Newsletter
A biweekly, substack newsletter where I explore what captivates my senses. From music releases to recordings to the beauty of everyday sounds, this newsletter is a curated journey through the discussion on the sonic landscape.
the b side of Bush
I resonate with Kate Bush as a sailor.
While, I struggle to connect with her as the suckled, baroque pop alchemist.
I resonate with Kate Bush as a sailor.
***
I found a Kate Bush discography collection on vinyl while staying in California. That very night, I sat, with a joint in hand, and invited her enlightenment to seep across the speakers. I am an avid listener of Bush and had been for a decade before Stranger Things evoked her second wind of fame. I have a mother who was known for her theatrics, a huge Kate Bush fan. So I heard her evasive vocals on long car rides to Wyoming or Grandma’s house.
I liked how she sang about simple things with robust praise, like the clouds in the sky. Her softness is brought forth in every word she speaks, every piano chord struck, and the echoing reprisals heard long after her songs end. She brings emotion back to the core, back to media, easily found in the space between the overtones.
***
Side B of Hounds of Love, Kate Bush’s fifth studio release by EMI Records, is not an album. It’s not the second act to Side A.
It’s an odyssey of wonder and wet nostalgia.
It’s a goddamn noir.
The Ninth Wave is a musical suite of songs that recounts the tale of a sailor lost at sea and the terror of surviving through the night. As she drifts aimlessly, she reflects on her life and memories while conversing with her illusions. The music is enigmatic and dimly ethereal, a soundscape that transports the listener into the frigid depths of a castaway.
Bush, immersed in a dream state: falling asleep yet remaining awake, draws a layer of foggy consciousness, strong enough to evoke introspection but thin enough to remain aloof. A performance met with nightmares, memories, and illusions that she and the audience cannot decipher between reality and hallucination.
The tracks of The Ninth Wave are expertly crafted with intricate arrangements that fold in and out of each other, creating a sonic landscape that is both mesmerizing and haunting. Kate Bush's vocals, reminiscent of Sirens calling to their victims, create an otherworldly experience that pulls the listener deeper into her opaqueness. The innovative use of synth production adds to the eerie quality of the music, enhancing the sense of being lost at sea.
It is, without a doubt, one of Kate Bush's most accomplished works, showcasing her artistic prowess and claiming her status as a musical pioneer. Like a lighthouse in the distance, it serves as a beacon for the shipwrecked to gaze upon and find its way home.
As I lounged comfortably on the sere couch, my feet dangling like those of a child on a swing set. I began to meet my breath, holding it for thirty-second intervals, imagining myself cast out on the surface of the deep sea and then sinking beneath its murkiness. With each imaginary descent, I understood the growing desperation to cling to my sanity in the face of something unclear, underestimated, and unkempt.
Ooh, their breath is warm/And they smell like sleep/And they say they take me home/Like poppies heavy with seed/They take me deeper and deeper.
There is a constant push-n-pull. A story portraying the duality of realms.
Is she, the one skating on top of it all, or is she the one trapped "Under Ice"?1 In "Waking the Witch," Bush leads us into an entirely new dimension, taking on the role of a burning occultist on trial while battling extreme coldness in another reality. The pleading voices interweaving with hellhound wails serve as a distraction, shifting the perspective between reliving one’s destiny to challenging it. When her spirit finally awakens, leaving her earthly body behind, she continues the journey passing through her loved ones in "Watching You Without Me". Bush visits them, hoping they can see her one last time, yet in a hushed distortion she murmurs in her realization, Here in the room with you now/You can't hear what I'm saying/ You don't hear what I'm saying.
There is an aching for a second chance, to cling to life a little longer, the dance we all find ourselves in when life turns bleak. In "Jig of Life," Bush masterfully blends her signature bagpipe harmonies with piercing pop vocals, backed by a rich arrangement of violin, fiddle, and drums. The song acts as a catalyst, urging her to return and try once more. It's a raw reminder that life is a boundless expanse of both joy and vacancy, that we create and fill it ourselves, but also possess the power to choose when to let it go.
Time in her eyes is spawning past life/One with the ocean and the woman unfurled
As the conflict intensifies, Bush takes a moment to let go. Separating from her body, letting it float above the vast, deep ocean like a balloon ascending through a cloudy sky in "Hello Earth." As she surveys the scene below, she views a rescue team beside her lifeless, frozen form. Becoming a prophet of grief, she contemplates her own life as she watches herself fall deeper into the gaping unknown. The music feels heavier, a profound mutter that lingers in the ears. There is a sense of dark anguish followed by a soulless clarity. But before we can mourn Bush's agonizing demise, "The Morning Fog," the final track, brings us back to a reunion of flesh and essence. Shedding light on what truly matters in life, a newfound appreciation. Bush's parting words are a testament to this realization: D'you know what? I love you better. I'll kiss the ground. I'll tell my mother, I'll tell my father, I'll tell my loved ones."
D’you know what? I love you better.
