Been quiet for a while. A long while.

2020 was going to be the year I busted out my second album.  Had a game plan and everything. I remember sending P a note in January titled “Weather 2020 - Let’s do this!”

I don’t create songs for fun, but to express angst, frustration, doubt or pain. It’s how I’ve processed the world since I was 12.  I rely on the tidy format of a song to package and distill my visceral reaction to unpleasant events in my life.  With my first release, I hoped in some small way to help others currently struggling through similar situations process how they feel.  

We squeaked in a few sessions in 2020 before the world started melting down then abruptly froze in stasis. Singing and coproducing songs are not activities conducive to zoom. Tried one in person session in the summer for a very specific song (cover for a potential sync submission) which required extra planning and safety precautions. But despite this glimmer of progress, I just could not continue.

While most of my new songs are just as vitriolic and cathartic as those on Cubicle Zombie, dealing with death, sexism, politics, relationships… these struggles seem trivial given what we’ve all just been through. Right now they feel like dropped coins, relics from a bygone era, frozen in a thick layer of ice.  As the world starts to thaw, I don’t know if I’ll recover them.  

Yesterday, Peter and I had a rare experience in the studio.  We failed.  I mean, completely failed at starting a new song.

It started just like every other song we've built so far.  I brought him vocals and some examples of songs I'd like it to sound like.  He helped build the underlying chord progression, and then we started with the instrumentation.  But everything he tried sounded wrong, and I couldn't manage to articulate why.  He ended up building some interesting percussion, but it wasn't anything like what I expected or could hear in my head.  

I'm shaken about the whole thing. How did this happen?  If I was in my right mind, I suppose I would be asking how this hasn't happened yet.  But not right now.  Now I'm wondering if we'll ever click on another song again.  Imposter syndrome creeping in.  Doubts about my abilities as a songwriter.  I feel a spiral coming.      

Today, Peter & I started the song I had been writing about my father when he abruptly died a few weeks ago.  It's titled Boiled Away.  We had a good conversation about family before diving in.  We all revert back to children before we go, don't we? 

I'm really pleased with what we've done with this song already.  Even in its current form, it would feel perfectly at home in a Peaky Blinders episode.  

We did one really rough vocal take at the end of the studio session, but I have a feeling most of it will make it into the final cut. It felt genuine.