These Shipwrecked Words

It's in my nature to create false dichotomies, attempt to argue for their existence, and watch my arguments fall apart.

Still, I've been thinking about "These Shipwrecked Words" and the EP we'll be recording in the fall. "These Shipwrecked Words" is sort of all about the distances between people, isn't it? And its thesis -- at least until "At Your Door" -- is that those distances can sometimes be impassable and things can sometimes be impossible to change. Even "At Your Door" only allows for brief moments of connection. Attempts at communication set off from one shore, but end up lost before reaching the other. The way the title ties everything together wasn't planned at all, but it makes me even prouder of this recording and makes me feel like maybe we're saying something, however arguable and mopey.

But our next EP? All the songs that are going on it seem to be about *crossing* distances -- both metaphorical and literal -- and the ways one can and the reasons one should. "The Places You Call Home" is about tentative and awkward people discovering how to appreciate each other in tentative, awkward, and appreciative ways; "The Wide Expanses" about saying f*** it to the fact that there's not going to be a perfect moment; and "Remy" about stepping away from making art for selfish reasons and just experiencing things rather than feeling like you have to create and control them. The fourth song isn't titled and its lyrics aren't finished, but the feeling is already sort of the same: hope infused into melancholy, the beauty of motion and change, the wonder and necessity of getting from here to there.

So enjoy our prophecies of emotional doom while you can; we might surprise you with a bit of hesitant optimism later.

-sb