Greetings friends,
Last month I shared with you about finishing my next solo album. Well, today I’m excited to officially announce the album and share with you the first song.
Album Art for Stay Radiant
On July 11, 2025 my 4th solo album entitled Stay Radiant will be self-released. I know it’s a ways off, but I’ll be sharing several new songs along the way.
At bandcamp you can view the track list, view a little info about each song and read the lyrics. You can also pre-order the album and listen to the first couple songs. Bandcamp is a nice way you can support the music efforts of independent artists financially if that’s something you’d like to do.
“Let It Go Free” is a song I’ve been playing for a few years that I wrote about mortality. Several years ago I was really moved by some work I had read by Ocean Vuong and this podcast interview with them from On Being. They write a lot about death and how it informs our existence. It’s part of what makes us alive. This is one of the few songs on the record I wrote while I was still married. When I think about the chorus lyrics and the personal work I was doing at the time to differentiate myself from a relationship that I could feel pulling away, I realize I was kind of singing it to my ex. “If I could make some sense of this for you and me, I would loose my grip on the time we have, let it go free.” We just only have so much time. To be on this earth, to be with our parents, with our animals, with our partners and friends. Sometimes it’s death that separates, sometimes it is just other types of endings. And instead of letting those endings loom in front of us, we can realize the fullness of the reality they create. We are here now.
The album art and single cover are both photographs by Alison Wright, a good friend of mine and a burgeoning portrait photographer. The background is a mural painted by me at Placeholder Studios and Toby Keough styled me. She is a literal wizard with closets full of vintage and custom pieces. She made the star crown I’m wearing.
The album is produced by myself, Max Harnishfeger and Justin Landis. It’s engineered collaboratively by the three of us between my home, Max’s home and Justin’s studio in Sandpoint, Johnny Long Station. Max mixed the album and Derek Almstead mastered it.
Max is the true hero of the project. Him and I worked really closely on the mixing and he tolerated all my whims and wonderings about the direction of certain songs. I’m SO incredibly happy with how it all turned out and how collaborative it felt. I could not have done this without him. If you haven’t yet, definitely check out his solo project, Water Monster.
“Let It Go Free” was performed by me, Caroline Fowler (vocals), Jenny Anne Mannan (fiddle/vocals), Max Harnishfeger (upright bass/keys) and Brandon Vasquez (drums). I hope you like it.
Some coil pots available on my website
I came home this week and decided I wanted to celebrate with a little print sale on my website. Cards and prints and marrow cards are 20% off. And I uploaded most of the remaining ceramics I brought back from my trip. Check it out!
PLAYLIST
This week I returned to Spokane (where I live), after being away for over a month in California. It was a beautiful, hard, amazing, restorative, exciting journey. During my time spent in Los Angeles I met so many musicians. It was so cool to kind of be dropped into the middle of a vibrant community and feel really welcomed and befriended. This month’s playlist has a handful of those folks featured and just some of my favorite new tunes. And my new song!
EVENTS
I have a few live music events coming up!
Very excited to be supporting an amazing group of people and their work in West Central to be good neighbors and create space for loving spiritual practice. This event is raising support for revitalizing the Abbey, one of the oldest chapels in Spokane.
May 12 - Alcohol & Feelings
We are back! Join us for a night of country covers at Maxwell House. 7:30-9:30, no cover, all ages until 9pm.
Excited to be playing this new Folk Festival out at the Zephyr Lodge on Liberty Lake. Tickets are on sale now.
