Today I felt the first cool breath of autumn on a breeze over my bare shoulders. It sent my heart a flutter and I knew it then for certain; I love you, Summer, but it’s your dark and moody sister, Autumn, that truly has my heart.
Category Archives: musings
And now, a midnight wish…
…for a dream of swans.
Sweetest slumber, dreamers.
The brightness, the shadows…
When I set out to record the songs that make up the Pieces EP, I hadn’t considered the emotional terrain I would be required to traverse following it’s release. The EP was released this past Tuesday, to what has been an unbelievably warm and enthusiastic response and somehow in the wake of it I find myself afloat and disoriented, as if I am dangling from a great height precariously, on the eve of the release party.
Such bright lights cast such stark and stunning shadows. The movement from the places of logical and strategic decision making required to plan recordings, releases etc. to the counter points of vulnerability and fragility required to remain open and present for the performing and presentation of said recordings has caused me to contemplate the origins of the songs and my feelings surrounding the notion of being strong where matters of the heart are concerned.
I keep tracing my thoughts and questioning in a loop that leads me, inevitably, to planting my feet firmly in the belief that vulnerability is a strength that holds great potential and power. This thought moves me to open the floodgates further and push on.
In a lot of ways the release of this EP finds me recalibrating my knowledge of self. Remembering my comfort in this world….embracing the threads of familiarity. I took a long break from the level of whirlwind sharing and immense intimacy that performing and sharing invite into one’s life. At times even the kindest response can feel so overwhelming, and make the assured decision to be open and present and appreciative, leave me feeling like a deer in headlights. All of this is also forcing me remember how to ask for help. How to assemble a team out of my community and not feel like I am burdening the people I cherish.
In retrospect I feel a bit naive that I didn’t imagine the possible emotional upheaval that comes with digging up your history in song……opening the attic windows and shining the spotlight on to the dust and shadows is proving to be an illuminating experience, like holding a million little mirrors up to my heart so that I can reflect upon it’s current trajectory.
After a walk and some tears tempered by the cold and pollen laced air here in Vancouver it’s clear that I am elated to spend the next little while dancing in the dust shower below the lights glow.
See you tomorrow, fellow dreamers! Thank you for continuing to make room for me and my little songs in your hearts. I feel so blessed to feel so overwhelmed. Tomorrow night is ours!
xo
jess hill
Pieces EP
Nostalgia can be a beautiful thing. The warmth generated in one’s heart by memories of bygone and idealized times feels like nothing else in the spectrum of emotion.
As a songwriter I sometimes feel my work is about building little altars for moments. Every note, every silence, every beat, is an item placed just so, to pay homage to a memory, a dream, a feeling or an idea.
Time passes and then – assuming the works are good enough – the moment is archived and that wistful feeling swells in my heart. So many of these poetic, structures of reverence get lost for a time.
They sit, unknown in the muse’s attic collecting dust and humming quietly to themselves until life decides either by fate or circumstance to make them relevant again.
I always have a desire for songs that bare a kinship to one another to live in the same archive, spinning out their days into old age, and so certain tunes get set aside and nearly forgotten. It’s hard to sometimes imagine what “present” means when I realize I am on stage playing a song I wrote when I was 23 years old. Yet, every time I find music can truly be transportive. A 6th sense as integral to our memories as the olfactory world.
Such is the story with the 5 tunes I just recorded for the Pieces EP.
5 songs all penned pre Orchard, between 2006 and 2008.
A time when I lived in the basement suites of tree lined streets in East Vancouver.
A time when I broke my own heart with assumptions and insecurities, and then felt it heal and swell with curiosity.
I suppose my return to the single life, through either fate or circumstance 😉 has made these songs live again.
They stand together, reminding me that my heart still breaks and I still heal and feel full of wonder and love for this life.
You might remember that I went into the studio late December with the incomparable Jesse Gander. In two days, with the help of two special guests (Khari McLelland and Tim Tweedale) we recorded 5 songs. We left the studio and headed into the fray of the festive season with one element untouched. I wanted the song “It Don’t Matter” to be a duet.
