Part IV – The Echo: 2011-2012 (Commentary)

This is going to be the last section of this record. So, these are the earliest songs that I have recorded or put out in the world in any way, and they're from my 2012 debut called The Echo. The Echo came out in May of 2012 right as I was graduating from high school. So, I was a fresh eighteen. Um, but all of the songs were written, recorded, and produced from sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and my band was me on banjo and vocals and auxiliary percussion and unfortunately some mini instruments and Courtney Chang on violin, Katherine Haroldson on cello, bеcause those werе my friends and those were the instruments they played

I had this little makeshift studio at the school in a teacher's office that the school had let me set up and I would go everyday after school. You know, it was the last time I can remember having a really consistent creative process. I showed up everyday and I worked on this record and I had such a sense of purpose and working on this record was really an essential part of me forming my identity at that time. I was the music kid

You know, I started playing banjo because of gender largely. There were so many boys that played guitar, and I– the most important thing was getting to play music and I realized really quickly that if I learned how to sing harmony and play banjo that I would always get to play and I think later I came to resent that a little bit because I felt relegated to be the like quote unquote "banjo girl."

You know, I was always sort of in a support role which is funny sort of. Now I'm full circle. I know my own power as a solo artist, but I also, like, love singing harmony more than anything in the whole world. So, I think I've come to really appreciate and embrace all the sides of it but I came to music production then also in the same way

You know, I had all these grand ideas about how I wanted these songs to sound, but I was told so many times that my music was too girly. I couldn't get people to play my music, and so I just learned how to program and suddenly all these ideas I was hearing in my head I was able to hear back to me and it completely blew my world open

It's crazy for me listening back to these songs because I think my whole life I have been trying to get back to the level of focus and confidence that I had when I was this age. There's something really special about not knowing anything and thinking you can do everything that I was particularly empowered by

Um, I mean, this record came out, to me, completely was my first record. In the artwork, in concept for the record, in how I felt as a person, and, you know, there are– there are pieces of this record that I hear and make my skin crawl a little bit like anyone would hearing hearing a version of themselves that's ten years younger. Like, I can hear where I didn't mic something very well or where there's just too much reverb. My taste has changed, but it would be such a disservice to the eighteen-year-old version of myself to allow myself as a twenty-six-year-old to say that these aren't valid. I so truly believe this to be my full record and to be a complete artistic statement at the time that it is so important to get to honor the work in this way