So much change and adjustment occurred over the 2 years in regular life, that I was finding it really tough to put into words the sudden removal of myself from my music career. By all accounts, leaving Canada looked like I had chosen exile and isolation from my beloved music community. Sure, there was still consistent communication between those I was still working with back in Canada, but we were no longer in the studio, working on projects together. I was providing my work via remote sessions, which were (unfortunately) plagued with wifi dropouts during takes, platform compatibility issues, and file transfers. My in-studio days now required a $$$$ plane ticket and a hotel. Gosh, my overseas projects were just not the same.

I found myself tinkering with little bits and bobs of ideas instead of the luscious flow consciousness sort of writing we were doing before. And by the way, where the hell were the musicians in this new city I was in? Clearly, I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag in this city, much less discover the new groove out here. Yikes, I mean, what the hell?!

Out of frustration, I discovered Splice, the now popular cloud-based music creation platform. This was, of course, not the direction I went with this album, but the idea of doing a sample or straight loops type of album was suddenly legal and possible!

I wrestled with putting all this into words. Where the hell was my muse, in the midst of this? Oh, there was also a bit of a social media explosion in progress too. Facebook as an opportunity to leverage was not working for me. Sure, connecting with my friends was a no-brainer, but monetizing them? I never wanted to do that. It’s a different world now, with the attention economy, displaying your “authenticity” and all that, but then, social media still felt weird. Why am I willingly putting a camera to my own face and talking about XYZ, when I’m an introvert?

This was the energy going into this project.