The Light, The Dark, and Magic...
My new EP is now LIVE on all streaming platforms. In today's blog I am sharing all 7 tracks with you here on my substack! I am including a little note with each song, it reads like a behind the music.
Behind the cover:
The album cover exceeded all of my expectations, hopes, and desires! It was designed by my friend Eri here in Colombia. I gave her a concept, a note on each of the elements I wanted to add into the design, and she ran with this idea and truly delivered my favorite cover art to date. I am really proud to have this design to express the feeling behind the title and the songs within it.
She asked me for a quote to weave into the design and I gave her two.
The first is “in your darkest night, when all feels lost, the seed of a great miracle shall be planted.” A bit of a nod to my first EP that came out in 2019 titled; “the darkest night.” I remember being in the thick of my darkest night when I wrote those words about the seed of a miracle being planted, and since that time- I feel i’ve been been harvesting the fruits from that seed these last couple years.
The second quote comes from a 6 year old girl who was living with her mother here at the farm in early 2021, it say- “the magic happens when you look away.” I’ll never forget the moment those words came out of the little girls mouth, it shocked me.. something about it really struck a chord with me and resonated as truth. Faith is the knowingness that the magic happens when we look away.
The working title of this project is a name I have used in the past for a collection of poems I was writing on my 1970’s vintage tbm de luxe yellow typewriter. Cerca 2013.
I fell in love with writing all over again when I was gifted this yellow beauty from a dear friend I had met in my yoga era. Somewhere stashed in a cardboard box above my parents garage is about 300 poems I had written on this thing during some truly transformative seasons in my early twenties.
I think that this particular collection of songs captures the season of my life from my late twenties and entering my thirties. I had traveled around the world a couple times, known both love and heartbreak, succumb to a spiraling depression, and built myself back new while taking space from the public eye. I was lucky to find myself surrounded by some great teachers and friends, and had the fortunate opportunity to dive deep into the mystic realms of ancestral plant medicines like ayahuasca which all helped me to transition from the wild and free boy from dayton, ohio with gleam in his eyes, into a seasoned man returning from his dark cave with a clearer and more grounded sense of purpose and direction.
The Light, The Dark, and Magic… EP are the final songs I will release from my life before I became a husband and a father.
Track 1: Present and Ready
Produced, mixed and mastered by Karl Roth. Featuring Parker Brown on the classical guitar and upright bass, and Ben Teters on the percussion.
Present and ready came to me during a special week at the farm in the beginning of 2021. I had just made it back to Colombia after a rough three months in the states, things were uncertain for me. The pandemic was coming to a sort of end and I had lost so much of the work that had enabled my identity prior to that- hosting international retreats and touring with satsang. When I made the decision to double down on my life in Colombia, I returned to the farm and I wrote 10 songs in the first week. Present and ready was one of them, it was a mantra to solidify within me the notion of know who I am, and where I’d like to go. Two months later, the woman who would later become my wife, showed up as a guest at the farm. interesting!
Track 2: Chase the Flame
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Karl Roth. Featuring my cousin Jack Bogard on the fiddle, and Parker Brown on upright bass.
I wrote the story of chase the flame some 5 weeks ago when I first shared this song with you. You can find the story behind the song in my substack under my second publication.
I wrote this song in early 2022. It was a day at the farm in-between ayahuasca ceremonies and I knew that there were songs asking to be written. I drew upon the memories of the fire from the community in San Gil and the story fell out of me with the melody and chords straight through in about 30 minutes. I think songwriters live for those moments, when a song feels as if its writing itself and you just need to be there to catch it.
The theme of my intention from those times was “the only thing that matters is what i’m doing when no one else is watching.” I was tired of sharing, tired of explaining myself, and through with doing anything for the sake of being seen or thought of in a particular fashion. And so the chorus rang true; “It’s what you do, not what you say.”
Track 3: Lovers From Another Life
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Karl Roth. Featuring Vanesso Forero on Piano.
Written in my room in Dayton, Ohio when I was living with my brother after coming home from Colombia after being in quarantine at the farm for 6 months. I remember sending it to my buddy Drew after writing it and saying, “here’s my taylor swift pop song hitter.”
