Before it was an actual album that arrived on streaming services on Sunday, August 29, Donda was a million different things. And maybe, as an endlessly malleable product with no set release date and an excuse for us to mythologize its creator, it had reached its ideal form. Ahead of the album’s third listening party at Soldier Field in Chicago, Kanye West launched a Stem Player that would accompany the release of the album, allowing fans to customize any one of its songs by controlling instruments, isolating parts, or adding effects. And when the LP once again failed to materialize last Friday, undercutting the promise of molding something that would likely never exist in any real capacity seemed like the most poignant statement this whole rollout had to offer. If this was going to be it, the message was loud and clear, more reflective of our own desires and biases as an audience than West’s ego.
After all, could there be a better way of presenting an art project centered around obsession – with God, with family, with one’s own self – than having it be nothing but an idea to be consumed by? When everything you do in the public eye scans as performative, how much does the music actually matter, and how could it possibly deliver? Forget about living up to the hype – how much time and editing would it take for an album in which Kanye invokes his dead mother’s name to truly align with his grand artistic vision? As an endless series of questions, Donda was as perfect and fascinating as it could be.
And then, apparently without the artist’s approval and with no guarantee that it would be the final version (one change has already been made), Donda, the album, saw the light of day. It’s an unfinished and self-indulgent work by design, and the fact that it fails to transcend Kanye’s own mythos should surprise nobody. But the rapper’s 10th studio album is also shallow, incoherent, and frustrating, a 27-track effort with a 1 hour and 48-minute runtime that faithful devotees, alienated fans, and sceptics alike will surely have a hard time sitting through, much less connect with. West is self-aware enough: “I ain’t deliverin’ heavenly messages just for the hell of it/ Don’t try to test me, I keep it clean, but it can get messy,” he raps on ‘Off the Grid’. Things do indeed get messy on Donda, but rarely in the chaotically ambitious ways that set apart West’s most iconic projects.
Instead, he crams moments of forced profundity, occasional brilliance, and insufferable lyricism into an album that tries harder than it should to be both poised and manic, epic in scale yet somber in tone. It’s the sort of contrast that has characterized some of West’s best work, but Donda’s tonal inconsistencies feel mostly purposeless. The opening track, an extended chant of his mother’s name, hints at an album that would require patience but could achieve a haunting resonance, yet the collection of songs that follows feels simultaneously overwrought and undercooked. When West reunites with Jay-Z on ‘Jail’, over anthemic power chords that aim for a familiar sense of grandeur, the result falls short of highlighting anything beyond the obvious spectacle of it all.
The extended/alternate version of the song, one of four remixes unnecessarily placed at the end of the album, is even worse. Recruiting DaBaby, who has been kicked off festival gigs for making homophobic remarks onstage, and Marilyn Manson, who faces multipleallegations of abuse and sexual assault – on a track whose chorus goes “Guess who’s goin’ to jail tonight?/ God gon’ post my bail tonight”– is no doubt a callous attempt at taking on cancel culture; but even as an act of provocation, like so much of the album, it feels empty. Critics have already pointed out the absence of female voices on an album that’s at least partially supposed to be a tribute to Dr. Donda C. West, but the truth is that it lacks any sort of overarching perspective, gendered or not.
Guests generally help elevate the project from being totally underwhelming, from Houston singer Vory’s mournful hook on ‘Jonah’ to Jay Electronica’s excellent verse on ‘Jesus Lord pt 2’ to Baby Keem and Travis Scott’s animated presence on ‘Praise God’. Playboi Carti and Fivio Foreign also stand out on ‘Off the Grid’, one of the album’s euphoric highlights. But most memorable of all is a spoken-word segment from the son of imprisoned gang leader Larry Hoover, who thanks West for bringing his father’s cause to the White House; it’s an example of how the artist’s framing can be both ethically dubious and affecting. West’s own writing and delivery is at its best when he shifts his focus away from his public persona to expose his vulnerability, whether directly addressing his mother (“Mama, you was the life of the party/ I swear, you brought life to the party/ When you lost your life, it took the life out the party”) or his ongoing divorce (“I don’t wanna die alone/ I don’t wanna die alone/ I get mad when she gone/ Mad when she home.”)