The Ninth Wave was a film, that’s how I thought of it. It’s the idea of this person being in the water, how they’ve got there, we don’t know. But the idea is that they’ve been on a ship, and they’ve been washed over the side, so they’re alone in this water. And I find that horrific imagery, the thought of being completely alone in all this water. — Kate Bush
In the world of art, seascapes have long been a captivating and metaphorical composition, and one of the most powerful examples is Ivan Aivazovsky's infamous painting, The Ninth Wave. This poignant piece portrays a group of stranded sailors adrift on a wrecked ship, facing their shared despair as they float out at sea. The scene is strikingly juxtaposed by the beauty of an untouched sunset, illuminating the reflective waves that tower above them. This same contrast of beauty and danger is echoed in Bush's music, with its emotional turmoil, lullaby-like melodies, and foreboding orchestration.
There is a helplessness that humans feel when faced with the vastness and power of the ocean. It is a force of nature that we will never fully understand, and a reflection of ourselves that we will never fully control. Both Aivazovsky and Bush capture this: the beauty and mystery of the unknown, of the unseen. Yet, the fear of it too.
Recently, I took part in a discussion about the contrasting energies of urban landscapes and the open countryside. Having experienced both over the past year, I can attest that they offer distinctly different feelings but are similarly essential for human existence. One looks towards mankind, who we have evolved into, and the other draws towards nature, what our world has evolved into. Both energies turn into necessary research when met with our contemplation. When I gaze upon the ocean, I see a wetland of sorts, with the rotating waves serving as the equivalent of rolling hills, and expansive air that kicks the back of the lungs. Still, constantly moving. Mighty, Feral, and Liberated.
In the inspiring poem "The Hill We Climb" by Amanda Gorman, the poet explores themes of hope for the future, acknowledging past struggles, and the importance of maintaining faith. She uses the metaphor of light and darkness (duality, once again) to illustrate another form of country, America, and its journey toward progress. She cautions the reader, stating this is never the easier path, as things cannot be quickly resolved. Yet, Gorman encourages readers to approach the future with openness and vulnerability and allow the beauty of the country to guide us toward a brighter tomorrow that surpasses our wildest imaginations.
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?/The loss we carry/A sea we must wade.
She calls for reflection on our past selves to bring hope to our future ones. Accepting that, going through the hardens, what Bush refers to as the waves, can bring out endless possibilities. We can float away, and disappear (I’ve done it). Or you can face the hardships and believe you are capable of the challenges. You are capable of surviving that same unknown.
Looking at the problems in our country is just facing yourself.
Looking at the beauty of our land is just facing yourself.
Looking upon the water is just facing yourself.
We are mere reflections of our environment, our actions, and our community. By doing the work, reflecting on our past, projecting onto our future, and altering unhealthy behaviors, we can influence our surroundings and perhaps receive the answers we seek, which may elude us in our conscious state and bring us back to our humanity. The state of being, where we put care and awareness first above all else.
What if we surrender to humanity, to the water, to the insanity? What if we floated without having a fear of sinking?
The light / Begin to bleed / Begin to breathe / Begin to speak / D'you know what? / I love you better now
… D'you know what? / I love you better now
the less real the greater the worth
No artist tolerates reality; he turns away or back from it: his earnest opinion is that the worth of a thing consists in that nebulous residue of it which one derives from colour, form, sound, and thought; he believes that the more subtle, attenuated, and volatile, a thing or a man becomes, the more valuable he becomes: the less real the greater the worth. — Friedrich Nitzsche, Complete Works, ed. Oscar Levy, 18 vols. (London, 1909-15), vol. 15, The Will to Power, trans. Anthony M. Ludovici, p. 74.
I often find solace in the act of escaping, and whether it's due to me feeling like an artist or simply the joy of knowing I can depart at any given moment, the allure of escape remains constant. My perpetual cycle of thought and questioning that defines my existence both exhilarates and drains me, occasionally leaving me overwhelmed and depleted. In these moments, I like to exit out of my sanity.
Ambient music is a form of this “nebulous residue” Nitzsche talks so fondly about. It emanates from the lingering tenderness of waning sounds, focusing not on what is heard, but rather what isn’t heard after. The impact of ambient music on its environment is akin to a masterpiece, creating a space and awareness that breathes life into the surroundings. It gives breath.
***
Ichiko Aoba’s Windswept Adan has breath, providing a soulful sanctuary for the sensitive and a cherished daytime melody for the maladaptive.
Released in December 2020 as Aoba's seventh album via the label Hermine, Windswept Adan is a collaborative masterpiece with TV composer Taro Umebayashi, also known as Milk. The project features Aoba's adeptness in playing with pockets of intimacy, skillfully simmering it down to leave just enough heat. It hums with her hypnotizing vocals and susurrant guitars like a hushed shawl placed on top of you. It is a space where it's just you, and no one else. No one else can hear.
Aoba envisioned Windswept Adan as the soundtrack to an imaginary film residing solely in her mind — a narrative of spirit, faith, and movement. The storyline unfolds across two fictional islands, one representing the character's origin and the other, filled with abundance and fertility, where they venture towards.