Though I don’t really think I can hang any where near T-swift, I’ve always loved this song. I was capturing the energy of being single and dating and the magic of meeting someone who feels like you’ve always been connected with. The dangerous idea that we can have brief but potent encounters and get away clean at the end of it was always proven false in my experiences. Just once and just for fun… but someone is gonna end up getting hurt. Be kind out there!
I asked my good friend Vanessa to play keys for this track, and she over delivered by a mile. Vanessa is one of my favorite songwriters and happens to be a neighbor of mine here in the mountains, though it takes an hour on the moto to visit her. Please check out her music on all platforms, shes releasing regularly and its my dream to work with her to produce one of my next EP’s in her jungle nest studio. Look up Vanessa Forero.
Track 4: Done
Produced by Karl Roth.
I’ve written and released breakup songs in the past, but you’d never notice. They usually sound like love songs in my case.. go figure. I think there is some healing in saying things just how they are for you from time to time even if it lacks redemption. I wanted raw, real, damien rice energy.
I wrote this song while on tour with satsang in northern california surrounded by the redwoods. I find relief in juxtaposing energies and environments. It just needed to come out.
This one is for any of you who needed or need now a solid fuck you style breakup song with a little mystery sweetness code at the end. Or maybe it was just for me.
Track 5: Go Slow
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Karl Roth. Miguel Cruz on the drums.
We’ve made it through the light, and the dark of the album at this point, beginning to enter the magic…
Swinging on a hammock outside of my cabana, my favorite place to write songs- this little ditty popped out.
In my fifth publication on substack- you’ll be able to find a little paragraph of all the things i’ve loaded onto my plate over the years. The TLDR is: I may be a neurotic achiever and have ocd around productivity. Where I used to be excellent at the art of chill, in my thirties i’ve seem to have lost it.
Go Slow is another mantra to bring me out of the heat of doing and remember the long road I am on is best enjoyed when given the grace to go slow.
Track 6: Pieces
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Karl Roth. Miguel Cruz on drums.
I’ve met some people who say that they have no regrets, that they’re grateful for everything that’s happened because its gotten them where they are. I’m in a different camp. I do have regrets. I have said things I wish I hadn’t. I do wish I could rewind certain moments and choose something other than what I had chosen. And I think I can be grateful for what I learned so that I can avoid similar mistakes. And I think I can be grateful for the way things work out in the end, for being who I am and where I am now.
In a certain light, I could chart my life as the moments in-between soul crushing breakdowns, where the pieces of me are scattered across the dirt and remain there until I muster the strength or receive the divine providence that it’s time to pick up the pieces and start again.
I hope this song can be a reminder that you can always pick up your pieces and start again.
Track 7: Wonder
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Karl Roth. My cousin Jack Bogard on the fiddle. Parker Brown doing nice stuff again.
I am the seeker of the secrets, hidden treasures and unspoken magic. Not to gain wisdom or power, but to be captured by the wonder. I live for the moments to be humbled by nature, spirit, and other people. I am chasing the essence that made me, that make us, that takes us home in the end. Tune me to the frequency of discovery and the ineffable. Mold me to the form of a vessel to hold sacred waters and its wisdom. Take me places I never knew I had never been.
What else is possible?
How does it get any better than this?
How did I get so lucky?
Who am I supposed to meet?
Thank you for listening, and thank you for sharing.
If you enjoyed this behind the music, please like and follow and stream on all the platforms, and maybe share this post with a friend.
xogb
What’s Next?
Well… I never imagined it would be two years from the time I started this project, until this day where it’s been delivered to you on all streaming platforms. I think in time I’ll learn more about this deep process and discover the hidden blessings and lessons within it.
The truth is, I have never felt so completely different as a person than I do right now from the time these songs were written and today.
Since I wrote these songs, I’ve written more than 80 new ones. Ive gotten married and become a father. Life hits different these days.
I write a new song every single week and my original intention with starting this blog was to begin to share these unreleased voice memos that I capture usually just before midnight on tuesdays.
Now that the EP is out, im thrilled to move forward into what feels like very uncharted territory in my walk with you as a songwriter sharing his creative process and art.
Starting next week- you will get a new, unreleased song from me that i’ve recorded on my phone, from wherever I am in the world, each and every week, and a blog post to go with it.
thanks for taking this ride with me.
-g