about the cd

Experimental musician Claire Rousay and visual artist Dani Toral have been in each other’s orbit since their young adulthood in San Antonio, but it took a decade for them to find a softer focus. Before Rousay began working on the album’s music, she knew she wanted to collaborate with Toral, being familiar with her past work centering on her Mexican heritage. Toral’s vibrant color palette and reinterpretations of comfort in oneself and the natural, vegetative world resonated with Rousay’s explorations of communication and intimacy.

Rousay has primarily worked in non-melodic experimental music, sculpting compositions from obsessive field recordings, voice-to-text, percussion played via text message sounds, conversations, and daily life. By contrast, this six-song collection and collaborative project is lush and almost entirely melodic, even veering into pop at times. The songs gently amble from one to the next, creating a syrupy, hypnagogic narrative that uses string sections, field recordings, and vocals to touch upon love, friendship, endurance, and transcendence—sounding like what living inside a brain must feel like, oscillating on how far to let its guest in.