And so it begins! The trickle into our album release and west coast tour. We are very excited to put "Rhizome" out into the world. It's got legs, feet, wings, teeth, and some soul. This one came running out the gate smoothly. We had a lot of fun writing and recording it. The stream-of-consciousness lyrics mostly came out of a vision quest I undertook at the Pando aspen clone colony at Fish Lake in Utah.
Pando ("I spread" in latin) is one of the largest organisms on earth. Beginning from a single seed, an aspen cloned itself and grew through a network of rhizomes (continuously growing horizontal underground stems) and now covers 106 acres, consisting of over 40,000 individual trees. The exact age of the clone and its root system is difficult to calculate, but it is estimated to have started at the end of the last ice age.
I walked into Pando with a pocket of mushrooms on a clear autumn day, carrying a simple intention to cozy up to this megalithic creature. Aspen branches self-prune, creating eye shapes all over the trunks. Beneath Pando's ten thousand eyes I stumbled upon a teepee made of branches and decided to lay down inside.
I think "Rhizome" captures the energy of dissolving into dirt and being digested by nematodes, grubs and slugs, microbes and mycelium. There's a sense of victory and celebration in crossing over and returning to Earth. Sure, it's a messy thing to rot into water and minerals. But there's a warmth on the other side, like a welcoming party of distant relatives. The mountains, valleys, rivers and streams cheer your return. In constant embrace they pass you around in the form they once knew you. The form they knew before you congealed and took human life for a whirl.
Music video is coming out soon. Then PEDAL drops everywhere on 1/24/23. We get rowdy and sling our brand spankin' new CD's at Soda Bar on the 25th and Pour House on the 26th. Then we're off to play a buttload of shows throughout California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Hope to see you out there!
Peace,
Jake (M&L)
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