Inside the journey of Windswept Adan, "Prologue" serves as an introduction, the bubbling sensation before an adventure is about to start. A premature moment of bliss founded on faith. This anticipation is followed through “Pilgrimage”, an odyssey of leaving an old home for another. Each drum line, another footstep, another paddle off the shore. As the voyage transcends, we encounter "Porcelain,” a track that symbolizes arrival at the destination through unwavering belief in oneself and one's dreams. This particular composition serves as a musical portrayal of the idyllic weather conditions from the Kerama Islands, located north of the island of Okinawa. These islands, with their coral reefs and mirrored seas, inspire a dense track that stands as the project's lead single — Aoba's Moment of Breath. Flushed out with feather-light strings, woodwinds, fluted harmonies, and ceremonial percussion, each transcendental note is delicate yet brash, overwhelming for the heart
It’s psych-folk. It’s trippy. It’s surreal. It’s illusory.
A few nights ago, I played this album while loving my partner. I wanted to see if my feeling was correct in it being best appreciated in exaltation. For me, the act of being physically close to someone during an intimate moment serves as a conduit to connect with the energy in front of you while simultaneously distancing oneself from the trappings of the ego. Aoba, through her artistic cultivation, seems to encapsulate this delicate balance, providing an exquisite backdrop to our shared experience. The intertwining of physical connection and the harmonious melodies of Windswept Adan brought a profound sense of ease.
Post-interlude, we found ourselves lying vulnerably beside each other, engaging in a thoughtful dissection of the album. The atmosphere of Windswept Adan revealed itself to be simplistic, harmonic, and adventurous — a rhythmic odyssey guided by the travel of sounds and the foreplay of shifty tones. Aoba's voice, ranging from a gentle whisper to an operatic chant, seemed like a healing force. It beckons to those seeking relief and escape, inviting them to follow her voice into a journeyed bliss.
Amid this discography, "Parfum d'etoiles" acts as an interim into the bliss. Its separated piano chords, full and textured, imitate memories of the sounds in country fields, accompanied by the lightness of a foot tapping on the soil. The track is euphoric and tantalizing. It brings loneliness in the form of isolation and connection with nature, with the space around you. Aoba plays with the idea of loneliness, recognizing that if we feel interconnected with all things, placing a sense of belonging to the broad tapestry of existence, we can explore not just our relationship with others but our relationship with the world. Learning to foster deep connection with the innate things, the things that breathe us light. Acknowledging the vastness of existence and the multitude of experiences that comes with it can help to reframe loneliness as a part of the human condition rather than a definitive role of isolation. It brings on a subjective role not a finite one. She reminds us that we always have our web that connects us back and our delusions to carry us through.
Aoba's music offers that resolution, creating a space where delusions and reality can coexist harmoniously. It's a romantic embrace of the ever-moving elements both around and within oneself. It’s flirty, it’s light, and it’s a Piscean. As the project draws to a close, the final two minutes are filled with the cooing of waves crashing on the shore, marking the successful escape into bliss—a journey much appreciated and much treasured.
The album cover serves as a perfect visual representation of what these sounds offer. A sacred aura reminiscent of the Garden of Eden, aptly named the Garden of Adan. Where temptation is everywhere and indulgence is strongly encouraged.
***
If you like Ichiko Aoba, you’d also like Vashti Bunyan. Let me put you on!
I am your dog
I’ve been away from my words as I deal with real life moments. But recently, something stirred in me—this piece from my draft felt urgent to share after revisiting the Village Vanguard, experiencing the intricacies of music creation all over again. Thanks for reading even when my words are distant + my fingers are stuck.
***
The first time I experienced L’Rain’s languid vocals and anarchic, woozy synth melodies was on a rainy summer afternoon in Chicago. I had unwittingly consumed a bottle of molly-infused water, a ripped press pass imprinting itself on the inside of my wrist, and a storm spreading beyond the horizon of Lake Michigan. With discomfort inside my body and sweat trickling down my forearms, and an uninvited high looming in the recesses of my mind, it felt like the perfect time to meet L’Rain in song.
I heard about L’Rain when I first encountered the ethereal strains of "Two Face," emanating from their 2021 album, Fatigue, that first twisted my senses. The beginning twenty seconds already a sonic stair master that I willingly climbed upon. Long have I searched for an artist who traverses every frontier of synth scapes, one who melds the untamed spirit of jazz sessions not merely with saxophones and snare drums, but with the raw electricity of modular synths and electric keyboards. Taja Cheek and her compatriots have achieved just that, and in their ongoing odyssey, they continue to redefine the very essence of sonic exploration.
***
Taja Cheek, in her guise as L’Rain, unveils her third record, I Killed Your Dog. Hailing from Brooklyn, she emerges as a polymath: singer, songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, wielding her extensive sonic tool belt with finesse. With a deft touch, she guides the listener through realms of foreboding ambience, weaving a coverage of danceable beats and longing, breathy vocalizations that envelop the senses in a spellbinding headlock.
L’Rain describes I Killed Your Dog as an “anti-break-up” album, delving beyond the wounds of grief and heartbreak into the world of the psyche confined between the mere thoughts, emotions, and experiences. It’s not for the faint of heart, but for the heady highs. “The whole premise is to laugh to keep from crying,” explains L’Rain, “I think I’m trying to get out of my own head.”