But for the majority of the album, either West’s songwriting falls flat or his scattered ideas fail to coalesce into a compelling, complicated whole, even if they’re clearly in service of something bigger. A similar problem concerns the album’s production; there are echoes of West’s prior work – the stark minimalism of 808s & Heartbreak, and, less often, the abrasive heights of Yeezus – and although his attempts at integrating the gospel influences that culminated on 2019’s Jesus Is King on tracks like ‘Hurricane’ are largely effective, so many of the musical choices here come off as arbitrary and inconsequential. Some may call this West’s best album since 2016’s Life of Pablo, but at least the flawed, depressing nature of 2018’s ye, if less than revelatory, was part of its emotional appeal. And that record was 23 minutes long. Donda just leaves you feeling bemused and exhausted, wondering not which potential version would have the greatest impact, but which would best emulate the thrill of its non-existence with the least collateral damage.
Elton John has announced a new album titled The Lockdown Sessions. Out October 22 via Interscope, the record features collaborations with Young Thug and Nicki Minaj, Eddie Vedder, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, Brandi Carlile, Lil Nas X, Charlie Puth, and more. It also includes previously released collaborations with Dua Lipa (‘Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)’), Rina Sawayama (‘Chosen Family’), and Gorillaz (‘The Pink Phantom’). Find the full tracklist below.
John said in a statement about the new album:
The last thing I expected to do during lockdown was make an album. But, as the pandemic went on, one‐off projects kept cropping up. Some of the recording sessions had to be done remotely, via Zoom, which I’d obviously never done before. Some of the sessions were recorded under very stringent safety regulations: working with another artist, but separated by glass screens. But all the tracks I worked on were really interesting and diverse, stuff that was completely different to anything I’m known for, stuff that took me out of my comfort zone into completely new territory. And I realised there was something weirdly familiar about working like this. At the start of my career, in the late 60s, I worked as a session musician. Working with different artists during lockdown reminded me of that. I’d come full circle: I was a session musician again. And it was still a blast.
The Lockdown Sessions Cover Artwork:
The Lockdown Sessions Tracklist:
1. Elton John & Dua Lipa – ‘Cold Heart’ (PNAU Remix)
2. Elton John, Young Thug & Nicki Minaj – ‘Always Love You’
3. Surfaces feat. Elton John – ‘Learn To Fly’
4. Elton John & Charlie Puth – ‘After All’
5. Rina Sawayama & Elton John – ‘Chosen Family’
6. Gorillaz feat. Elton John & 6LACK – ‘The Pink Phantom’
7. Elton John & Years & Years – ‘It’s a sin’ (global reach mix)
8. Miley Cyrus feat. WATT, Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, Robert Trujillo & Chad Smith – ‘Nothing Else Matters’
9. Elton John & SG Lewis – ‘Orbit’
10. Elton John & Brandi Carlile – ‘Simple Things’
11. Jimmie Allen & Elton John – ‘Beauty In The Bones’
12. Lil Nas X feat. Elton John – ‘One Of Me’
13. Elton John & Eddie Vedder – ‘E-Ticket’
14. Elton John & Stevie Wonder – ‘Finish Line’
15. Elton John & Stevie Nicks – ‘Stolen Car’
16. Glen Campbell & Elton John – ‘I’m Not Gonna Miss You’
Rosalía has teamed up with Dominican rapper and singer-songwriter Tokischa for a new song called ‘Linda’. The single was produced by Leo RD and comes with an accompanying music video that you can check out below.
Earlier this year, Rosalía shared the Billie Eilish collaboration ‘Lo Vas a Olvidar’ and featured on a new version of Oneohtrix Point Never’s ‘Nothing Special’. Last month, Tokischa joined J Balvin on the single ‘Perra’.
Meek Mill has enlisted Lil Uzi Vert for the new song ‘Blue Notes 2’. The collaborative track comes with an accompanying music video co-directed by Meek Mill and Kid Art. Watch and listen below.
Just last week, Meek Mill teamed up with Lil Durk and Lil Baby for the new track ‘Sharing Locations’. His last album was 2018’s Championships. Since releasing Pluto x Baby Pluto last year, Lil Uzi Vert has linked up with the likes of Pi’erre Bourne, Internet Money, and more.
Julie Baker has released her new EP Little Oblivions Remixes, which features reworked versions of tracks from her latest album Little Oblivions by Half Waif, Gordi, and Thao, as well as previously unveiled remixes from electronic composer Helios and industrial metal artist Jesu (Matthew Broadrick). Stream the full project below.
