New Album, Old Feelings

My newest album ‘Echoes & Cocoons’ came out yesterday. It’s my third “solo” album in that it was recorded extracurricularly from Incubus. I wrote this body of work with a new collaborator in John Congleton. John is a seasoned producer and songwriter (check out his other works) and he and I put our heads together during the peak days of California’s lockdown.

It’s such a weird and wild thing to dream up sounds, thoughts, feelings, and rhythms, stir them all together like some witch’s brew, then cast the spell into the wider world. I know I’ve waxed philosophical about this phenom over the years with Incubus albums and other solo pursuits but the thing that always occurs to me is that the feeling you get the first week or so after sharing what you’ve painstakingly concocted, is always the same. Is this garbage? Is it inspired? Am I a fraud? Will the people show up at my house with pitchforks and torches wanting their old Brandon back? I suppose the marked change in my experience of this stage of creativity is that my internal editor, that bastard of a critic, gets more cooperative as I continue to grow. They are still present and likely will be for my entire time here, but they’ve become less of a dick in recent years. Maybe they see themselves now, after 30+ years of making music as a kind of collaborator. Less of an opinionated interloper and more of an edgy friend who cares enough about what’s being made here to tell me what they really think. Ever had one of those?

I still have moments, like this morning as I am writing this, where my excitement and enthusiasm about having a new album out are coupled with an almost ever-present vulnerability, but today it doesn’t scare me so much. I have found that if I’ve fallen in love with what has been made and it was a joyous experience making it, then it must have something to offer beyond the confines of my own busy brain.

All of that being said, I know all too well that this body of work is not for everyone. Anyone and everyone are invited to listen and to participate but I’d be fooling myself to think that the album had what we’d call ‘mass appeal’. But that isn’t even necessarily what I am aiming for. Was I ever aiming for that? I ask myself in real time because I am not entirely sure I was ever writing for “everyone”. I always swing for the fences but the proverbial fence is at vastly different intervals, all depending on where you are observing from. I suppose my hope is that lots of people hear this album; but that some measurable subset of those experiencers will fall in a kind of creative love with it that mirrors my experience in making it. The validation comes less from the predictable dopamine hits that follow praise and adoration, and more from a shared reflection. Feedback that may come when and if someone hears something(s) that perhaps reminds them of someone they once knew, or validates a feeling they themselves had and couldn’t quite put to words. In that shared reflection is a reward so vast as to be comparable to a higher form of communication. Imagine speaking to people you’ve never met (and perhaps who don’t even speak the same language) through sound and rhythm and poetry…. and have them understand you.

It’s nothing short of a miracle. I hope you guys find moments like this in any aspect of your lives, though it is more reliably available through art, but selfishly I hope you have a few of those moments here with this new body of music.

With love and appreciation,

Brandon Boyd

I have exciting news to share: You can now read A Wink And A Nod in the new Substack app for iPhone.

With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.

The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.