Last Chance to Exit (track by track)

 On Saturday, I impulsively released my 7th album, entitled "Last Chance to Exit." 7th Heaven, if you will.

You can stream and purchase it here.

When I say "impulsively," I mean impulsive. I looked at my bank account and said, oh, I need to sell some records. I had been working on new original material that I didn't want to release just quite yet. 

The title changed at the last minute. The current one comes from a lot things. One of which is this sign (something which is referenced throughout the album). The other is just feel crushing feeling of mortality I have that's hit me all of a sudden. I think it was being surrounded by death that just hit me with a ton of loaded emotional bricks.

Here is a track-by-track breakdown of the album:

Always On My Side. I have really been pleased with how well this song has done. I took a big risk. I know that writing about what it's about combined with some very dated Italian disco samples and loops has the recipe for a disaster. Thankfully, it wasn't that. This song is about one of the most personal and most specific experiences I have ever had in my entire life. There are a lot of factors and moving parts I actually can't talk about, but they are all so randomly specific.  Unfortunately, the way that people are and the internet is, I don't feel comfortable talking about this out loud. I'll let the song speak for itself. If you know, you know. I am very proud that of all my little songs, the one I wrote about this in particular has done so well. There's also a cheeky reference to one of my oldest songs in here. Here's to not having to go through Zoom divorce court! "Out of the fire, into the Briar Patch!"

lyrebird.  Unfortunately, so many songs on this record are about things I can't talk about--but there's no rule against musicalizing the uncomfortable, right? (Right?!) This does not come from a happy place, and least of all a healthy place. This is from a really ugly part of myself that sort of scares me. Sometimes, people push you to that limit and you just gotta go there. Betrayal is something that really scares me. Death, though sad, is inevitable, but betrayal is just evil. (I think Tori Amos once said something very similar.) "Somebody has to lose; I have everything to lose, so it won't be me" is a phrase I am very proud of--and, it's true. Just because you have everything, doesn't mean you're entitled to take it from me. I don't go looking for trouble, but when you push me, I push back.

Burden of Proof. This one is related to 'lyrebird,' so I put them together on the album. This is another one I wish I could just scream about, but can't. Not yet, at least.

Bad Blood. I hope all the annoying ass Sw!fties are disappointed with this oneeee. This is one of the the 4 tracks from the I Suit Me EP that made it onto this album. This one is pretty straight forward--suffering from institutional and systemic racism as a Native person, without having the "right" kind of Nativeness or "Native blood." I had an entire childhood of being mocked that my mother "was a maid," or that my biofather was "Injun Joe," targeted by certain policies, etc.--only to turn around as an adult and have strangers on the internet question my Indigeneity because I don't have the magical Injun pedigree card issued by the government. Racism is a trip, lemme tell you.

Asilomar. This is an instrumental inspired by the El Carmelo Cemetery in Pacific Grove. That last trip to Pacific Grove was really magical and special, and I have been trying to recapture that feeling ever since.

Flood. I wish I could say this was inspired by something Biblical or metaphorical, but in reality, it's inspired by the first book of the Catfish Bend series, High Water at Catfish Bend. Unfortunately I am not very metaphorical of a writer and my references are the antithesis of "cool."

Pacify. Recently, Emily Artful released a video where she talked about being on incompatible psych meds in the early 2000's, which was a terrifying and dangerous time to have mental health issues because their solution was to pump you with various psych meds instead of actually addressing the issues. There never even gave me a proper diagnosis, they never listened to my complaints about the medications--which almost killed me---"but you never clarified my crimes; I did not wrong, but I did the time."

Lost and Found.  After my nervous breakdown in 2017, there was a definite, um, paradigm shift. That feeling I express of being "dead inside" is not an overdramatization. I never regained the feeling in certain parts of myself. Sometimes it messes with my dysmorphia so much, I still don't recognize myself in the mirror or in photos. I realized that everything I had wanted was gone. I realized that things that other people had, any semblance or normalcy, would never, ever be mine. But I have something that others do not: I have had the worst life, and so I know how to navigate these things: plagiarism, high waters, nervous breakdowns, systemic racism. You know, casual.