I first met Julien in Barcelona in 2017. I’d been a big fan for ages so it was a real pleasure to play a show with her. We spent a bunch of time together at Eaux Claires festival in 2018 making music – we even played an hour long improvised set together to a crowd of a thousand people from this treehouse that was like a huge musical instrument with lots of tiny loop pedal stations… it was as weird as it sounds. But because of the way we think about chords and melodies and songwriting, we could really connect on the fly and make something beautiful. I loved having the opportunity to dig through the stems on this new Julien track and reimagine it.
Talking about her remix of ‘Ziptie’, Thao commented:
I was immediately drawn to ‘Ziptie’ for Julien’s beautiful melodies and haunting, arresting imagery. I knew I wanted to create a lot of different additional sounds and melodies inspired by the lyrics. I pictured a sort of post-apocalyptic, incredulous, acerbic, off-kilter and morose dance party (one of my top 3 dance party themes). I programmed rough sketches of the drum parts and built out the track with synths, bass, guitar, and drum machines. I asked my friend and incredible drummer Jason Slota to record live parts. I edited and patched segments of his drums, and then glued everything together with more synths and vocals. It was an immense pleasure to immerse myself in such beautiful vocal tracks, and I wanted to bring them to the fore as much as possible. I’m so happy I got to remix this song. Thank you Julien!
Bachelor, the collaborative project of Palehound’s Ellen Kempner and Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, have shared a new song called ‘I See It Now’. The non-album single is their first new music since the release of their debut LP, Doomin’ Sun, earlier this year. Give it a listen below.
“Back in January when Bachelor was filming our music videos for Doomin’ Sun, we found ourselves with a day to kill at Ellen’s house in Poughkeepsie,” Bachelor explained in a press release. “Ellen had assembled a small recording setup in her basement that she was mystified by and still figuring out how to work so we decided to record a song to mess around with the gear. Melina wrote the creepy intro keyboard part and we built the song from there. What came was ‘I See It Now’, a kind of lethargic muse on sexual regret and insecurity.”
Sting has announced a new album: The Bridge arrives November 19 via A&M/Interscope/Cherrytree Records. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘If It’s Love’, which you check out below. Scroll down to find the LP’s cover artwork and tracklist, too.
“These songs are between one place and another, between one state of mind and another, between life and death, between relationships,” Sting said of the new album in a press release. “Between pandemics, and between eras – politically, socially and psychologically, all of us are stuck in the middle of something. We need a bridge.”
Talking about ‘If It’s Love’, he added: “I’m certainly not the first songwriter to equate falling in or out of love with an incurable sickness, nor will I be the last. ‘If It’s Love’ is my addition to that canon where the tropes of metaphorical symptoms, diagnosis, and downright incapacity are all familiar enough to make each of us smile ruefully.”
The Bridge Cover Artwork:
The Bridge Tracklist:
1. Rushing Water
2. If It’s Love
3. The Book of Numbers
4. Loving You
5. Harmony Road
6. For Her Love
7. The Hills on the Border
8. Captain Bateman
9. The Bells of St. Thomas
10. The Bridge
11. Waters of Tyne
12. Captain Bateman’s Basement
13. (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay
Bleach Lab have announced their second EP, Nothing Feels Real. Produced by Stephen Street (The Cranberries, The Smiths, Blur), the follow-up to the South London band’s debut EP A Calm Sense of Surrounding arrives on October 15. Along with the announcement, they’ve shared a new single called ‘Talk It Out’, which you can hear below.
“‘Talk It Out’ started as a song about mental health and times when people should open up about their inner thoughts and anxieties,” the band explained in a statement. “As the song developed, we approached it from a perspective of being run down so much by a relationship that you thought you loved so much but over time realising that it’s changing who you are, all just to make the other person happy at the cost of your own happiness.”
Nothing Feels Real EP Tracklist:
1. Real Thing
2. Violet Light
3. Inside My Mind
4. Talk It Out
5. Then I Know
Born in Greenwich, Connecticut and raised in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Madi Diaz grew up surrounded by music. She was homeschooled by her Peruvian mother and studied piano with her Danish father, who played in various prog bands, before switching to guitar and exploring songwriting during her teens. While a student at Berklee College of Music, she traveled to Hawaii to record her debut album, 2007’s self-released Skin and Bones, which was followed by her breakout 2012 record Plastic Moon and 2014’s synth-driven Phantom. After releasing the It’s Okay to Be Alone EP in 2018, she got signed to ANTI- and issued her latest LP, the gut-wrenching History of a Feeling, last Friday. Co-produced with Andrew Sarlo, the record grapples with the aftermath of a romantic breakup that coincided with her former partner transitioning, attempting to reconcile a “kind of tsunami clash of compassion” with a sense “raw heartache,” as she put it in press materials. From the strikingly intimate ‘Man in Me’ to the spare yet evocative ‘Resentment’ (which Kesha recorded for her 2020 album High Road) and the visceral, country-inflected ‘Woman in My Heart’, Diaz’s songwriting stays rooted in the kind of emotional honesty that feels as raw as it revealing and as brutal as it is painfully tender.
