For this installment of the “I Love My Friends” sessions, Coma Cinema performs “Exist,” a song by Those Lavender Whales, the band led by Aaron Graves. Filmed in front of the mural honoring Graves at the former Hunter-Gatherer building, the performance reflects a history shared both on and offstage.

“Aaron Graves, and the label he helped create and ran with Jordan Blackmon and Chris Gardner, changed my life in myriad ways, and so did Aaron’s music as Those Lavender Whales,” writes Mat Cothran, the songwriter behind Coma Cinema. “Aaron’s songs were, like all things he did, an extension of his ever-welcoming heart, compassion, whimsy, and knowing, gentle mischief.”

Graves wasn’t just a peer — he played drums for Coma Cinema, sharing stages and shaping songs alongside Cothran. Cothran remembers “the crashing of the cymbals, the feedbacking guitar, the surprising way he could roll with my chaos, and how he taught me to be joyful there.” He calls Graves “one of the most talented producers I’d ever know, with an ear that could worldbuild and pastiche unusual sounds and melodies together in a way that was effortless and adventurous.”

“I chose to sing the song ‘Exist’ because it is one of my favorite songs ever written,” Cothran continues. “I’d like to think that had I not been given such grace and luck as to have known Aaron, had I heard this song by and by that same love would have found its way into my heart on its own, because that is what music can do — that is its magic that Aaron loved, channeled, and spoke through. It’s one of many ways he’ll never leave.”

The session arrives as Coma Cinema prepares to tour in support of its sixth LP, Grand Delusion, released June 20, 2025 — what Cothran describes as the culmination of the second Coma Cinema triptych that began with 2012’s Posthumous Release.