With a cheeky and karmically humorous touch, the album spins a disorientating narrative, piecing together strands of jazz-infused melodies and introspective musings. Rooted yet detached, it evokes the image of a headless chicken, frenetically navigating the chaos of existence. This sonic bout mirrors our modern era's penchant for simultaneous stimulation and fleeting attention spans, capturing the emotional zeitgeist in real-time.
In this ever-evolving project, I Killed Your Dog stands as a testament to innovation and authenticity. It defies categorization, inviting listeners to immerse themselves in its heady concoction of sound and emotion. Much like the jazz that precedes it, this album defies convention, carving out its own space in the annals of musical history. It's an experience to be heard, felt, processed, and digested—an oral tradition for the current age, leaving an indelible mark on those it attracts.
A few days prior, I found myself involved within the space of the Village Vanguard, an iconic sanctuary nestled deep within the streets of the West Village. Its unassuming entrance hides the treasure within—a basement steeped in legend and lore, its forest green walls adorned with a mosaic of framed photographs, each a testament to the luminaries who once graced its stage.
As I settled into the comfort of a back booth, a silent witness to the unfolding symphony before me, I couldn't help but feel the weight of history pressing down on my shoulders. Here, in this sacred space, the echoes of its culture reverberate through time and sound—Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Elvin Jones, Charles Mingus, and the notable Bill Evans. Each note, each chord, resonates with the spirit of those who have tread the sticky ground before me, a lineage of musical brilliance stretching back to the club's birth in 1935. It is here, amidst the warm basement air, that the essence of jazz transcends mere music—it becomes a living, breathing entity, a testament to the enduring power of artistry and innovation. An entity that L’Rain explores through her own knowledge.
When T extended the invitation to accompany them as a plus one, for an artist signed to Blue Note Records, I couldn't contain my excitement at the prospect of once again losing myself to some music. I am always looking to lose myself in sound, from the humble upbringing of my nonna’s kitchen, where the crackling static of The Ed Sullivan Show loomed on her trusty 1969 Philips TV, to scandalous nights in the intoxicating world of live jazz at Stones Throw, an underground scene in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I have always been one to seek the thrill of basking in my own head high. So with a micro-dosage of psilocybin moving through my bloodstream, I bore witness to an alchemy of emotion—eyelids fluttering in syncopated rhythm, toes tapping in silent communion, fingers drumming against the circular tables. Heads swayed in varied paces, a collective embodiment of the allure, punctuated by exuberant exclamations that echoed from the darkened corners of the room. An “Oooo ya!” here and a “Oof!” there.
Suspended in time, we all found our own language, our own rhythm or maybe it was something bigger than even that, something that shifts barriers of language and legacy, uniting disparate moving individuals in a shared moment of purity, of joy.
“When jazz musicians improvise, they often play with eyes closed in a distinctive, personal style that transcends traditional rules of melody and rhythm,” says Charles J. Limb, M.D., assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a trained jazz saxophonist. “It’s a remarkable frame of mind,” he states, “during which, all of a sudden, the musician is generating music that has never been heard, thought, practiced or played before. What comes out is completely spontaneous.”1 In this research, there was a result in increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, which sits in the front and center of the brain. This area is linked with creativity, self-expression, and other activities like “telling a story.”
Jazz reverberates with the rhythm of revolt, an echo of history's tale. Yet, it also speaks to the very essence of our being—a melody that ignites our senses, all intertwined with our primal urge to experience. To engage with jazz is to partake in a revolution—a transformative moment that melds senses, sounds, and perspectives into a singular, transcendent experience. In this perspective, L’Rain emerges as a sorceress of the senses, weaving her own tapestry of sonic magic that defies convention and challenges perception. In layman’s terms, L’Rain is here to tell a story.
Though she may not explicitly align herself with the “jazz” label, L’Rain's artistic endeavors embody the spirit of just that—an ambiguous fusion of creativity and expression that defies boundaries and speaks to the very uterine of humanity.
***
I feel like L’Rain is one big persona. It can sometimes be me and it can sometimes be someone else or somewhere in between. I throw things, maybe not to different people, but different versions of myself. I used to shift perspectives in my lyrics a lot where I would say ‘you’ but I really meant ‘I’. — Taja Cheek
The title track, “I Killed Your Dog”, shows her blending between these perspectives. The symbol of dogs show up previously in her lyrics (“Kill Self” on Fatigue) to explain the comparison of things and people we hold close to our hearts and why sometimes we hurt those things even with the best intentions. Chaotic, frenetic, and overcast in suspicion with self. When you hear the whisper “I killed your dog,” the sound reverberates from the inside of your own head, a purposeful use of her audio technique, which gets you believing, ”Did she actually kill my dog?” or is she the living embodiment of Anubis, the dog god, dog of the dead, god of the grieving?