We caught up with Madi Diaz for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about the process of making History of a Feeling, the different emotions that make up the record, and more.
You’ve said that ‘Man in Me’ was the first song that you recorded for yourself in about six years, which is the reason that you decided to release it as the first single from History of a Feeling. But why do you think it was the song that you felt the need to capture first?
‘Man in Me’ was really just the song that felt the most urgent. It felt like – not to sound super ethereal, hippie-dippie about it, but the song seemed to just be telling me that this was something that needs to be said now. Because it was such a visceral, personal story, it’s one that I’m kind of excited to move on from and not have to live in in such a present tense. So I think for me, getting that one done sooner rather than later just felt like it would serve the emotion of the song better than any of the other songs. And it really did require some solitude and some space, and I was really, really fortunate to have found that at Darkside Studios with Justin Tockett and Ben Alleman. They just created a space where I could be quiet and be reflective and very emotionally elastic, and they were really wonderful in kind of sitting in that with me.
I know that you wrote over 100 songs for this album – in terms of writing the song, do you remember if ‘Man in Me’ was also one of the first ones that came to you?
The chorus of that song was written very early on, I would say probably fall of 2017, which was shortly after I moved back to Nashville. But I didn’t finish the song until six or seven months later with my friend Steph Jones. I was kind of in a zone where I was tending to think that if I didn’t say it right that time, I could probably just say it better the next time, but this chorus was very persistent. It was always something that I felt like was just sitting in the corner, waiting for me to give it the attention that it needed. It was in a different time signature when we wrote it initially and it was a completely different feeling wrapped around it, and I think I needed the time and the space to reflect on what was happening and what I wanted to express at that moment. Sometimes when you’re inside of a transitional period, it’s hard for me to be reflective in the moment. It kind of takes me getting to where I’m going and then turning around and being like, “What? [laughs] What happened?”
How did you go about narrowing down the tracklist and deciding which songs to leave out? Was it purely based on the quality of a song, or did it have more to do with whether it was representative of the feeling you wanted to ultimately convey?
There’s a difference between knowing you wrote a good and it fitting with a larger body of a conversation that you know you want to have. And I think for this record particularly, it was really important for me to kind of hold up a mirror while I was going through this process of grieving and self-reflection and moving out of a house that I’ve shared with my former romantic partner and being alone with a lot of stuff that I hadn’t really had the time or space or the aloneness to really look at; desires that I had for myself that I felt like maybe I had neglected, or parts of myself that I had looked over for the last couple of years. So it was kind of like this grieving process of not only losing somebody that I loved, but also realizing that I was missing myself somewhere along the way, and the betrayal that comes with that from all sides. When I was listening back to the songs, I was very adamant that I wanted to make sure that all the songs felt like they fell together in the same kind of intense, digging-at-the-self sort of feeling.
Do you feel like those parts of yourself kind of revealed themselves during the writing process?
Well, I think so, yeah. Even just having the voice to talk about any of the things that you’re going through means that you have a voice in it, you know what I mean? And so, even striking that realization and being like, the very fact that I want to be writing and talking about this means that I have something to say. And it was almost the easy part – opening myself and being vulnerable with my friends and getting the songs out, as painful as it was, it was still the easiest thing. It was kind of like an unburdening.
As you’ve mentioned, the album as a whole ultimately comes from a place of compassion, but its honesty means leaning into a lot of negative emotions as well; resentment, frustration, rage. Was that a difficult balance for you to maintain?
