we can both lie and say we don't care.

I released 2 albums in 2019. I released 2 MORE albums in 2020.

2019 was a rat infested year. When it finally ended, I thought I was going to get some relief finally. Turns out, it would take two whole months to recalibrate my entire nervous system. In the December of 2019, a friend of mine introduced me to the music of Allie X, and I had a new sonic obsession to carry me through this. Also during the end of 2019, my friend Will Curry asked if I ever thought about using the opera stuff for electronic music, and I put a pin in that idea.

I immediately starting working on a new project. Allie X made me want to be a better musician, and to do more with my voice. I thought about what Will had said. 

"Tell Her Before I Do" was the first release of this new sonic idea. The title for the album wasn't even there yet, but I had an idea of how it wanted to sound.

I found a series of paintings called "The Course of Empire," and I knew that's what my album was going to be called. I wrote the whole album in about the span of two months. I used loops and synths and drum machines and dance beats. I had no idea at the time I was writing it that the entire world was going to shut down! I ended up writing an 80's to early-2000's dance record. I had no idea that this album, which was about isolation, would end up coming out right during the early days of the pandemonium like that. I revisited a lot of old feelings and relationships, and likened the collapse of interpersonal relationships to the collapse of empires.

"r i p e" was about feeling isolated in my own body because I was having struggles with fertility, and recognizing that I had never felt this alone or isolated because I couldn't tell anyone what was happening. More than the collapse of relationships with other people, this was the collapse of the relationship between myself and my own body.

The release of 'The Course of Empire' left me feeling so unfulfilled. I had to keep working. I was in this manic state of needing to keep working on new music because I wanted something, anything to land.

I was working full time and having to work in person during the entire pandemonium, so I didn't get to have the bread baking and Netflix watching other people got to experience. My pandemic hobby was looking up mountain lion sightings on NextDoor and then we'd drive around looking for mountain lions at night where the sightings had been, listening to First Wave on Sirius XM. At the end of 2019, I had also re-discovered the film The Company of Wolves, and so that also influenced the kind of music I was making.

'Sweetest Tongue, Sharpest Tooth' is still probably my favourite album I've ever done.  I feel like I nailed it. I set out to make darkwave synth pop for nocturnal driving, and I absolutely did that. 

Also, yes, I wrote a whole album about werewolves, lol.

"Halcyon Phantasm" marks a pivotal point in my career where I fought for myself, and I fought for myself hard. I knew the value of my own writing. I knew the value of my own production skills. I wasn't going to let anyone take that away from me, or try to downplay my value or abilities. I set a hard boundary with a narcissist, and they absolutely did not like that! I  also still cannot believe that awful person that this song is about got this out of me!

'Sweetest Tongue, Sharpest Tooth' was another project that fell by the wayside of not being able to tour because of the pandemonium, although it has had a lot of traction through streaming services since then. I am forever going to be proud of this album.