Sonora started as a batch of simple musical sketches in early 2020, but slowly became an outlet for me to process new understandings that were unearthed in a challenging season of transitions.

It was recorded, mixed, mastered, and co-produced by Chris Hobson. We brought skeletons of these songs to a studio with Darla Hawn, Daniel Rhine, and Jon Titterington, and let them come to life in an open-ended and collaborative three-day session.

Chris and I experimented with overdubs over the following 6 months and landed on some beautiful stuff from Collin McCrary (saxophone), Conor "Catfish" Gallaher (pedal steel + slide guitar), and Karen Troeber (harp).

Kenny Laubbacher shot the cover photo in his backyard at Teviot St. The audio clip in Yashica Mat is Mariana Blanco, at her wedding

/// LYRICS \\\

TRUE, TRUE

My dawn is over
But I don’t feel much older now
Even younger, somehow

The lows are lower
Than I ever noticed
And I know too much now
To just lay back down

Can’t find the canopy
Thrown by my fallen leaves
Is it true love?
Do I see this blindly

I’m never sleeping well
Keeping secrets from myself
If it’s true I guess I don’t mind it

Cause there’s a glow now
In the slowdown
Sam, Ramona
It’s good to know ya

And of course I’ve paid for anything
Worth ever knowing
And the days are going
So I run back out

I’ve got some real ones
I got lots of good sun
And I’d be a fool to be the last one to see them

Been here for everything
A couple years of wider rings
When it’s true love
The mirror’s not something to hide from

If it’s true, it’s true
If it’s you, it’s you


THE SUNSET IN BIRD PARK, JUNE 2019

I saw
Your face in mine
Something hiding in the cracks of a smile
And watched
My youth unwind
So much closer, so much here in this room
So much closer, so much here but not you

I knew
Now I understand
There’s nothing harder than a heart in the wrong hands
In the blue
Of my darkest trance
Is it final? Can’t be final…
Now I’ve finally felt the void you lived with

Never knew
A pain like this
God I hope this is as bad as it gets
But of all the questions left
I will always struggle to hold this one:
That you always, always made me feel loved


JUNEBUG

Hold my hand
Thaw me out slow
Hold it down I’ve gotta go
Some place where the light’s lower

Cut my hair I’ve gotta know
What’s there under my ghosts

Don’t how I fell for those spells
They made me feel like somebody else
And it took me too long to say it’s not alright

Go easy, my heart swings so wide
Heavy like a junebug in flight
And it’s been a long couple lives looking for mine

The winter light gets me so sideways
I need time out where my blues are still drawing a line

I should know that I fall for those spells
Chasing down a fable to tell
A stranger to stillness is a stranger to themself
I see it all when my heart swings this wide
Hiding from it makes me feel blind
And it’s been a nice couple lives when I’m reminded

Slow my breath down
Look me in the eyes
Spin me around
Turn off the lights
What was I like as a child?
It turned into stone
So make my body heavy
I need a moment to float


HOLY WAR

Haunted, I’m haunted
Always spinnin’
On some fiction
The march gets so daunting
Let me out, let me out

If you go out looking for
Some kind of holy war
You’re always gonna find one
If you go out looking for
Some kind of proof that you’re not wrong
You’re always gonna find some

Haunted, I’m haunted
Spun around
By the smallest sound
The march gets so lonely
Let me out, let me out

And find what I learned to fight in me
The light that’s already bright in me

I can’t go on looking for
Another holy war
I’m tired of the islands
Let me sing a simple song
I’m moving on from right and wrong
It petrifies connection


A LITTLE TOO LONG

It’s happening right now
I am completely taken
A sunset upside down
Climbing the eastern faces

I’ve got my windows down
I’ve got a glass of something
The clouds are clearing out
I thought my world was ending

It’s been a little too long since I left my body
A little too long since I left my body
A little too long since I loved my body

There’s nothing more to find
There are no starts or endings
I’ve been born so many times
The first was always plenty

I was afraid to know
I am a million fragments
But the breakers felt like home
Once I curled up into them

It’s been a little too long since I left my body
A little too long since I left my body
It’s been a little too long since I loved my body

So it’s time to call my spirit my home

YASHICA MAT

I’m still waking from a dream right now
Could you write that down for me
Listening upside down to all the same sounds
And hearing things I can’t believe

I go up in the air
Try to take it all in
I keep making this harder than it actually is
Could you break my stare
I’m seeing in black and white
Can’t seem to find the middle so a little sounds nice

I wander over towards another fire
Leaving all my friends behind
Seems I need to stare wide-eyed into some other life
While I’ve got all this light in mine

Cherry blossom
Morning sea
It doesn’t take very much to get back through to me
I get all turned around
Yashica Mat
But it takes just a bit of it to pull me right back

I’m still learning how to find the ground
Hey could you sound that out for me
And anytime
I start to float up, hold my feet

Cause I go up in the air
Like a cloud in the wind
Trying to make this darker than it actually it is
Slow my shutter down
Pour me over some ice
Been caught up in the middle so a little sounds nice


A DESERT

I summoned everything I’ve ever felt in a quiet dance
Floating in slow motion like some feathers
And settling softly in the sand
I gathered up all the painful ones
Then I just fanned out my hands

I was no one
I was all of it
I was right where I’ve been

I walked until I was a desert
John Luther Adams in my ear
And the stories disappeared

I followed the bells
I laid in the waves
I saw myself in my father's face
I felt all the love that you cannot break
I had been pulling away

It was endless, slow
It was all at once
And I felt at home
Pressing my face to ground

I am someone
Who loves all of it
I am right where I am


CMERE

Cmere
Slide over
Lean in and keep your eyes closed
They don’t need us yet
Let’s spend the morning like we never have met

It’s here
We know it
We found it by the ocean
I trace
Your shape
And we find the swell that’s always inches away

I think we’re just now finding the depths between where our eyes met
I always thought I loved you but I didn’t know what it was yet
I always needed to need somebody like you

You run
I dry up
When we let the tides decide us
We drift
So far out
But there’s nobody holding us to that now

I am just now seeing the space you’ve been holding for me, love
Cmere and crumble in til I smell your skin like it’s my own
Of course I need you but I want you, I want you


BROKEN 4U

I never wanted more
I just wanted out from under the storms
I learned to carry around

It’s a lonely road
Knowing your growth makes so much disappointment
But stretching for acceptance wore me down
So I saw myself out

Take it from me
The heart can’t deny what it needs
In the long run
No matter how
The water flows down from the mountain

From a very young age
I was told I needed saving
Forgive me, I still carry around a little bit of shame

Broken for you
That just broke me in two
I gave myself into the rules
And I just got weighed down, weighed down, weighed down

Was that forty years?
Out in the garden walking in circles
Searching the ground for a sign while they all passed me by
I think I’m here now
I think I’m here now

And you can’t take it from me
It’s not asking too much to be free
To feel what I feel and to think
That the shape of the stone
Isn’t all there is to know of the ocean

I’m coming home
I only know what I know but I know
That I’ve stared down
Into the deep
Of what love can be
And it goes way down, way down, way down