This is for sure the most I have labored over any album ever, and the idea of releasing it has caused me so much anxiety that it has taken way longer to put it out than it ever should have. I’m still honestly petrified about putting it out into the public, but I have held it inside for long enough, and I want out of me. Part of the process of making this album has been learning to let go. So I’m letting it go.

I conceived the idea for ODDBIRD in spring of 2018 just after releasing my album I Will. It all started from my love of birds. I studied ecology in college, and I was really shaped by an ornithology class I took where I learned a lot about the birds of the eastern United States. In spring of 2018, I was still living in Japan—at the intersection of various identity crises—and missing home, even though my relationship with my home is complicated. That longing for home manifested in me really missing the birds I was used to seeing back in America. Japan has some really beautiful birds, especially in the mountains near where I was living. But in my heart nothing will ever compare to the majesty of a Pileated woodpecker or the brilliance of a Blackburnian warbler or the mystique of a Barred owl, which are birds unique to North America. So, I found a bunch of recordings of various species of birds which can be found in the eastern United States, and decided to sample them to make songs.

I think all animals are sentient, just in ways that humans can’t comprehend. But I had been imagining, what would their culture be like if birds had a human-like conscience. My mind focused on how many bird species—especially songbird species—have high degrees of sexual dimorphism, which means that males and females are very different from each other. For example, coloration, calls, and behaviors can greatly differ depending on sex. At the same time, intersex conditions such as bilateral and mosaic gynandromorphism can occur causing individuals to have mixes of these characteristics. With these things in mind, I wondered what it would be like to be a queer or trans bird in a species where these differences are so boldly noticeable. What would dysphoria feel like for them? I know I look in the mirror and see comparably subtler differences between myself and cis women, and it causes me a lot of distress. What if your feather coloration was completely different? What if you made a completely different call? What about the various mating and breeding behaviors expected of them because of their sex? If they were to voice these differences, how would other individuals in their population react? I thought about this last question especially due to the backdrop of climate change and immense environmental upheaval and destruction occurring across the world which are causing major population declines in a number of bird species. If the queer, trans bird was in a species whose populations were threatened, would these environmental pressures translate into social pressures from others in their population to conform to these strictly segregated gender roles? What would owning queerness look like for this bird? What would rebellion look like? What would finding queer community look like? What would they have to lose to find internal peace?

This album idea had been very abstract for me in the beginning. I managed to make some instrumentals and a couple hooks, but I got a lot of writer’s block and shelved this idea while I worked with Alex de la Pampa on my “A Boy’s Guide To My Galaxy” album. But during this time my transition evolved in several ways, and so did my relationships to many people in my life. My anxiety increased so much as I thought about conversations I needed to have and boundaries I needed to draw. My experiences with my queerness and my transness and finding community in queer/trans/female spaces got deeper, more complicated, and more nuanced. In short, I felt a lot of things. So, the songs began to take life. Everything started to be finished around the time the world fell apart and the story of the album felt a lot more real to me. I felt isolated and cramped. The music videos I made for two songs from this album were filmed inside my really small closet, and I think they convey the balled-up anxiety that this album represents.

So this album’s story goes. It follows a bird. Maybe their name is Wren. Maybe it isn’t. Honestly I don’t even know. They begin as an egg. It gets cracked. The world and its weight and its light and its pain overwhelms them from the start, and life is just a process of compartmentalizing and processing all of it piece by piece to make life a little more manageable. They deal with trauma, love, loss, and getting hung up on all these past moments that replay in their head always to the point they feel trapped in a moment and have to fight with all their might to push forward into a new future. But somehow they do it.

This is a really dark album lyrically, y’all, so I’m sorry about that. It’s also really blunt and on-the-nose at points. At times I thought it was cheesy, but I think I see now that “cheesiness” is just the awkwardness of talking about painful and complicated feelings. But I tried to structure it like a comedy. Everything starts at a really low point where everything is in chaos, and it has some light moments which build up to a place where hopefully an enduring high point is on the horizon. Who the hell knows though. I hope the light shines through. I hope the songs are catchy.

Every song incorporates samples of bird sounds. Some are close to their original form, some are highly distorted and processed. I’m a hot mess person who pulls from many genres, so the songs are all over the place. Some are more straight forward pop, some are more electronic, some are kind of country, some are emo, one kind of has a similar vibe to “Electric Feel” by MGMT. It’s a grab bag, but I’m proud of it. Even though I’m scared to release it. Even though it has haunted me mentally for going on two years now and I need it out of my head so I can move on.

This album is my first to feature vocals and writing from other artists! Dani Lee Pearce and Fell From The Tree feature on the track “Odd.” They are both artists I respect immensely and am honored and privileged to consider friends. I’m beyond humbled that they both lent their vocals and writing for this album.

All of the artwork you will see from this album comes from sleepyheadphone, an amazing friend I made through the Stereogum comment section! Follow him on Twitter @strngwrks and Instagram @sleepyheadphone! Never have I felt someone understood exactly what I was trying to accomplish as an artist than when I put my music in his hands to make the visuals. Thanks so much sleepy! Love you always and forever!

Thanks to Kelan who let me borrow his audio interface to record vocals and synths. Thanks to Alex, Bre, Hannah, Salaad, Win, Cael, Sophie, Anna, Rachael, and Jaime who offered me guidance, encouragement, and affirmation throughout this process. I love you all so much!