2018’s Muttslang was meant as a poetic reflection on poly-cultural tolerance, and I knew its follow up was going to be more personal. “A wake of sorrows engulfed in rage” feels more like the allegorical breath one takes after being repeatedly crushed against the ocean’s floor by a seemingly endless series of waves. It’s a reflection on loss, renouncement, and my futile battle against moral dualism. It’s defiantly intimate yet as broad and timeless as loss itself. My earliest intentions were to use lyrics in support of the most personal topics, and pen the instrumental songs as a sort of impressionist narrative. Well…we all know the fate of best laid plans, and it wasn’t long before I had to reckon with the intrinsically seductive power of parable and improvisation. As I watched those two vie for dominance, fictional tales emerged about real characters, a hidden commentary on existentialist duality morphed itself into an eponymous tribal chant… in Napolitan. Meanwhile, solos snuck in where there used to be none, old songs rose from their ashes while new ones decided to sit out the final cut. In time, the album began to reveal itself as an experiential game of hopscotch which, like the Cortazar book by the same name, can hopefully be enjoyed in more than one order, though my hope is that some if not all of you, will have the time capital to listen to this music in its intended sequence. I believe it makes the most sense that way.