On “Our Funeral” the exploration of grief continues, but not as death itself but as the anticipation of an end to something, to love, to life. The track commences within the solemn echoes of an organ as if you’re inside of it—cozy and protected—reminiscent of somber church halls, before guiding listeners through a misty, weighty journey tinged with surreal, bluesy undertones. Or on “5 to 8 Hours (WWwaG)”, a call out to society’s desire for ceaseless productivity, where Cheek seeps the words, “I want to try to fill myself with the things I’ve lost, the things I wanted, the things I love”. Rooted yearning inside the firm guitar strings and soulful trumpet accents, the track embodies the tangled complexity of jazz, while also weaving in elements of folk and rock as a tribute to Black pioneers in American folk. Each note serves as a poignant reminder of the genres' origins, culminating in a spoken-word homage to the Black visionaries who helped shape this project.
Referencing artists and their sonic histories is something L’Rain fixates on throughout the album, between ‘50s and ‘60s synth libraries and bringing on fundamental learnings of quantum mechanics, “Uncertainty Principle” giving context to the Heisenberg Principle that states there is inherent uncertainty in the act of measuring a variable of a particle, basically, there is uncertainty with sound that cannot be measured whether through a horn, strings, or the electric current of a synth board. It’s all immeasurable and it’s all data-proof. It’s all in the ether, making its way to you in whatever way it wants to.
On the other side of the coin, the nuances of life are also immeasurable: grief, love, resistance. In Cheek’s “New Year’s Unresolution”, the song serves as a testament to the complexity of emotions, where initial pain gradually gives way to understanding yet yearning all in one. Cheek’s lyrics, written at different timeframes, navigate the listener through the spectrum of feelings that accompany the end of a relationship, illustrating how time can reshape our perceptions.
In the early verses, the raw, unfiltered sorrow is palpable. The words echo with the immediate ache of loss and staging a poignant mix of regret and longing, as the heart grapples with the sudden void left behind. Theorizing how humans cope with loss and how that process is ever shifting, integrating and mixing into distant reflection. Do you know what it's like to have something, something, something, something?
In the mix-up of existence, our experiences & emotions merge into a singular, intricate melody. Just as a musician breathes into each note with fervor, we navigate our days with a blend of instinct and mere rumination, modifying rhythms that beat only for us to hear, our own body’s sonic landscape, body high 2.0. The sensation that Cheek’s and her counterparts have and, truthfully, perfected. Nothing is more psychedelic like a mind levitating from ear to ear.
I Killed Your Dog though it slyly masking its sensual torment, this project is for the bedroom, an album for love-making between you and your mind, unraveling the one-dimensional perspective on space and time. The essence of her work lies in transforming chaos into harmony, igniting curiosity with longing. Each track twists between us as both the creator and interpreter of our human condition; a beautiful place for a listener to be.
It's odd, it's unpolished, it's sublime, it's melodic, it's as thick as a vat of goodness. When I listen, I can't help but imagine the protoplasm pot on Spooky Island that imprisons Freddy, Daphne, and Velma, swirling with souls disconnected from their fleshy bodies. In the film, protoplasms instinctively search for their original bodies when freed, driven by a natural urge to find it’s home. Cheek's instrumental infusion frees our souls from the thickness, placing us back into our experience, returning our minds to our heads with fresh eyes and a warmer disposition.
fuck cancer
And as we are told, our stories haunt us, our blockages return ten fold. The discomfort lingers, always waiting down the path. We are constantly faced with trials and obstacles intent on grinding us down into a bitter pulp. Cancer, it is like a gas that suffocates from within, a single inhale that leads to choking on one's own throat. The only relief in the sensation comes from turning your skin inside out to let it breathe. It reeks of decay, tastes of root rot. It destroys anything that catches its scent, unstoppable, unmovable. It is us. Our bodies' clocks, ticking down like a boiling pot until all that remains is the taste of metal. Today, I tasted metal, and your chest burned, leaving scars on your left breast and, freshly, on your lower abdomen. And mama, if it were up to me, it would be me on that operating table, whispering a last Hail Mary before falling asleep.
When someone says, "I prayed for you," you start to second guess your reality, as if it's more serious than you were led to believe. When I hear ten women in a church basement blessing my mama and our family, I think to myself—damn, that sounds serious. I'm sitting here brushing my hair the way you used to, with the wooden comb I bought to look like your mother's old one. I just came back from a swim, and my hair is tangled like seaweed under the current. It hurts, and I'm ripping my hair out while thinking about how serious this might become. Should I cancel flights or stay with my head down? I decide that this can't be serious, not on a night like tonight.
Tonight, I rest before the wave comes. I see it, feel it even, approaching steadily. I know the set that will rock my world is just kissing the horizon. I pray too, but to something else. I’m praying to the source itself for some relief, just something to get me through it, to get you through it. Your hope makes my heart shake. Strength, to me, brings on faith so powerful that it fills your veins, oxidizing any metal left over. I believe you'll find yourself unmovable, that wave won’t crash onto you. You’ll slide under it like a seashell wafting beneath the shore.