I imagined a voice that was both sweet and rusty. A voice full of grit and honey. I never imagined that that voice would find it’s way onto the song via satellite signals and networks and modern miracles of technology.
Just yesterday my dear friend and Buffaloswans front man Scott Bell performed his half of our long distance duet somewhere in a studio in Oklahoma, USA. Today I heard the first mixes of what I can only say made me swoon as I felt the thrill of making new memories while archiving old ones.
The Pieces EP will be my first release in over a year. Orchard came out in March 2011 (can you believe it?) and the making of it was an incredibly detailed and lengthy process (we recorded it in 2009). This time I moved quickly and within the notion of capturing moments in the studio. Jesse Gander once again proved to have the most enthusiastic love of music and tireless, talented ears. Bringing Pieces together feels like a tying up of loose ends for the songwriter in me. The next year or two is already mapped out in my head with the hope to head back into the studio twice more to record some songs that are just now taking their first breaths and some others that have been begging for some special and extravagant attention for years while they waited for new siblings to be born.
In the mean time and the near future I’ll be gigging around Vancouver (house concert and release party TBA soon) before heading off to Toronto in March to perform at CMW and do a couple shows in the surrounding area.
I also have big dreams of finding myself on a jet plane en route to Europe in the fall. Drop me a line if you have something to say about that. 😉
2013 is the year of the dream and I’m dreaming vast.
xo
jess
Carousel heart
Some relations feel like they leave holes in the universe. Tiny tears in time, into which the lights we are can shine. Places where mornings speak in tongues suggestive and sultry, seducing our hearts curiosities into action.
The age of revelation is upon us.
Let the unravelling begin!
Singing With Strangers
Some days a moment can feel miraculous.
To truly find yourself in the present tense, feeling, seeing, interacting with a quiet abandon most think reserved for children is such a gift.
Such curiousity.
So much compassion.
Last night, after a day filled with beautiful conversations, delicious food, and many works of art (I went to MAKE it Vancouver – the handmade revolution) I grabbed a few groceries and headed out into the brisk night to catch the bus home.
At the bus stop I was reminded by my fellow transit users posture and averted eyes just how unfriendly this beautiful place can be. Perhaps we can blame the rain and the low hanging clouds. Perhaps, they force us to gaze downward and raise our shoulders up to our ears as we flit from awning to awning, trying to keep dry. But last night, yesterday was sunny; not a cloud in the sky. I suppose a habit is made.
Each time I return home from another city I notice it a little more and so I have made efforts to combat it in myself. I sing as I stroll, smiling at strangers and randomly saying hello, giggling at the confused expressions I encounter and feeling elated when someone returns my gaze warmly.
Every smile is a little revelation that no one is truly alone.
The bus came and we all piled on; most remembering to move to the back, taking care to leave the courtesy seats for those in need.
I sat in the middle of a crowded bus as a familiar face appeared. An indigenous man who sits carving works of art on a nearby street corner got on the bus carrying a bag and his crutches. He refused the offer of a seat and kept on strolling to the back of the bus and an open seat within view. He sat down, I smiled at him, he gave a smile and a wave in return. Then an elderly black man a seat away from me uttered something about the poisons of alcohol and Listerine addiction being the end of us. Just then our eyes met, we each nodded, and quickly averted our gazes again as the woman between us got off the bus. An empty seat remained for several stops. I hummed quietly, in my usual manner, singing my observations out into the din under enunciated but melodic. The man a seat away began to sing too. We sat with our ears leaning into the empty seat between us quietly in song as people hustled about all around us seemingly unaware of the music moving from our breath.
When I got off the bus we shared a smile so true and warm, so human that my heart filled with light.
I was in awe at the grace a moment offered me.
My appreciation for the diversity of mankind suddenly even more enormous than before.
We are each a thing of beauty and every moment is capable of affirming that. To live aware and artfully in your senses can bring small magic with great and uplifting consequence into the mundane.
We sat, we sang, we smiled, we shared.
Jess Hill 
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