In the last two years, both of us experienced a heavy dose of heartbreak in our lives: my house was destroyed by a mudslide, while me and my partner were inside, barely escaping in time. Around the same time, Ossama was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and his condition, which had been on a slow decline, began to rapidly deteriorate causing him to need supplemental oxygen in many aspects of his life. While we were processing and dealing with the daily challenges of these circumstances, we began writing a new album.
Our first inclination was that the album would feel heavy and sad, a reflection of the sadness, grief and sense of loss that we had been experiencing. But surprisingly, the music that came out was much more uplifting, energetic and vibrant than what we had imagined. There were sad songs of course, but the overall feeling was one of a deep life force being excavated amongst the rubble of the things that had been lost in our lives. There was an energy there, when everything was stripped away, that felt vibrant and alive, unflinching in its ability and desire to experience whatever was happening.
This phrase “Life Will Break Your Heart“ kept appearing to us. Not as a warning, but as an opening: Life will break your heart open, like a hard fruit that needs to be cracked open to taste the nectar inside. Before these things happened, I was under the illusion that (somehow!) through luck, skill, timing and will, it was possible to avoid the really bad parts of life. Afterwards, I began to see that when our heart breaks, it break us open, and brings out the most precious parts of us: strength, compassion, empathy, and vulnerability.
We are brought face to face with the most intimate version of ourselves, and through that experience we are able to truly feel and understand the same suffering, strength and beauty in others.
1. Everybody Misses You
2. Start Again
3. Hourglass (with sadHAPPY)
4. Carry You (with Lane 8)
5. Gladiator
6. You Should Be Here (with Nathan Nicholson)
7. Madeline (with Ella McRobb)
8. Melbourne
9. Everything I'm Feeling
10. Taped Rain (with Ella McRobb)
11. Find Me (with DRAMA)
12. Soft Glow (with Delhia De France)
13. Weak (with Temm)
14. Last Ride (with sadHAPPY)
Life will break your heart
and you will survive.
Life will break you open,
shattering into a million pieces,
fitting them back together in new ways,
ways you never knew could fit before.
Each break will cut you
a little more deeply,
carve you a little more open.
And in that openness
you will be able to hold more,
more than you thought was possible before.
Life will show you the vastness that is waiting for you
to live in,
to swim in,
to try in,
to begin again in.
Life will break your heart
over and over and over,
until the pieces are so small,
and in so many places,
that you don’t know where to look;
over and over and over
until you see that they are scattered everywhere
and a little piece of you
is a little part of everything.