I figured I could say some things about this album that haven’t been said, that have nothing to do with the music–an excuse to finally write something down that means something beyond “I’m excited” or “this rules” or any other catchphrase I’ve had for the last way too many months.
It’s exhausting out there. Maybe this sounds like a cynical way of looking at things. It’s not supposed to be. There’s always a lot going on and not enough time to absorb it. With technology looking the way it is, there’s even more to take within eyesight, earshot, or emotionally. We have to find a discipline to measure our energies and how we use them. And I say that with a hint of sarcasm, but the new age disciple in me wants to believe in a lot of things all at once. I think we have the capability to be multiple people for multiple lives we live in this one chance we get. We get sub-chances, changes, second and third rolls of the dice. That’s not to say we were not given all we needed or we were given too much. Maybe a lot of what I am feeling has to do with who I am and what kind of person I am trying to be, reconciling my ego along the way.
“A New Path to Touch the Earth” is not a reference to a book by a similar name. The whole thing deals in a way with post-Buddhist thinking, the idea that if you find the Buddha on your path, you’re supposed to kill him. I thought about this imagery a lot in the last ten years in my explorations of Christianity, Buddhism, and Atheism. It’s a barbaric, old way of thinking. Why should enlightenment, peace, anything involve an enemy? I wish, with the state of the world, we could take a second to recognize our enemies as our enemies and let them go, but the fault in our thinking deals so much with survival and so little with living.
I never thought the two were intertwined (survival and living), truly, until the pandemic. You take jobs to make ends meet, or pretend they meet, and you do what you need to for the people around you so they too can keep going. You avoid things to help or harm strangers. Toilet paper. Etc. I think we have all had enough folks digitally reflecting on the pandemic. It sucked. We all wrote our sermons.
What it taught me, if it taught me anything, was about the parts of my mental health I took for granted. All the power I had inside to sustain impossible feelings. Feelings of extended time, time moving quickly and slowly, days not making sense into nights. Okay, now I am writing another sermon.
“A New Path…” was written about Buddhism, but also about learning along “the way.” This part isn’t about the music because none of it describes the sound, just the thoughts. I needed to break away from idolization because I became a position of authority I so long waited for but truly did not want when it came to pass. In those moments, I realized my ultimate lack of patience, preparation, my proclivity for excuse-making. It’s things you don’t hear until they are all you hear, the echo chamber of isolation. How people hold you accountable, young and old, for all of your actions all at once because we all go through the same things sometimes. It’s a human experience.
Maybe we don’t want to talk about pandemics we lived through because we just felt them. “Just” as in “recently.” Trauma is a fresh wound, even when it is not. It shapes us. My faith, my sometimes lack of faith, my spirituality, my whole dedication to human failure through scientific breakthroughs and invention–it’s all the same, isn’t it? It’s all the same day, repeated over and over with new ways of looking at it.
What comes out is a love. I say, “A love,” because we know what John Coltrane meant when he said, “A Love Supreme” — there were so many kinds of love to be felt. One above all to Coltrane. And this pursuit of this love is what many of us would have ourselves distracted from our entire lives trying to pursue the little loves along the way. It is the discipline of saying, “I am this,” not, “I am doing this.”
ANSWERS–Chris, Beatriz, Thad, Cailtin–who still choose to take that step to play this music took that step with me. Because this road, like all roads, is not paved by a single person. Have you tried making a path in grass by yourself day after day? It takes much longer than with the folks you choose to walk with joining you.
So “A New Path” is only the first step. It had to have a big-ass, annoyingly conscious name. It had to send the message that the journey is only beginning. The third movement, “To Make it Seem Like I am Brimming with Unforeseen Expectation” is my dedication to the world. Because f*ck if we aren’t all trying our best to seem as optimistic as possible when we are completely drained. Sometimes, though, we do this to ourselves in a way—unlocking new potentials for expression.
Now, the album has been sonically described as having micro-movements, vignettes. I didn’t think about this until after the fact. If anyone deserves a huge thanks, it’s my wife and kids and family and friends for all being the inspiration for these sounds—all the things I love coming together. One filmmaker in particular inspires the way I put things together: Richard Linklater. His films Slacker and Waking Life in particular made me believe in the process of the smaller parts creating the whole. This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it sure as f*ck is mine. I love movies, television: any visual art. This was about making an album that reflects how great our band is and all of the crazy cool sh!t we do together.