I hope when you're sleeping, you find yourself inside a crisp, white seashell, wading on the ocean floor where harmony sits. I hope you look up and see a sky floating above you, puffy clouds blowing up like balloons. Please, look! Look for every light beam that cuts through the whiteness. Look for every angel that swoops through the blues. And you'll see it there—a meaning, or something—and that meaning will bring you home, to the shore where you deserve to rest, free of toxins, free of salt.
I'm thinking of her from over the ocean
See her face in the waves, her body is floating
And in her eyes, like clementines, I know that she's fading
And the light of the sun is only a daydream
And when you wake, womanhood will feel different. You’ll be a woman because you feel like one, even if you don't have much evidence of it. You’ll ask for a picture of your uterus to see what you looked like inside yourself, and you’ll say, “I housed you here.” I’ll remember the warmth. That house will no longer be in you, another home you’ve outgrown, but that warmth will never go away, mama. I feel it in my dreams, too. Like an ocean floor rocking me to sleep, I’ll remember how you nursed me to health, how you gifted me the ability to breathe. So tomorrow, when the wave comes, I’ll breathe for both of us. In and out until my lungs are filled with new air. I’ll breathe until my head feels light. I’ll breathe like you breathed for me inside that warmth.
And when you wake, because you will. Your eyes might feel foggy; they may feel heavy. The heaviness might turn them a color of yellow, like a sun that just woke up, and the body may feel hollow, but you are still alive, you are still wading.
***
The gas, I refer to as cancer, has come to my home many times before. My mom has her battle scars that began during my high school years—watching her undergo radiation after a partial mastectomy, and seeing her recover in the years that followed. When Soccer Mommy released the album color theory in 2020, a time when life was hectic and uncertain, singer Allison’s transparency left me crying in the middle of a coffee shop. I tried to decipher why I was mourning a past that wasn’t my own yet felt eerily similar. It left me wide awake in my bed, wanting to call my mother even though I knew she was asleep.
color theory follows her highly-admired 2018 album, Clean, where she sheds into a mature woman, leaving behind her high school crushes and cool girl daydreams. The album is flawlessly divided into three main sections, each represented by a different color. It begins with melancholy blue, where depressive mental states and self-criticism blend seamlessly. The exposed opening track, "bloodstream," accurately depicts these two traits without hesitation. With lovely memories of wild streams, hydrangeas blooming off park trees, and youthful, rosy cheeks, Allison brings herself back to the first time she felt sadness at the simple age of thirteen.
Then to yellow, a stark reflection of Allison’s raw relationship with her mother’s terminal illness and her own struggle with mental health. This section stands as the most acclaimed work of her songwriting career. It begins with the seven-minute reverie, "yellow is the color of her eyes," where 2000s dreamy, sculpted guitar chords intertwine with ethereal, distant vocals. The track embodies the guilt Allison grappled with while touring internationally during her mother’s worsening condition. From miles away, she reflects on a home now distant, her cry for a loved one slowly manifests into a cry for help within herself.
The final color is about the fear of loss shown by the color grey. Continuing with lofi-pop undertones, the gray light strips away to reveal Allison's haunting vocals, profoundly painting her finished self-portrait. With the last words of the album whispering, “I can’t lose it / the feeling I’m going down / I can’t lose it / I’m watching my mother drown,” before it abruptly cuts.
For me, it was always a mirror of the pain I harbored deep within, an echo of the aftermath of having a sick mother and the paranoia that accompanies that darkness. The album, as a whole, is a masterpiece in many ways, but the true gem of this project is "yellow is the color of her eyes.” The track played recently while we were driving back from a hike a few days before Mama’s surgery, and it felt like it found me. After a trek in the pouring rain, where rebirth was dripping onto my skin, I listened while T drove us toward the sunset. His hand pressed between my fingers, he let me drift into my own world, remembering the first time I found my mother sick at sixteen, not knowing how to care for her (and this time will be different). We spent the afternoon drying off at a nearby farm where folk music echoed from the ripples of the pond. I watched as the clouds parted, just enough to carve out a circle that framed the sun perfectly. There, on our picnic table, I felt her warmth. That circle giving way to her beams and a newfound sign of hope.
I am going to sauna tonight while you recover, your stomach sewn with a compression strap and string, because I promised you I’d breathe for the both of us. In the warmth, in the uterine, in the mist of sweat and oil. I am going to a sauna to discover what it’s like to force breath, to barely hold air in a ribcage stiff as steel. I go to see if breathing hard enough could make the lightness in my head take me to you. Mama, you housed me like a mother bird in its nest, creating warmth from the mere heat of your bosom, and you let me fly when the deed was done. Now it’s my turn to hold you in a warmer place, where my chest shields you from the destruction in your field of vision. I’ll walk you through sticks, grass, and snow until we find a place where you can breathe again—a painless breath, one that tastes of oak and cedar.
Because loving you isn’t enough anymore, as your child. The true promise we took above the sky when angel wings were pressed on our shoulder blades has come: the promise of unconditional care. It’s my turn to churn my nurture into a soup you can slurp down. It’s my turn to remind you what life is, why scary things happen, and that fear isn’t the way. Loving you isn’t enough; I must hold your hand until your wrinkles fall into mine and your story becomes my own. The sun that shined down on you will become the light that guides me. Dad said you must power through, for there are grandchildren to meet and family to confide in.
