The Inside Track : Another Magic - 'Don't Hold Back'

Photo Credit: Thalia La Fleur

We jumped into Lake Washington and screamed so loud on New Year’s Day. The coldest part was standing in the snow on the beach afterwards. You need one towel for your body and another to stand on. Then we went back home and wrote down what we were letting go of this year. We lit the little pieces of paper on fire but it got real smoky real fast so then we just tried a more metaphorical approach. 

I woke up that day and accidentally started the first song on the EP, “Don’t Hold Back.”  Started with bass and drums as always and the melody kind of floated in. Later on I put in the audio from our polar plunge and I loved the texture it added. It was about choosing joy and release without overthinking it.

For the last 2 years, most of my creative work has centered on dance music: I produced tracks with artists in Brazil (Coco da Purpurina with Ana Bispo & Um Maracatu Desse with Lurdez da Luz), mixing percussion, bass and samples together. And then I’ve been producing a monthly “dance party plus”  with DJs, live music, dancers, vendors and more called World Wide Bounce.

I’m excited with this EP to have found some space to just let my own quirky, hectic original songwriting emerge again and to be singing more. It came together so organically. Nada Rosa’s invitation to do an album in a month created a sweet little community of folks posting their progress along the way and it helped me to feel connected as we went back into semi-lockdown in January. I also got to connect with a few friends on this project like Nicolle Swims on “Walking in the Footsteps” and Power Strip who’s a secret background sound collaborator.  

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