julia jacklin - comfort
the rest of this album is more intense than this closer, but it's one of the better acidic-sweet songwriter albums I've heard in a while. sparse, painful, thoughtful. there's a song where she howls at the end that reminds me of how good it feels to howl melodically, and also how rarely I get to do that anymore.
the last, best show I did as a solo musician was over a decade ago now; I played songs of mine on guitar and piano in the basement room at blackbird coffee, to maybe 50 people, howling and crooning my way through years of creative effort, capable and confident that whatever I was doing, I could do it well. several people told me it was one of the strangest and most beautiful concerts they'd ever been to. I stopped performing live shortly thereafter, because of a hundred reasons, mostly because the tension of maintaining the practice of all these songs without feeling there was any payoff in sight became too much to live with. some dreams die so that the body may live.
I haven't had a space of my own to feel comfortably alone in, in almost a year. I haven't had room to sing at the top of my lungs for most of this year. I'm very grateful to the people who have housed me and put up with me for this very strange interval, and if I can keep up with my work, there's every likelihood I can have a place of my own by January. it's expensive, simply occupying space. I don't want much. just to howl at the room.