In March 2020, I disappeared into songmaking for the first time in a while during the initial COVID lockdown. Inspired by Arthur Russell, John Bender, Jaguar Sun, and Blithe Field, I wanted to create an unusual ambient analog lo-fi record that didn't live up to anyone's standards, especially my own.

Using only a Yamaha PSS-170 toy keyboard, some cheap mics, a guitar I barely knew how to use, a small squadron of borrowed guitar pedals, and a copy of Audacity, I banged out the tunes in mostly two weeks - writing everything on the fly and editing takes the same day, often using the laptop speakers alone. Cheap instruments, unplanned ideas, all set in stone immediately.

I'd never made music this way before. It had always been in the box, synthetically made, pristine - written largely by others and rarely with any intention of expressing my feelings. Suddenly, sitting on the living room floor making experimental nonsense on instruments I couldn't play, with gear I'd never seen before, during a worldwide pandemic, was everything. A musical ode to imperfection and the moment, of living in a falling down house with some of my best friends, of things being hella broken and that being alright.

Without meaning to, I was recording that moment in song.

Freshly out of a nasty 7 year relationship, naive and broken, I was leaning into my mess. Throwing away all I thought I knew in search of some new source of salvation, be it love or another country. Sleeping on the couch, drinking too much, procrastinating on work, living sloppy and selfishly. Isolated and self-obsessed without the help of a pandemic. Seeking beauty in candid experiences, description over prescription. Watching weeds grow in my freshly smashed garden.

Flawed, unintentional, hurting, yet hopeful. I needed music that felt that way.

The recording 80% done by April, and 95% by December, with time I went from excited to share this music as my "debut" to shelving these songs. They reminded me of a past I didn't love, a brokenness that no longer represented me, a quality I didn't want to stand behind. I was a mess trying not to look like one. So I hid them like I hid myself.

Two and a half years later, actually publishing this thing - even to no one in particular - became a big step in self-acceptance, after diving as much into self-hatred as I could go and realizing that attitude could only help me grow so much.

If I so evidently bought into this sonic idea that there's beauty in broken naive sounds - fantastic flaws - then I really had to turn around and love the flaws in myself, and symbolize that acceptance by finishing this project. Healing in my life so obviously came not from self-hate and self-justification, but reconciliation and honesty. I'm a lump of dirty clay, being moulded and redeemed by no work of my own - if I can love the man God is moulding me into, then I could learn to not despise the clay he started with. I could love what led to the beginning.

I'm still unlearning that hatred, but meanwhile, here's the sound of some dirty clay. These songs are strange, un-apologetically amatuerish, and never made for anyone but me - but if you listen, thank you. Be well, know you are loved more than you can know (or deserve), and go do what only you can think to do.