June 4, 2015

Patience. It’s the album I funded through Kickstarter, with help from my amazing network of fans and supporters. When I came up with the name, I was thinking of my life as an artist, and of the most important virtue for any working musician: patience, seemingly endless patience. I knew, too, that the process of creating it would be long, and painful, and beautiful. It’s nearly done, but there’s still plenty of beauty and pain left before I can proudly put the finished product in your hands.

An artist learns to expect delays, but the biggest delay, which has taken upwards of four months now, is something I never saw coming. It’s not bad news, it’s good – but the person that I was even just a year ago would never have considered the choice that I made, which was as insane as it was courageous. The timing wasn’t great, but I had to take advantage of the opportunity in front of me, and I am glad I did.

In the name of staying on topic, I’ll keep this story brief: I moved back into the house that I own, after four years away. In those four years I made The Wine-Dark Sea, Filk and Cookies, and most of Patience, earned my digital audio certificate at SAIT, raised $10,000 to make my dreams come true, took up the harp and the lute, and played at least a hundred shows. I thought I had seen the last of that house, the former site of Grendel’s Left Arm Recording Studios, also known as the “Heroincred-abode”, where I poured my ecstasy and my agony into two albums as an artist and about ten albums as a producer. It was that old boring story – fell in love with my drummer, wrote some love songs, dreamed big, bought a house, built a studio, big love, bad breakup, wrote some angry songs, roll credits – and I thought it was over. Now I’m back in the temple of my creative joy, my enthusiasm, my pain and my grief. But since I am not the same person I was four years ago, it’s not the same house, either.

Then I renovated the living shit out of it, so it’s, like, REALLY not the same house anymore.

The last four months have been chaotic, to which anyone has moved, who has owned a house, or has renovated a house can relate. I went from pouring my every joule of energy into the best music I’ve ever made to slogging on the chain gang of self-sufficient adulthood. Now the waters are stilled, and I can get back into the studio. I have one song left to record, and then we’re into mastering, photography and manufacturing. Being of a superstitious bent, I still won’t name a release date, but I promise you your investment is safe, and I know I will do you proud. I am not the only one who knows patience, and who will reap its rewards. I am so looking forward to the day when I can take Sharpie to bubble mailer and send you my best work to date.

With gratitude and thankfulness and grateful thankful thanks,

Vanessa Cardui