A note from Oaxaca

Slowing down and the greening of things.

It’s been a minute. The days are slowing down and I’m attempting to try and match their pace.

I write from a remote village in Oaxaca, having just finished my last show of the year in Mexico City at a festival called Corona Capital. It was all the things as big shows often are. But mainly a joy to see the people my music has brought together in a part of the world I love so much.

Especially the part I’m in now…

I planned to touch down here in the mountains and begin recording my poems for poetry posts and excitedly tracking vocals for song seeds that have been begging for homes, renting the space between my ears for weeks and eager to be brought to form… But alas, I forgot a crucial part of my mobile studio. I brought everything but the XLR cord needed for my SM7 microphone to communicate with my interface.
A rookie move. Caught up in the frenzy.

Thank God for iPhones. I’ve discovered the shower here at the house is a perfect chamber for the stacks I am creating on a song I am working on for a project called “With Love“. It’s an album my friend Hana Tajima-Simpson is compiling that will generate money and aid for children in Palestine. I am giving it everything I have. Recording vocals into my phone until I can get into the city to buy the missing parts of my spaceship. It feels good to make a song for the voiceless. I will share more soon, but it’s worth watching a snippet of me attempting to recreate a vocal booth inside this spectacularly tiled bathroom. 

I cannot stop taking photographs and I cannot stop writing. I’m struggling to sleep because of all the ideas that are fighting for space in my little nugget. It’s fun. A little perilous, but I am taking time for rest too and lime-drenched avocado slices over bowls of black beans. I have almost all I need.

Perhaps there is a small craving for more time to sculpt the clumps of creative clay between my hands. I appreciate the patience of all of you congregating here at my Substack. Posts may a little slower while I’m out here but I look forward to opening my world more once I’ve had a few days to settle.

The fruit I’m eating out here feels like banana putty in my mouth but sings like passionfruit on the tongue. I’m in love with everything about this place. It’s not always comfortable being this quiet. But I know the stillness is brimming with possibilities.

There are so many songs alive in me and it seems silly not to sneak a snippet of what I’m working on here (with the help of my fellow artist friend Among Savages). So, to tie you over, in a time where art is paramount to the soothing of our souls…

Untitled and currently raw in its pursuit. But exciting nonetheless.