NIYA Turns Three

Last night, I went down to North Beach for some tacos after an unusually depressive day. I was experiencing all kinds of uncomfortable emotions, and rather than confront them, I chose to lay around and stare at my phone for hours. Which didn't help. So, I finally got up, and after getting some things done around the house, I ate some tacos. Upon leaving El Farolito, I lit a cigarette and started down Grant St. When I looked up, a young woman was looking right at me and saying something. I didn't recognize her. I took my headphones off and she was saying, "Hey you were at the market the other day with your mom!"

Which is true. My mother and I were having lunch at Le Beau in Nob Hill on Sunday and there was a couple who recognized me as their server a few weeks prior. They were really sweet. Derek and Olivia were their names I believe. And there was a family sitting at the next table down from the couple. I could tell they were tourists. The daughter in the family asked me if I could open her soda after noticing the wine opener I used to open mine. I opened it and said something cynical about the cashiers doing the absolute bare minimum in the market. Mom was telling this patio of strangers about my music and I was covering my face in embarrassment. Because I'm 30 years old. I was so uncomfortable. The couple was asking follow up questions about my music directed at me and I didn't know what to say.

So, the young woman outside of the taco joint recognized me from the deli. She asked for a cigarette just like she asked me to open her soda the other day, with kindness and social maturity. She didn't strike me as shy. She was with her brother and the three of us talked for a while. They're in town from Canada with their parents and they were asking me for restaurant recommendations and the young woman inquired about my music. The conversation felt like a lot of work to me and then I realized they were a few drinks in. They would ask questions and then look away as if eye contact during a conversation was not a universal norm. I think it was the alcohol. They were sweet. She was really pretty. We said goodbye after she saved me on Spotify and I remembered Nightmare In Your Arms was three years old. I thought about the covers EP and how raw it is, so I quickly pinned NIYA to my Spotify profile in hopes that she listened to that first.

I put my headphones back in and began listening to my three year old record. I enjoyed it very much. I don't revisit it often, but when I do, I find myself wondering how I put that record together. Then I remember how at the time, I felt like it was all I had. I've written about NIYA ad nauseam, though I don't think many eye balls have come in contact with those words. It's hard to know. I'll refrain from any real excavation of the past here and just share a few thoughts.

NIYA (as it was labeled on hard drives) is the most cohesive project I've released to date. Both sonically and lyrically, it is deeply focused and I'm still proud of that. Recorded and mixed in 2021 and 2022, it was released on my dad's birthday in '22: November 11. At the time of its release, my dad's death was still a pretty big part of my identity which I feel embarrassed about now. But I still think it's sweet that I dedicated it to him, and it makes sense when I consider how little I had processed his passing up to that point in time.

A few fun facts about the record:

"Phil's Blessings" was a voicemail my mother's ex-colleague sent her to encourage her during a difficult time. She sent it to me for some reason, and I knew right away it would be the album opener. I felt it was thought provoking. His words, I thought, were simultaneously very wise and extremely naive. "Just wake up one day and decide you're not going to be [in a depressive slump]," was his encouragement. He was speaking about how well being is a choice, an idea I am quite sympathetic to now, although at the time, it felt - well, like I said, naive. Zach composed all the music behind Phil's voicemail. My previous record also opened with a voice memo my mother sent me and I just liked that motif. I wanted something like that for my upcoming record, but nothing found me naturally and I didn't want to force it. Instead, the new album opens with a song, just like everybody else's record. Sad.

The acoustic guitars on "In Your Arms", an extension of "I Wanna Dance" written and performed by my best friend Zach, were recorded on Mark Kozelek's Gibson in his living room as he typed away on his laptop. If you listen closely, you can hear his typing.

Abby Gundersen and Kyle Crane were the first (and only) prolific and industry adjacent musicians I had ever had the privilege of working with. Their resume's are extremely impressive and their contributions gave me a huge confidence boost as an artist. They were both very encouraging which surprised me and I was so insecure at the time that I didn't know how to respond to their compliments in good fashion. (Just want to clarify, I have worked with lots of very talented and wonderful people, but Kyle and Abby's credits were truly impressive and that was a new experience for me).

Greg Francis (recording engineer on the project) and I struggled with "I Wanna Dance" for months and I almost 86'd it. We recorded the vocals and guitars several times and even played with an 808 beat. Ultimately, I removed a pre-chorus section of the song and it opened right up. The section was long and very reminiscent of Coldplay's "X & Y". It wasn't working. Kyle Crane took on the challenge of recording to extremely out of pocket guitars. I didn't realize how off-tempo they were until he finally said so, rather exasperated.

Kyle listened to the "Karen St" demo on Bart on our way into the studio. The minute we pushed record, he had already composed the drum part in his head. At least that's my recollection. His drum part opened the song right up and that was probably my fondest memory. He had some relatives or friends stop by after we recorded the drums and we all listened back smiling. Kyle said it was a very good song, which meant the world to me.

I fell off a scooter the night before studio sessions began, riding home from the bar high on cocaine. I smacked the rain soaked pavement and bruised my ribs. I uploaded the demo's we were going to work off of at 5am the morning of. Greg made a comment like, "Wow someone came prepared", which humiliated me, but it woke me up. A few months later, after an intervention with Zach, I got sober.

Immediately after recording the vocals on "Every Time", I walked out of the studio and balled my eyes out. I'm not sure if Greg noticed, but I did my best to hide it and I never mentioned it.

While recording drums for the record, I played "Dandelion" for Kyle and he asked me what it was. "I'm not sure yet," I said. He said something complimentary about it and it became the opener on my upcoming record, Loved and Lost. Kyle struck me as a no bullshit kind of dude, and he's an amazing songwriter in his own right, so I took his compliment and ran with it.

If you made it this far, feel free to stream Nightmare In Your Arms today and share it on socials. Thanks for reading!

NIYA Credits:

Recording engineer: Greg Francis

Mix engineer: Tyler Cuchiara

Strings, vocals, piano: Abby Gundersen

Drums and percussion: Kyle Crane

Piano, additional songwriting, and vocals: Zachary Sun

Songwriting, synth, production for Dissolve: Nico Perez

Background vocals on Dissolve: Ronnie and Gina Milne

Album cover: Zachary Sun