That’s funny. When I talk to my therapist, she always holds up this card, and there are like seven or eight different emotions that it’s supposed to very acutely describe – it always makes me laugh that there are like, six emotions for hurt and sadness and anger and basically grief, and there are like two emotions for any sort of happy, joyful feelings. I think in our joy, we’re just so blissed-out and open and it’s so easy for us to feel what we’re feeling when we’re in a good place, and when we’re in a shit place it’s really hard for us to pinpoint where those things are coming from. So, when I was in a heavy grief period, it took me a really long time – and I think that’s where a lot of History of a Feeling, the album title, comes from – when you’re angry and you’re sad, it takes you so long to trace back where those feelings are coming from. When you’re unearthing things, a lot of the time it doesn’t even have to do with the thing that you think you’re upset about. [laughs] And I think that’s part of History of a Feeling, was this betrayal and abandonment that I was feeling didn’t even have to do with the thing that I had just experienced. It had to do with like, this age-old narrative that I had been living through in a lot of my relationships and even in my family history.
What you said about all the different ways we have of describing negative feelings, it made me think about how they often intersect with each other, too, and even with the more positive ones. Is that something that became more clear to you as you were processing these seemingly conflicting emotional states?
It did feel like the reason that the hurt exists in the first place is because there’s a deep love and there’s a deep caring, and the reason that I hate somebody so much is because I really care a lot about them and I love them. It’s like, if you have the gumption to hate somebody, I’m pretty sure it’s probably because you really deeply care. [laughs] So I think that the compassion and the love is still really easy for me to tap into, but the anger is confusing, because how could you be angry at somebody that you love? It took me a really long time even to realize that I could be really super mad at a really close friend that I love so much, and still love them but be so angry at them. It’s just because we’ve shared so much and I feel so aligned and when that is disturbed in any way, it’s very jilting to the whole reality that you’ve built.
To take it back to the process of selecting which songs would make it onto the record, how much of that was determining which feelings or which perspectives are more worthwhile or best fit this narrative?
That’s a good question. I go pretty heavily in an intuitive direction, and I was lucky to have a producer, Andrew Sarlo, who really, helped me parse out the big feelings that were being stated in each song. I just wanted to make sure that throughout the recording process I just stayed in the feeling and picked the songs that I picked based on that kind of body feeling. I feel really grounded when I sing ‘Crying in Public’ and I feel really grounded when I’m singing ‘Think of Me’, and they’re totally different emotions, but they kind of have this weird same throughline in the core of it.
You also worked with a few different co-writers on the record. You obviously have a lot of experience writing with others, but was it different opening up your process to other people considering how intensely personal the songs were?
I hadn’t met Stephen Wrabel or Jamie Floyd before I wrote a couple songs on this record with them. And it’s so interesting, to me, the people that find their way into your life or you find your way into their lives during these periods when you’re in a situation where, you know, I had some stuff that I wanted to say and I hadn’t really figured out how to say it yet. But I was just really lucky to be around some really close friends and people I felt like had a similar alignment in storytelling and truth-telling. I spent a lot of time with my friend Konrad Snyder, too, who I wrote a couple songs on the record with, and we just had shared so much and he has seen me through a lot of the progression in my life throughout the years. With Phantom, it was the same thing; you know, you get into a room with somebody and you start peeling back the layers. This particular time, I was just really very raw and letting myself feel the gravity of my current state. I have a tendency to hit the floor and immediately bounce back up, and I just couldn’t do that on this one. I just didn’t have whatever it was that I had formerly had.
And beyond that, I think I just was sensing a pattern in myself, and I think I really needed to grieve in a different way so that I could even recover from this in a different way, so that I could make different choices going forward in my life, in different relationships, so that I don’t keep hitting… keep hitting this sort of like, Well, another relationship has ended. We’ve bottomed out. I guess we’ll just kind of roll into the next thing. And I really dwelled on this and I really looked at myself in a different way.
That’s the thing about history as well, right, is that it has a tendency to repeat itself.
That’s exactly right. [laughs] It is the kind of wink in the record title. God, now that I’m thinking of it… I hope now that we’ve called it out that maybe we can move in a different direction.
As far as storytelling goes, the record starts with ‘Rage’, which I thought was an interesting decision. Why did you want to open the album with this really strong sentiment?
It’s kind of like getting it out of the way, you know. Rage is exhausting – like, to be so angry about something is not something that I find super easy to tap into, but I think it’s super important. I think it’s a really cathartic emotion. It kind of felt like the most naked of all the songs, and when you feel the thing exploding, I think there is this feeling of like, I just wish none of it had ever happened. That’s your knee-jerk reaction. Or maybe you want to go out and get drunk and try and do your own erasing. There’s so many things the song is trying to emote, but it sounds very sweet, it sounds very resigned, to go like, “I want to rage, but I know we’re just going to be laying on the ground here for a second.”
