Album Update #5

soup, side quests & medicine

What is your medicine? You, personally. Is it - alone time? Quiet time? Meditating? Exercise? Is it making something? The act of creativity? Is it dancing? Writing? Lovemaking? Protesting? Is it making noise with friends? Is it cooking? Is it gardening?

What is your brand of soul-food? What brings you the deep contentment that gives evidence to your humanness?

Are you tapping into it lately? Or has it fallen away as swiftly as the autumnal foliage? Do you defend it? What do you do to reclaim it if it’s lost?

When I was in the studio last weekend, I felt like I was marinating in a cauldron of creativity. It was exhausting to work so deeply on this music, and yet it was thrilling to be steeped in the rich brine of my soul-food.

Making music has always been a deeply personal and private undertaking for me. It has been my meditation, my way of escape, my way of connecting, my way of processing the world - my medicine. Sharing this act of music making with Matt, my producer, and Lisa who I stayed with, was an extremely vulnerable experience. One that was also wildly affirming.

While music making is so personal to me - and at times difficult to share - these soul-songs just have a wanting life of their own. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed in the general day-to-day, not to mention feeling wrecked by the heaving and cramping of America’s current election cycle. So when I get back from the studio and have to think about getting groceries and hitting my budget, and feeding my cat and nurturing my relationship, and nourishing my physical body and finding time to bolster my recovery and my mental health - I get really angry. And underneath that anger is a deep sadness. And in that sadness is just a small kid who wants to be seen and heard and loved and held and appreciated and understood. There is a kid who just wants to play and celebrate and share her joy.

The making of this record has been challenging because these songs seem to speak to my inner child at several very crucial ages. These ages come up a lot in therapy, and reflect times in my life when I desperately needed support, but had to learn to fend for myself. We all have our stories, and mine seem to be loudly demanding my attention.

These songs are a combination of me reclaiming my inner children, and my inner children reclaiming me. It is tough and unclear, and mercurial, and vulnerable, but unstoppable. So much of my heart is opening and it is terrifying. I am sharing these words with you and it is terrifying. I am sharing my songs and developing them and it is terrifying. But the spirits that seems to be enveloping me when I’m nine hours deep into a recording session makes it all worth it.

Speaking of spirits, I was visited by a very old friend while I was in the studio. I needed to stop the vocal take so I could cry and experience his presence. His name was Larry and he was responsible for providing me with my very first instrument. He’s no longer on this earth, but he came through the ethers to make me laugh and to tell me how very proud he is of the work I’m doing. The instrument, by the way, was a tiny Casio keyboard, which I learned how to play by ear when I first started playing it. He was responsible for the music bug that bit me, so long ago.

So much of this EP is up in the air right now. The throughline is that I’m showing up to the studio, but all the other aspects are meandering on their own journeys. The songs are changing. The title is likely to change. And yes, even the album cover is most likely going to be different. I absolutely love the current image. However, it’s possible that I rushed into the thinking of it, when I really need to let myself feel and be taken by it. IT being the work, the songs, the process, the experience.

This art-making has been a series of side-quests, which require me to stand firm in the soupy unknown and let the murkiness swirl around me. I just have to be ok with not knowing, while having faith in these little inner children, and showing up to care for them.

With heart & medicine,

Allison