Sorry, the most banal way to describe it sometimes is best.
Going back to the last movement, “Brimming” comes from the idea in a book called “You Are Not Your Brain.” It’s a self-help book, yes, but it is also an extremely wise book about the nature of the plasticity of our brains. We are not the same person every single day. We have the capacity to change our nature. Perhaps this is the most technological part of ourselves. Despite who we think we are, we have the ability to program and reprogram, time and time again. It’s in this act of reconstruction that we build new paths. It is a commitment. I want to say “however,” but most of life, the things we choose to see through to their physical manifestations, are mature commitments.
It is easy to write difficult music. You really would think about putting the notes to the page without the performers in mind. What’s the most impossible sound? What can I get out of my head and onto a page? It’s also easy to write well when you think of the people who can perform it and the capacity they have for understanding the things you write the way you understand them. The “music as a language” argument has never been more vital or transparent.
“Brimming” works with the mind, the concept of telling the brain what it is we want and desire instead of the constant barrage of what I call the “non-song:” all the bogus things, evaluations with little concern for the intent of the piece of art. This “You Are Not Your Brain” concept goes further: you are not your phone, your avatar online, your snapchat, your TikTok. It’s all presentations, which is a gorgeous way of expressing ourselves if we are using it to express ourselves and not use it as a crutch “to make it seem like I am brimming...” I hope this is making sense. The point being, it’s easy to consume and want to pursue the other side of consumption without truly engaging. (This is a matter for another essay.)
The physical manifestation of this commitment and discipline, this fun adventure we’ve embarked upon one another is the first step of many. It’s “A New Path” because the performance on the album is only one manifestation of the piece. I thought about rewrites even before our first performances of it, but the commitment sometimes is not that the ideas are not solid, but to trust that the art will ultimately tell you what works and does not, no fault of anyone but the muse itself. Some ideas are not too great—truly, they are unclear. I think I can say in full confidence that every single note of “A New Path to Touch the Earth” means something and relates, functionally, to every single other part of it. I hope we all feel this way when we do something big, but I have written a lot of music just to write music. Seldom is it, but frequent with ANSWERS, that I find myself opening up to the meanings of a piece I have written in isolation.
We can also fool ourselves these days. Self-importance is a strange sword to wield. “If They Follow Their Heroes” has so much to do with how the ones we idolize often overstepped their greatness into… we can ask “what?”. If greatness is achieved and there are so many paths to it, why do some choose a body count? This can get really dark, but in a post-#metoo world, we have to consider the actions of our elder (and often peer) counterparts. I studied with a very wise musician who made some of the most egregious errors in his career that could have been avoided with respect and self-control. We have to ask how we walk these uneasy, paved roads and how we choose to continue these schools of thought.
“Children of the Flowers” is the constant reminder we are children of peace. ANSWERS is a pacifist band, even if we seem confrontational under the wrong circumstances as all humans do. Our whole lives center around servitude, the act of giving and listening, and how we break away from the darkness. This piece in particular shows every single part of the band, from utter joy to melancholy and anger. There is a tinge of sadness thrown in there on top of all of it, definitely from the pandemic. As of the pandemic, four out of the five members of the band are parents, so the “children” part of it plays with both who we are and what we experience. The vignettes in this movement were some of my favorites to write.
Once again, and to close, the sound of “Brimming” is my nod to Ravel, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Okazaki, Ornette Coleman, Philip Glass, and an unrecorded piece for ANSWERS called “One for Andre.” I hope by the end of this album, it gives back to you the way it gives back to this band. We will be performing it a lot more, and who knows how and what it will sound like in the future.
I hope that as you take this time, take it for recovery. Take a minute to breathe deeply. Remember that every healthy cell in your body is fighting for you. The fact you are reading this is a triumph over the killers of free time and attention that have won so many battles against us. If you have any questions about the music or the ensemble, always reach out.
To close this out, I need to thank Chris Belt, Beatriz Ramirez, Thad Anderson, and Cailtin Pequignot for their incredible commission of this piece. We had a very kind article written in the Orlando Weekly and it would be a disservice for me to not mention that they used their stimulus checks to help me write these pieces when I was out of artistic work. If it were not for them investing in this band, “A New Path to Touch the Earth” would be a dream and not a destination. They are all the highest caliber of people and the greatest of friends and colleagues. This will be the first of many ANSWERS albums and this album is dedicated to them.