fuzzy scrap metal songs found in a junk yard in gowanus about the difference between my north vs yours vs the planet's

1. Spirit of '76
2. PS 118
3. Cannonball
4. (We) Need More
5. Melatonin
6. Birds Like Leaves

“I wrote and recorded Magnetic North at a strange and particular period in my life - when I was living in a closet and kept forgetting how to sleep, when my apartment building would inexplicably lose gas and electricity for weeks at a time, when I would search for stars on the edge of my roof at odd hours, looking down off the edge, holding my guitar and recording voice memos of song fragments, needing more. When I would imagine where (Hey) Arnold might be right now, if he grew up, if he was real, and what kind of melody Thelonious Monk would write if he were me (if I were him?). When Annie Dillard showed me just how much is happening in the nooks and crannies of every inch of earth and that I should pay attention to the way birds fly, like leaves.

I didn’t have a journal so I wrote these songs instead, or maybe I had several journals but not a good pen, or maybe I borrowed a pen from my roommate but realized I didn’t have good handwriting anymore because I had been pushing down these lettered pads for so long (when will schools skip handwriting altogether?) and then I got anxious because I promised I would return that beautiful pen and not be like all those people that borrow pens and then either keep them accidentally or lose them, the pens, also accidentally, but then proceeded to lose that fucking beautiful pen and hope quietly that my roommate would forget, which she did, I think.

Magnetic North is the wandering, magnetic point that only a compass senses, not to be confused with True North which runs “up” and “down” the geographic meridian. I feel a similar pull to an unknown, unseen, magnetic force that keeps me sifting through songs, sounds, and words for some kind of direction, for a path hidden among the grid. The re-issue of this album was not meant to coincide with Valentine’s Day. More significant is the writing of this passage at 5:48 am that morning, in a groggy fit of melatonin and spell check, heading to work soon, thankful for today.”