And for every chemical you swallow, I cut another curl until my locks become a hairpiece just for you—a crown of honor, a symbol of survival. I’ll braid it and brush it like you did mine, humming the song your mother used to sing. You’ll look to your light and feel her with you, touching your arm in a graze of comfort. “Our blood is strong,” she’ll say. “It does not take us out like others. We fight with our hearts and exist until the sun leaves us. Until then, the sun shines, and we live.” In that revelation, our sun will come, and we’ll remember the warmth we both shared inside our mothers, inside our core, together as one. The way we were meant to be.
Loving you isn't enough
You'll still be deep in the ground when it's done
I'll know the day when it comes
I'll feel the cold as they put out my sun
***
Enduring a growing pain that changes your every state of being takes angst. I carry angst for this world and for the things that come from it, yet I trust that the blood coursing through my veins is both strong and oxidizing. My mother's battle will earn her treasures. And when she smiles again, I know we are safe. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the pain of it all, but I’ve learned that life is filled with pain, making the good moments all the more precious. I’ll continue to hold onto hope until my sun leaves.
memories in the icloud
There’s something about sounds (and the act of audio collecting) that has always offered me a comfort I can’t quite explain. It’s possible that I started reviewing music, attending festivals, years ago, to seek sound as a way to touch something beyond physical form. It’s more than a passing memory; it’s something deeper, something more ancient. Hearing, in its essence, is containing time. It is the closest we have come to a kind of time travel, capturing fleeting moments in search of eternity.
When you hear it, something that once stirred profound emotion in you, it’s as though you are pulled back to it, back to the moment when you first encountered it. The same place, the same time, the same age, you are there again. It’s as though you never really left, as if time somehow draped into itself, and you, momentarily, floating inside the nothing—the dancing with time and space.
When I started 444, I was traveling full time, freshly free from a heartbreak that had cut me deep but which I was finally ready to heal from and a “dream” job that had whittled me down to dust, but I was searching—again—for my intent, which I’ve learned is always subjective. In my travels, I began curating playlists: finding the songs that crossed my path, dropped there by strangers, by the static of local radio stations, by the music choices of small businesses. Each note, each rhythm, felt like a thread connecting me to places and people whose presence I could momentarily embrace.
At the same time, I began recording sounds—voices, phenomena, the sonic textures of the world. I thought of them as capsules, these moments that would never fade as long as I contained them. And when I returned, settling back into the city, I knew I would have these fragments. When nostalgia came—uninvited, yet comforting like warm milk before bed—I could wrap it around my skin and find it again, if only brief.
It began with songs—simple, crafted on the guitar while I stayed in a studio space up in the Berkeley hills. The owners of the home, musicians themselves, welcomed their equipment to be played with, to be touched and used. There, I learned not just to create, but to be absorbed, until the notes no longer belonged to anything, but to the space. Slowly, it evolved from recording songs to capturing the present moments—those brief pieces of time that left me in awe. Eventually, I began creating verbal diaries, recordings my thoughts, reminders of who I was at that moment, what I wanted, and what I consistently search for.
Now, it’s part of my journey: Capturing the environment, the textures of each experience I move through. I’ve always been an archivist in this way, a quiet observer, recording my findings, storing them somewhere safe—a private file on a desktop. Since my first laptop—one that was gifted and used to play Sims 2, returning to my mother during her work hours—I learned how to save photos to folders, how to google things out of curiosity. I learned that this laptop, for me, would be the thing I left behind, the artifact. The thing that someone, when I am gone, will find and open, sifting through old files, finding fragments of me. A memorial of sorts. A written prodigy, something that will outlive me and keep my curiosity alive long after my decay.
I suppose, in many ways, 444 is that too—a scripture, something for others to play with, to edit, to add onto. A living record, one that doesn’t belong to me alone.
***
There are sounds that enter like a possession of the heart: a soft shuffle of footsteps—someone who is long gone, and yet, when listening, extremely alive. I hear it. A bird call. A voice. A distant song on the radio. It doesn’t matter that these things belong to something else. They are, once recorded, intimately mine—engraved in rock, cut in stone. Clinging to my bones, as though it had always been there, a vein to remind me that I once lived. Let me prick it for you so you can hear it too.
These captured sounds are the silent witnesses. They don’t belong to me alone; they are the spirit of what was and what we cannot return to. And you can hear them too, as long as we merely exist, so does the click of pressing “record”.
Sammie on the Beach (demo):
08.27.2022
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I don’t write about my first love as it feels irrelevant, like a chapter written only to prove I could feel—deeply, achingly—for another human being. In my barely adult years, I wasn’t sure I was capable of that, and yet. That time wasn’t about heartbreak so much as it was about finding myself in the wreckage of someone else’s actions.
A friend asked me recently: How do you get over a first love? How do you stop feeling it? My answer was annoyingly plain: You can’t. You take all that pain, all that unused love, and you pour it back into your spirit.
