between a thought and a word

you stare at me, right in the face. Every time I open the machine, it hurts cause I'm not ready to talk.
Exactly when someone asks you something out of nowhere and your mind races to blabber anything coherent.
I’ve been located in this space. Somewhere in between a thought and a word. Unable to form, silent.

It’s heavy and I can’t breathe. Heavy in the chest but not nothing. Somewhere in between nothing and everything it could be.
If it’s spoken, it’s too late to be anything else.
I feel locked in between the past and everything I could be without any paths ahead. They’re all mine to create.
How grand!
How humongous this task is!
But no path ever leads to everything at the same time. I have to make a choice and the choice is always painful to make when you want it all. All the different, perfectly inexistent versions of who I could be. Is this procrastinating?

The future has been a blur for the last few years. I was focused on the heart. On making sure it was happy and proud. Not like ‘matters of the heart” (this area has been sidelined), I mean “MATTERS OF THE HEART”. Making sure everything I do felt true and aligned with whatever it wanted. Family, art, nature and all. My heart is very peaceful and unbothered. Not sure if it’s a win all the time but at least it’s a home.

I feel the same with the art I’m making. Trying my best to make it true, aligned and unbothered. This task asks of me to be very bothered. Sit on floors for hours, tying wood sticks with ropes for props, grinding cardboards for papier maché, redo the song over and over until it sounds just right, surgically mix the song with Martin so it matches the vision, have a vision in the first place, sell the vision so I might find some help, kneel to the vision and keep it evolving so I'm not bored. Somehow, when all this makes sense, based on some elusive idea of what sense is, I'm the king for a minute.

Everything for this minute.

Everything for this minute

Tomorrow (or today, depending on when this letter goes out to you), I am playing a 15-minute set in front of a jury in Nice. This will have a very big impact on what my next year (26/27) will look like if they pick my project. I chose to play 4 songs, some you know, some you don’t, amongst them Dither and 22:59.

France is quite big on these programs for independent artists. I’m not sure how I feel about them. I have some big feelings around them because they helped me meet people and get out of my forest, to be able to play live shows more and share my music with more and more people. They helped me develop my project and my confidence so I am very very grateful they exist. I am also able to go on these programs because I don’t have a job or studies and chose at this moment in my life to live on very little income to have more availability as I am privileged enough to have a rent free roof over my head. Still, my fingers are crossed. I'm no fan of this competition thing, but I really hope to be chosen.

Despite that, some cool things will happen from September, oh I know it! I’m working on it as we speak. New music is on the way, a showcase at the MaMA festival in Paris (more infos soon) and maybe some shows out of France? I’m manifesting 🌀

In the meantime, I am not sure if I already shared the Altars live video with you

This summer, I am on the road and on the floor a lot and at the beach at night. I do feel like a spirit moving in between timelines - the destination being unknown and uncertain.
Maybe it’s weird to say but I really want to progress and get better and deeper into things and the craft. I guess cause I get to choose or be a part of deciding the destination. I find that obsessing over this helps me channel my fears of the outside world into something that brings me peace.
It feels better obsessing over stage design than fires out there eating the forests alive. Not completely shutting myself out from it but using it as a way to incorporate these fears into the process and visuals. I’ve always found decay beautiful somehow and it feels close to our doors right now. Not that there is no hope, I don’t want this letter to be a bummer but you know, you feel it too I'm sure. Decay makes room for something else too. The decay of something that doesn't work makes room for something better. There is hope here. It's boiling. Don't you feel it?

I’ll write soon with news.
In the meantime here are some recommendations:

this song