With ‘Resentment’, I feel like more so than rage, it’s a feeling that kind of has its own history, which I think is beautifully evoked in the song itself. I was wondering, recording that song after hearing it performed by Kesha, whether it took on a new resonance for you.
That’s such a cool thing about a song to me. Kesha is such a different artist and such a different singer than I am, and it was such a cool moment that she would feel such a deep resonance with that song and take it into her world and have it be all that it is. I hope I get to hear it live someday because it’s so fun to hear something in a completely different light. And the way that she sings that song, in my opinion, it feels even stronger and more confrontational, it feels a little bit more in your face. For me, resentment is like the feeling that you hold really close to your chest, and when I sing it, I feel like I’m more holding it closely and having this face-to-face moment with myself, and I really like how she wears everything externally on her sleeve. It was cool to see that and be like, you can really feel resentment standing two feet with your middle fingers in the air, as opposed to quietly admitting to yourself that you feel this thing. I guess for me, a lot of this record is that; a lot of this record me quietly admitting feelings to myself rather than to another person.
How do you feel like ‘Resentment’ fits into the story of the record overall?
I think it was a moment where I was actually just becoming self-aware and realizing that there were things going on in that relationship long, long before we broke up with each other. You know, not wanting to have conversations, not wanting to address a lot of things in myself and within the relationship. Of course it ended, because there’s no growth when you’re just tallying things up and putting things in folders and not meaning to keep a score, but you are. And realizing that in the moment is kind of just this like, Oh, dang, I didn’t know that I had this. I didn’t know I was carrying this or that I was capable of feeling this way. And definitely it was a little late, but better late than never. [laughs]
Those feelings are expressed in different ways sonically throughout the record, too. Songs like ‘Woman in My Heart’ have this raw grit to them, but then there’s the quiet intimacy of ‘Man in Me’, even though they deal with a similar aspect of the relationship.
Totally. I think that’s the thing about roles that I even am trying to figure out in my own gender. Am I this vulnerable, soft thing? Can I lower my voice so that you’ll come closer? Or am I this kind of loud, boisterous, confrontational, ready-to-take-on-conflict – you know what I mean? That wasn’t even really the idea behind any of those songs or moments, I think it just kind of came through naturally, that rather than figuring out what to be, I really am all of those things. And when you’re in a relationship with somebody, you find yourself being the full spectrum of yourself, hopefully, if you’re allowed to.
I apologize for maybe taking the lyrics out of context, but there’s this line on ‘Nervous’, “I have so many perspectives.” Do you feel like it’s related at all to what you’re saying?
100%. There are so many ways that you can obsess over a situation or yourself or the plotline and at some point, you just lose it, you lose the plot. [laughs] And I think at certain points in writing, especially when you write 100 to 200 songs for a record, you are in danger of losing the plot. Especially when you’ve come so far and you grow so much, the narrative can even feel like it’s shifting.
There’s the danger of losing the narrative, but given the right space and time, you can also create your own narrative. There can almost be a sense of curating the past or maybe leaning more into a positive headspace that wasn’t necessarily there when you were writing the songs but maybe is more representative of where you are now.
That’s right. That’s exactly it. And the importance of not feeling like I want to cram all that into one record; I am really excited to get on to the next phase of things. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve finished the record, and yeah, moving on and thinking about other stuff in life other than just this person or who I want to be in relationships, but who I am as a person walking through the world. You can’t fit all that stuff in a grief record, because it just feels totally manic.
Something you’ve said in talking about the album is that you felt like you had lost yourself in someone else’s story. Making the record and now releasing it, do you feel like that’s changed or that you’ve recentered the narrative in some way?
100%. I walked into a lot of rooms feeling pretty diffused, like, energetically diffused, if that makes sense. I just felt like I was everywhere and I couldn’t figure out where it was, but I knew that I was hurting a lot. When I was so enmeshed with somebody, it was really hard to pull myself apart from that. And to walk into so many rooms like that and to kind of ride my way through it and talk my way through it, I do feel like I came out the other side with just me. Which does feel how it’s supposed to feel: it feels good and bad and awesome and weird and scary and important. It kind of takes all the shapes.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Andrea Securo, a photographer out of Trieste, Italy, released a great travel series Kingdom of Jordan, not long ago. The series focuses on the adventurous, desert-like places in Jordan, which has a population of around 10.6 million.
