As I (Arjana) write this post to you all, Ivan is sitting in the corner of this beautiful hotel room we currently call home and making near obsessive corrections and final tweaks to our album cover art as we ready it to send it back to our designer for (maybe?) it's FINAL revisions! It is incredible how much back and forth, how many tweaks, how many stages a project like this goes through. We are at the point where we see the light at the end of the tunnel here. The cover is looking more and more like what we designed and envisioned, the mastering revisions are sounding more and more cohesive. It's all coming together. Ivan and I have been using our time here in Japan by day to work consistently (especially Ivan honestly, as he has mixed the whole album on his own!) Putting yourself in the drivers seat of a project like this; from it's conception to a fully realized version of itself, is exhilarating.
There was a time, not too many years ago, when I would have been shocked (though delighted!) to hear I was working on my second album. I lived as if every project I was in I had to be granted by someone else. As if I had to win the opportunity first. All that time and it never really sunk in that you don't have to wait for that person to come around, you don't have to wait to be the perfect girl for the position. You do however have to nominate yourself. Set up the job description, and hire yourself the project. And then, rise to the occasion. The sense of purpose and inertia that it has brought us is everything. Doing it makes us want to do more. Making more brings about all the ideas that don't fit into this project, and need their own! We have a list of projects now, and never enough time in a day to do them all. That itself is a gift. Japan, and our artistic residency here has given us the feeling of soothing stimulation. Always something new to see, plenty of opportunities to get outside of yourself, all while being the most hospitable and lovely environment. There is a sense of stability every day, a feeling of job security so rare for a musician, and TIME. Valuable, incredible TIME to do with as you please. There isn't a day that goes by where we take that for granted. We have less than a month left here, and we are savoring every minute. This has been a restorative, creative time for us and we are thrilled to be right where we are. For now, time to go back to these revisions! Many more details on "Caribbean Manhattan" coming soon! We can't wait to share it with you all. Much love! xxxx