New Music: “Step By Step”

The Rains Retreat is officially over, and I'm really happy with the new habits I've developed over the last 3 months. I've started using the Plum Village app to remind me once every hour to slow down and enjoy the present moment; I haven't looked at my phone during a meal since October, and...

I have some fresh new music to share with you :)

February 1st on the Glenwood Crowe music pages, there will be a new 2-track single entitled "May The Rain Come," featuring 2 monks from Deer Park and The Deer Park Collective. The feature song, "Step By Step" was the first song I started writing when I got to the monastery in October and saw that the waterfall that flowed 6 months prior was now dry (I heard a funny anecdote about a child calling it an "airfall" now 😅); I started writing on a beat up travel guitar that was missing the Low E string so you don't hear anything lower than A until the more produced jam section and meditation in the second half.

(Side note*: I'm really proud of the transformation that little travel guitar undertook after some truss rod adjustment, cleaning, and new strings. I've never trusted myself with that kind of luthier work before, but with a little time and mindfulness, I was happy to honor that instrument by recording with it on "Sweet November" once I fixed it up. Shout out to David Nelson for leaving that guitar behind 14 years ago for me to find in 2023 and write a bunch of songs with 🙏I love it.)

One lazy Monday, I asked Brother Nhất Sơn (aka Brother Mountain) if he would help me plan and produce an instrumental section to follow the "Step By Step" verse: I don't know where I'm going, but I know how I'll get there - his musicality and intuition blew me away as we got lost in the music together. He sang this wild bass line that I grew to love playing on the electric bass, and the spacey textures we created with his vocals are some of my favorite elements of this recording. We later ended up using collected audio samples of crickets and crunchy footsteps around the monastery to create all the drum sounds. That whole section started with this idea that the guitar would play the opening rhythm of the activity bell:

🔔(rest)🔔(rest)🔔(rest)🔔🔔(rest)🔔(rest)🔔

The activity bell is a bell that sounds before any event at Deer Park, letting everyone know it's time to gather and sing some songs or to line up for a meal. I hope this music and guided meditation by Brother Minh Địa serves as a reminder to call yourself back to the present moment wherever you are and that by the end, you feel free and refreshed.

Thanks for your ears and your support, here's a link that will take you to whichever platform you prefer. Hope you enjoy!

https://album.link/us/i/1726099888