I owe you no benediction

2017 was a lousy year. for certain sure.

You can listen to the full song cycle here.

In 2017, I had a nervous breakdown from the abuse I had suffered from two people at the same time. I broke under the weight of the abuse, I broke from watching people who knew the truth uphold lies they knew were lies.

My friend Shawna Hamic (who is amazing, btw) took promotional photos for an EP I was working on. I ended up using the images for the next project instead.

I don't consider that EP, "sweet talk, convenience, & lies" as much a  part of the canon as this next body of work I am going to talk about. It's an important one, for sure, but it's more a collection of afterthoughts than a solid body of work. 

In the Fall of 2017, a friend of mine asked me if I had heard of the historical figure of Boudicca. I had never heard of this woman before, which surprised me, because I feel as though a warrior woman from my grandmother's homeland would have been right up my alley. It took me all of 10 minutes to read about her story and decided that the next project was going to be about her.

The song cycle would be called 'B O U D I C C A' and it would be an electronic song cycle for soprano and electronics. Up until this point, I had had ONE voice lesson ever with my friend Ben Roseberry. I had no idea what I was doing. But, you have to admit, this is impressive for someone who had never once in their life studied classical voice or had a voice lesson.

I was really hell-bent on proving myself with this work. I had been made to feel as though I wasn't good enough. Like my voice wasn't good enough. That my body wasn't good enough. I KNEW I sang better than this person who had a fancy degree from a fancy college.  I KNEW I was better than I was being made to feel.

This was the first project I ever did that I did completely by myself, top to bottom, and that no one else touched. It was one of those things where I knew I had to do it al by myself. My anger, my grief, my loss, had to be mine. All mine.

I had structured the song cycle sort of like the traditional Catholic mass (the music one, not the Sunday service), and used a lot of Latin. I think "Mercy" embodies my grief I felt the most. Grief for the loss of something dear to me, grief for the loss of time, grief for what my nervous breakdown took from me. At the core of my anger was this grief.

I will never give up the hope that one day, that painting does come back to me.

I released the song cycle on Imbolc, to further the connection to my Celtic roots.

I am really proud of this song cycle, and I wish it had gotten more traction when it was released. I hope that one day maybe something from it gets picked up for sync licensing or something.  Because it deserves to be heard.