing tests, ENT visits, maxillofacial visits, glove in mouth RMT, acupuncture, CAT scans, ER visits, telehealth, MRIs, X-rays, antibiotics, antivirals, muscle relaxants, anti-anxiety meds, night guards and botox. Oh, and I see a chiropractor tomorrow on the advice of my dentist since the tinnitus gets worse when I shoulder check like while driving or look up. I’m still not even fully sure of what this is, more of just what it isn’t – sinuses are clear, nothing suspect in my brain, no major bone spurs/arthritis, probably nothing viral or bacterial as nothing much changed from course of those, thus ruling out ear infections or early shingles. Just seems maybe like TMJ triggered in part by barotrauma and maybe some bad habits/ergonomics, but again, that doesn’t explain the other neck issues necessarily. It sucks living in a House M.D. episode when dealing with real world turnarounds on diagnosis.
Needless to say, I’ve not really been in a mood to do much music as my left ear until relatively recently didn’t really make it a fun process, if not making it outright depressing and dysphoric, as if my senses were alien to myself. Even just wearing headphones on that side of my face wasn’t great some days. However, the “try everything and rule out as much as possible as fast I can approach” seems to have made some progress. It’s not a consistent pathway with plenty of two steps forward, one step back.
You see, an old internet friend has been going through my whole discography on Bluesky/atProto (an endeavor that’s still on going as of this post as he alternates between about 10 releases of mine, then picks up another artist from his “comment on their discography list”,) so I’ve been listening to his favorite songs from each release, adding additional footnotes. I’ve noticed since getting the botox, wearing a night guard to keep from clenching my jaw in sleep and some flexeril, the worst of the tinnitus, the worst of the hyperacusis and even some of the high frequency hearing loss have eased enough that I can both hear some hi-hats again in some my own work (if past me wasn’t too heavy with the hi-pass filters – never again!), and also not be blown by the mid-frequencies being too sharp. Basically, this is first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, even if it’s still a long slow walk ahead.
Still, to start getting myself back in motion (beyond just doing throwaway mashups & edits that don’t even need proper hearing, like confirming ADV totally ripped off the Chemical Brothers for their old trailer music, unhinged eccojammed comedy music or dropping emo vocals over a trap classic) I decided to record some new/finish up some old covers. I should really try to gather all of the loose ones I have into a proper playlist/zip file of just that newer material, but that’s for another day:
Anyway, I’m gonna figure this out, bit by bit, even if it’s just to tie up the loose ends sitting half finished in my reason folder and lyrics folder. After all, as that thread going through my discography wears on, I see all the places I’ve only partially covered, and think “no, I’m not done until I do a proper album of this or that.” It’s also been surprising to see new people stumble into the thread, both due to my reshares and the main thread itself. More than I expected have turned around, and bought my whole discography which motivates me despite how rough I feel some days. I still won’t go all in until I’ve given everything more time to settle in, but I’m back in the saddle, even if I’m not off to the races.
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