I am deeply spiritual because of that time. I listen to my needs because of that time. And most importantly, I learned to understand myself—so intimately. It was never about a past lover; it was always about love returning back to me.
This feels like an accurate depiction of that process. Sitting in an old pottery studio with an acoustic guitar hooked up to my laptop, mic wired into my voice memos, leaves brushing against the open window. And I sat and sang and cried. A lot of these recordings were not made for any intention except to merely extract the hurt and put it back into the air where it can move freely. By the end of the summer, I had a whole EP of song demos that filled my emptiness like molted lava inside a crack. It was so raw that I look back at those moments so fondly. My heart (like yours) can expand and contract as a learned muscle, and when you feel so deeply about another person, you can remind yourself you can do that again. Towards bigger things, towards other human beings and, most importantly, towards yourself. This voice memo is a bookmark for an important chapter in my life—one that got me here.
Because I ran to the hills to cry, write, play.
A Father’s Missed Phone Call
10.31.2022
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Something I know will endure for centuries beyond me is the sound of my parents’ voices. I know this because every time my mom revisits the old VCR recordings of my childhood, I hear my nonna’s voice, and I’m transported back to the kitchen on the farm. Her voice carried across the house, announcing the pies had finally cooled. I know this, too, because during the ache of losing my other nonna, I yearned for the sound of her voice—the one that cooed me to sleep as her fingers combed gently through my curls. I missed it so deeply that I began searching for it in the voices of others, trying to catch remnants of her in their tones.
I know one day I’ll miss my parents, too. That’s why I’ve kept so many of their voice messages—some left in anger, others tinged with longing, and still others, like this one, utterly lighthearted. A simple reminder about a mundane thing I misplaced months ago, only to find it later in an old purse.
The phrase “Talk to you later,” casually thrown in at the end of a voicemail, carries an unspoken promise: we’ll speak again soon, and their voices will still be there, waiting for me. A privilege, I’ve come to realize, is not to be taken for granted.
Hearing my dad call me Mariah—my birth name—is something only my family does. It’s a name steeped in Italian roots, tied to the Christian “Maria,” often synonymous with the Virgin Mary. My Catholic upbringing taught me to revere her, to pray to her more than I ever prayed to Jesus. And though I’m not particularly fond of the name myself, when I hear my parents speak it, it feels eternal. In their voices, it becomes something more than a name. It becomes a thread binding me to them, to our history, and to the parts of myself sometimes forgotten.
Destroying Sea Shells:
11.29.2022
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These sounds are among my favorites in my collection—the sounds of an interactive nature. During the end of 2022, I traveled to La Selva, CA, just outside the curve of Santa Cruz. I was fortunate to have a generous friend (and an even more generous family) take care of me there. Each morning, with a hot cup of tea in hand, I walked to the cliff, then to the beach, where I listened to the waves crash onto the shore, watching the elements kiss and retreat. I smoked countless joints, jotted down messy thoughts, and smiled at strangers passing by. This became a treasure every day—a means to carry on. There, I found sounds I needed to bottle up. Stepping on sea shells was one of them. Every time I hear it, I imagine the beach, the sun rising slowly like the steam from my tea, and me on all fours, searching for nature in the sandy confines, sometimes running into the water until my jeans were wet and heavy. I was this animal, dancing with the world—and for that, I am grateful. To be a woman, to be a wolf, all in one moment—a mystery and a lesson, together.
Screaming in a Tunnel off the Coast
12.06.2024
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My most recent and raw recording is of Us screaming in a tunnel as we drive along the coast of California. The sound is wild, full of abandon and laughter, the kind only a weekend with friends can coax out of you.
We all flew in, met in San Francisco, and drove down to a friend’s farm where the air tasted like sultry freedom. Each of us knowing one another from a different age, a different chapter. We spent our days playing in the sun, acting like adolescents, unconcerned with time or consequence—just basking in the pure joy of being together. We ate burritos, smoked spliffs, double Dutched with washed up bull kelp, made lavish breakfasts, and ventured into the depths of cliffs.
This audio was captured after we just saw one of the most beautiful sunsets, sinking into the water like a capsule, light slipping off our soaked skin as if we were made of liquid. We were driving to pick up another friend that made the trek to the West Coast. Euphoric, we were suspended in the air, no longer tethered to the ground, feral inside the tunnel with a police car trailing behind us. A car full of teenagers being reckless yet innocent like youth is suppose to feel, untarnished by the weight of the world. The sound of that moment, the sound of us—free.
The screams, swallowed by the tunnel and wind, holds all of it—a snapshot of what it means to be alive and seen in the company of those who know you as a changing mechanism. The friends who share your adventurous upbringing in the land that raised them so clean, those who have walked with you through majority of your complicated twenties. When we met, we were engulfed in the beauty of the world—nature, wilderness, light—and now, returning to it, we shed the light to make way for new illumination.
***
Referring back to these voice memos feels like holding time in my hands, each one a fragment of life captured, yet alive. They are not just records; they are echoes of laughter, of grief, of lessons from life. Each playback is a resurrection, a reminder that sounds carry more—they carry presence.
Sound is legacy, and to capture it is to hold a piece of eternity.