Mt Fog

Blue Summer is the first single from my first album, Guide to the Unusual (out on July 2). I began writing Blue Summer in early 2020 while I was living a fairly lonely existence in a basement apartment in Olympia. The genesis of this track was a super simple, warm synth line I came up with one late evening based on a C major 7th chord. To me, this chord structure evokes feelings of sadness and hopefulness at the same time. Little did I know that this particular mix of feelings would come to be a dominant one for me during the impending pandemic/quarantine/shut-down.

Blue Summer started taking shape in the early fall of 2020, which is when I deeply understood the pandemic wasn’t ending any time soon. This is when I threw myself into writing and producing new music, almost as a survival mechanism to handle the world disintegrating around us. When I contemplated the hopeful/sad mix of that main synth line, I realized this is the feeling of the end of a perfect summer day, a day spent under bright skies, jumping in a lake. As my life became more and more monotone during the shutdown, this feeling of everything important and beautiful happening in one bright moment really captured my imagination. There was also a question lurking: are all those moments behind me now? 

These ideas led me to the lyrics that I wrote slowly and through many iterations, drawing on that dark feeling of going to say goodbye to someone you love and realizing they’re already gone (forever). I also tried to balance out the warm synths with shimmery, summer-y solos and effects. 

Ultimately, this song says, hold on, hold on. I hope that it brings you some happiness.

Cover Image//Photos by Rachel Bennett//Headdress created by String and Shadow