How do you know you’re living In The Country of Lost Minds? When everything is topsy-turvy and inside out. When you find the love of your life while in a life threatening experience. When relationships fall from bliss into constant conflict. When you realize the best days are over, the children have moved away, and death becomes a very real possibility.
Every year that March rolls around, I force myself to finish tracks and release them to the world as a way to honor the passing of my dad who died from lung cancer on March 21st, 2021. It’s also a personal reminder that if I don’t record and release these tracks, the music will fade away on a notebook in a dusty shelf. This year’s fresh new collection, In The Country of Lost Minds, features six songs tackling death, children, aging, school violence, toxicity, bitterness, and yet through it all is a prayer for the safety of loved ones. I wrote the lyrics from equal parts of sadness, disdain, and just pure manic joy. Welcome back to the neon-hued land of 1980s synthscapes and new romanticism.
What’s The Title About?
Before my sister moved to Toronto to earn her masteral degree in poetry, I stole — well, borrowed — one of her books. It was by the American author Paul Auster entitled In the Country of Last Things, and it was as bleak and as hope-shriveling as the title suggests. But I loved every bit of its dystopian, end of the world desperation, even the most heart-crushing moments. In it, a sister searches a ruined city for her lost brother, and has to resort to scavenging to stay alive in a city that has devolved into street gangs and suicide cults. My album title is an homage to that great novel, and mirrors some of that dystopian desperation within songs about school shootings, abusive relationships, and broken dreams.
What Does It Sound Like?
As in my previous albums, The Only Water Flowing and The Modern Conundrums, this has a whole boatload of 1980s British new wave /new romantic influences: everyone from Heaven 17, Modern English, Duran Duran, Propaganda, New Order, and as ever, Tears for Fears.
Take a listen and see if you can spot which artists influenced which tracks: