I woke up buried in the sand again
Holding my shoe
Thinking it was your hand again
Nothing new
And it's the bright hour of 11am
I guess it's 6am for you
They say people get used to Berlin
You start laughing too
But I miss you
I woke up leaning this old tower against
Words you hadn't written
I woke up powerless
Ugly as a kitten
And remember that couple leaving a barbecue
He said, "I overate, nothing new"
And how you drew them into a cartoon
With captions under their shoes
And one said, "I need a lover"
And the other said, "I need a mother"
And I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you see I'm trying to be anything else
But it's so good
Being sorry for yourself
And there's a whole city to dance with
And there are lovers in the square
And how in the dark you breathe like
There could never be enough air
And I miss you
And I dreamed again last night
How your brother hangs 'round your ankle
And in the dream you were drowning
Could it be that simple
That midnight feeling
Finds me at nine
Like a five foot ceiling
Like the fan on high
Like the moth mistaking
Heat for the light
Pick up the phone
And talk to me
about
The original “Planet I’m From'' album, just seven songs, took three rather fraught years to finish. We started recording it in 2018 in Brooklyn, moved the process to Nashville in 2019, were ready to leave the thing altogether in 2020, and finally released the little planet in 2021. Along the way, many of the recordings were left behind. Hard drives never sent. Miscommunications. I had a handful of mp3 files with no way to separate the drum sound from the vocal, or turn down a blaring bass. But I kept returning to those mp3s. They had that certain “thing.” Not quite ready for the public eye, but communicating something I liked. Most of the tunes were from the original Brooklyn studio sessions with Hans Bilger (bass), Lawson White (drums), and I playing live together – polaroids from a few long nights.
Which brings Shawn Barry into the story. Shawn is one of my oldest friends and music collaborators from the 5th grade and beyond! He is a gifted composer, producer, and a creative goliath. I showed him the tunes, he believed, and we hatched the idea for a “B-Sides” project. Shawn worked with the songs making little additions, bringing certain frequencies up or down, doing a lot of music producer wizardry I don’t fully understand. He created a world for the tunes to take root, adding little moments and leaving others untouched. Shawn, ever traditional in his approach, added sounds from (to name a few) an acoustic guitar played with a cello bow, a saxophone trio pitched down an octave, and a clarinet recorded through the back of a piano. All with his playful and deft ability to protect “that thing.”
And so it became…"The Other Planet I’m From (B-Sides Pt. I & II)" !
Part 1 features “Nothing New” and “Pick Up The Phone.” Lonesome songs on either side of a restless sleep. A light bulb that won’t stop whining. A shoe mistaken for a hand. In Shawn’s words, “You let the ghosts bash through the door only to find they had something encouraging to tell you.” And as an unabashed fan of “extremely subtle” drumming, these are some of my all time favorite Lawson White drum performances.
Part 2 takes place in the daylight. On a street. In the kitchen. “Goodbye” is mostly in El Paso around a bowl of Guacamole with a candle stuck in it. “My Mother’s Hands,” is halfway into a batch of chicken soup in Hudson, NY. These songs were completed in slightly more traditional ways. Mainly because I had driven to Asheville, NC sometime in 2019 to record electric guitar parts with guitar Jedi Mike Sivilli (Dangermuffin), and bless the gods of hard drive backups, Mike was able to trace back and find the original sessions from 2019, allowing us to separate out individual tracks and instruments. Certain things were still baked in – vocal effects, layering, etc, but overall, part 2 takes on a more “bandly” shape.
And so you have it. A book finally closed. The other planet. Moon cheese. A look underneath the hood. I hope you enjoy!
credits
released January 5, 2023
Music and Lyrics by Jenner Fox
Production, Mixing, and Aux Sounds by Shawn Barry
Engineering and Percussion by Lawson White
Bass by Hans Bilger
Guitar and Vocals by Jenner Fox
Album Art by Michael Taylor
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