how long does it take to fill a swamp

a cheeky, sonic swamp ecosystem from my upcoming album, New Creature

I’ve been working on an experimental album for almost 3 years now and I’m relieved to say that it’s finally coming to a close in July (maybe June but I’m having surgery at the end of May and in a season of resisting urgency so we’ll see).

“how long does it take to fill a swamp” is one of my favorites on the album. It’s weird, it’s a little spooky, it’s silly, and it was made in one take, fully improvised, in a humid garage in North Carolina with my friend Bella. It might be a metaphor, or it might just be about moisture, snakes, and worms.

Making art with field recordings means that all of the sounds have an audible sense of place. They exist in various worlds, combined across time and space and that’s an important component of the magic and feeling of the work. The album is called “New Creature” and covers a very wide range of time and places in my life dating back to 2017. The recordings come from the Northeast, the Midwest, and the South - all very different environments in many ways. I always wonder if body sensations like air quality, smell, humidity, and temperature can be felt through sound. I experience them through the sonic memory of my own field recordings, but I’m curious if it translates for anyone else listening- if sounds can trigger these types of environmental sensations that are hard to describe, but present nonetheless.

“and if you’re lucky, you might see a gator too”

Since 2017, I have become a new creature in so many ways. The process of regeneration, shedding, emerging, never ends. This work is an autobiography of the last 8 years, a milestone in my practice, and a self-generated portal for closure. It’s difficult to describe the project in terms of genre, but in that way and many others, it’s exceptionally trans / queer.

Deciding when to stop is one of the biggest lessons and challenges for me with any long term project, especially solo endeavors. When I have this much control over how much tweaking and “perfecting” I can do, the process may drag on for ages, to the point of losing the essence of the work that initially compelled me to create it. I lose perspective.

Through this album, my sound design and production skills have grown tremendously and it’s taking a lot of self-control to resist excessive self-critique and allow that growth to be visible through this collection. This year I’m consciously working to integrate more anti-perfection energy into everything I do, without sacrificing quality or intention. These are fine lines and feel important to traverse in the creation process as well as for general self-development, systemic unlearning, collective healing, etc. etc. etc. We exist in a messy, swampy ecosystem of reality and perfection is a myth. As always, my responsibility as an artist is to let go and remember the work is ecosystemic, inherently fertile, and always much bigger than me.

Thanks for listening and reading, y’all <3