Being Somewhere

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571 emails. 100+ hours on the phone and thousands of text messages. A mere 3 days spent in-person together over two and a half years of long-distance work. Such a displaced recording process might make anyone question the concept of being anywhere at all, let alone being somewhere else. 

This is how Drew Brown (Radiohead, Beck) and I created Being Somewhere. All components were recorded in isolation and beamed up to the mothership. No piece of the puzzle ended up as expected, and each moment is the fruition of separate, yet conjoined, rabbit holes. 

I believe Being Somewhere forges sonics well beyond the tropes of modern folk music. Helming the project from Chicago, Drew sourced musical contributions from all over North America and the UK, including work from Joey Waronker (Beck, Atoms for Peace), Jason Falkner (Beck, St. Vincent), Thomas Bartlett (The National, Taylor Swift), Dave Okumu (Arlo Parks, Adele) Mary Lattimore (Kurt Vile, Sharon Van Etten), & Broken Social Scene frontman Kevin Drew. 

These songs… they arm the rebels in the crusade for tenderness. This album is a combative plea for mercy from a manic world and its effects on the psyche.

I wanted this record to feel like the inside crook of a familiar elbow on the nape of your neck, a comforting embrace. I hope it unfurls like an overdue conversation with a dear friend.

There are essentially four acts:

i- How we’re doing
ii- How I’m doing
iii- How can I help you to be still?
iv- How it means anything at all

I also understand that this music demands something of the listener. It can feel scattered at first glance, but when it comes into focus, it is an assault of carefully placed hooks. The initial randomness settles into purpose, but it takes a moment. Considering the modern context in which music is released and the manic 8-seconds-of-watchtime-or-die algorithmic deflation of our collective attention span, it’s a little terrifying to release this in 2022. 

But ALL of my favourite albums required time and consideration. Their potency was not abridged. Kid A confused me for weeks until it didn’t. And so, I am hopeful. Nothing else sounds like this. Drew Brown is a wizard. He’s Gandalf. He even took the cover photo.

I’m 39 and writing the best songs of my life. What a relief. 

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maybe too many things really matter to me?
maybe loss just affirms the value of everything?
maybe love is a curse and we’ll never be free?
maybe there in the sting lies the real poetry?