Welcome to love over fear — my weekly newsletter about life and living, and choosing love. You can subscribe for free or as a paid supporter for updates in your inbox every Thursday if you like. Each week’s newsletter comes with a playlist, and now a tarot/oracle deck card pull! I’m excited to keep building this out as time allows. Thanks for being here.
Earlier this year, I released my debut album, “Sublimation”, on Saddle Creek. It’s the first real and complete body of work I’ve ever made, and it got pressed to vinyl! That’s so silly to me still. Someone once told me, “The percentage of people who get their music pressed to vinyl is pretty small.” And what a surreal feeling it is to be among them! In any case, I signed a record deal, hence my job is to make records. After a strong debut comes a sophomore offering, and man am I excited to make this offering.
We’re finalizing the tracklist for the Second Record. I remember being at this point for Sublimation, probably around November 2021. I had been listening to the songs and producer man Ryan and I were sending files back and forth. We were stoked. I could barely believe it! We made a whole record and we had never been in the same room together. We only met in person that December.
In any case, getting to a point where the songs make sense with each other in the order that they are in is definitely a highlight for me. It’s an important thing to me, the track sequence of an album. It took months for me to settle on “Narcissist” as an opening track. But the more time I spent with the songs in the order they were in, the more the story came together. It’s kind of like I listened to these songs I’d made a million times, and then it was revealed to me that the record was about growing up. About making mistakes and moving the fuck on. About wanting to be seen but only if you can disappear just as fast. I think that now, the story is super clear throughout the album. When I talked to Matt Mitchell from Paste Magazine about it in January, they described “Sublimation” as “this grand exercise of not giving in to fear.” It’s a better summary than I could have given. It’s real as fuck.
This brings me to the present day, where I am trying to figure out what the story of the Second Record is. Thinking through titles, art, and inspirations takes up the front half of my mind for most of my days. It’s different this time. My ex-best friend essentially named “Sublimation”, and it’s a bittersweet (but really quite bitter) reminder of how people can be in your life and mean the world to you one day and cut you out like a wound the next. This time, I’m listening and listening to these songs — which I love so much — and trying to find out what past me was trying to say to me.
The songs on this record were all written at different times. Several were written while Ryan and I were able to be in the same room in February 2022, which is also when we made “DTAP” and “Bad To The Bone”. Some have crawled off my bedroom floor into a Dropbox folder and are waiting for Ryan to do some ~production magic~. One was made in June 2022, when I was what I call “peak Shalom” due to my three weeks off when I was between jobs. I made the song in my Airbnb in LA after waking up at 5 a.m. because of jetlag, and I feel strong single vibes from it. Just saying. The latest of these songs I wrote in December 2022 — which was a sharp U-turn from peak Shalom to poor Shalom as I dealt with crisis after crisis — about a date that went really well. I was coming off a string of awful dates, including one with a man who said, “Oh you’re verified on Instagram? Why don’t you get one of your little followers to take you out for a drink?” To which I replied, “You asked me to come here?” I’m all for better dates, especially when you get a big bop out of it. All this to say, these songs have been with me through some really intense stages of life. I’m listening deeply to try to understand what the common thread is between them, what needs to change, and what songs should be considered instead. There are So Many Songs.
I wonder to what extent my feelings around naming the Second Record resemble those of parents naming a child. It’s probably close, at least. My mom is really good with names — case in point, Shalom. She believes that names are powerful, a kind of prophecy over a person’s life. When I was going through the most at the beginning of the year, my mom told me to relax. She said, “You will live your name. You will know peace.” Maybe she’s why naming this record is such a big deal to me. I want this next album to live its name. It’s important to me that whatever the Second Record ends up being called reflects what’s going on inside it. I’ve got a couple of beta listeners primed to give me feedback as I test out different sequences (thank you dearly), so I hope their input combined with my dedicated listening reveals something to me. Past Shalom, what were you trying to say?
This week’s playlist is comprised of, as you can see, songs that have been inspiring my latest and most favorite sequence thus far. The big things are the little things. Why is that lyric so cutting? What’s that synth doing over there? Hear how those vocals are stacked? Is this song more devastating because it’s short? The answers to these questions inform many choices made on the album. Obviously, there’s room to go deeper into my inspirations, but I will still have a whole album cycle for the Second Record. Consider the brevity to be me trying to save some of the answers for when I have questions being thrown at me. I’m interested to know what y’all think it’ll be like from this playlist alone. You probably won’t be right, but I’m still interested to know.
This week’s oracle reading is brought to you by my dear friend Jaci, who lent me her Moonology oracle deck while I was at her house for an interview because the power is out at my house. Love you, South Africa.
Is anyone else a little hmmm over the fact that I pulled 3 new moon cards in a row the week of the blue supermoon? A romantic fresh start, a confident successful start, a brand new start. There’s lots in my life that this speaks to, evidently. In any case, the next Libra new moon is October 14th. There’s also a solar eclipse that day. My friend Holly turns 25 on that day! I pulled The Moon in last night’s tarot reading, so my guess is that there’s a whole bunch of moon magic ahead of us for the next couple months. The moon is all about intuition and illusions, and knowing the difference. I’m trying to spend more time with what’s running about in my brain. I’m trying to tell the difference.
Another week gone and another week closer to being back in the US. Another week closer to turning Facetime conversations with my love into across-the-room conversations. I’m moving to the DMV area (where I was born), and I’m building a new band! Isn’t life crazy? I’m still searching for a drummer & guitarist with availability to practice in North Virginia and tour (in due time). If you know a drummer/guitarist in the area who would be interested, please send them my way. My new guitar player recorded some for an LP2 song, and I can’t wait for you to hear it. Changes! Life! Onward!
Thanks for being here.
with love,
shalom xo