Keane cover, frenetic hyperbole, & mushrooms...
Hello love,
I’ve been quiet on here lately. In our digital quagmire of information overload, perhaps infrequency is a gift we can give. In all walks, I’ve tried to focus on quality over quantity, and in this pursuit, I am reminded of Michaela Cole’s powerful acceptance speech from the 2021 Emmy Awards:
…for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success. Do not be afraid to disappear, from it, from us, for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence.
I will soon return to form with regular output here on the newsletter. If you’d like to ask me a question (or read my long-winded responses to the questions of others), head over to my AMA rabbit hole. If you have a song suggestion for a new guitar tutorial, add it to the comments below this post.
In truth, I have not been hiding, so much as whittling. We are in the final throngs of mixing this new album. THE new album. I am as culprit as any to the frenetic hyperbole of new projects, but this does feel unique.
Anyone who has heard me speak about this new album has likely heard the goosebumps in my throat. I lie awake at night, terrified that I’ll never make anything so special ever again. My band and I spent a week alone in a cottage and witnessed lightning strike time and time again. I can’t even take much credit for it - the entire process was a gift from the ether. A cosmic fever of creativity.
You can expect more information about the new album in the new year, but in the meantime, there IS something new you can hear today...
A little while ago, I got an email from a representative of the band Keane. They asked if I’d like to record a cover of their song She Has No Time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their landmark album Hopes & Fears. I remember listening to it when I was in university, which suggests that time is a flat circle and that we’re nothing but space dust floating in a sea of nothingness. My intention with any cover is to pull it away from the universe in which it came and place it under a different shade of light. I may have made this sad song even sadder, which I suppose is my gift.
BOOK RECS
Here is a book to spur some bewilderment while the world burns.
1. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
I haven’t quite finished this book yet, but after a handful of novels in a row, I felt it was time to dig into some non-fiction, and I am loving it.
Mushrooms are in the zeitgeist, and I’ve long been fascinated by the topic (especially since seeing the illuminating documentary Fantastic Fungi a few years back).
Mycelium is the largest biological mass on Earth. It connects nearly every living (and dead) organism on the planet. It sends and receives messages. It allows plants to communicate. Fungi are closer to animal than plant. They force us to question our binary concepts of any living organism being an individual thing. And by eating death, they foster all conceivable life.
Mushrooms can poison you, or enlighten you. They can kill you or foster unimaginable mental freedom from habitual emotional patterns.
Ophiocordyceps (also known as the “zombie fungus”, and which inspired the video game / blockbuster TV show The Last Of Us), infects ants and causes them to shed their fear of heights and climb roughly 20cm from the ground on the nearest plant, at which point they perform a “death bite” and root themselves permanently into a vein of the plant. The ant then dies and produces a mushroom which showers spores toward the ground to infect more ants…
Like, what the fuck…
Anyhow, nature is absolutely mind-blowing and this is fascinating stuff. This book is most definitely worth a read.
Thank you for your eyes and your ears.
x
Dan