colleen

Touring subjects the body and mind to a lower standard of the essentials of life and to information overload: that is an undeniable fact and is nobody’s “fault”. For so long I felt like saying this could be seen as whining or a way of dismissing how much tougher other jobs can be; now I can finally see that one truth doesn’t negate another, and that the first step towards touring in a way that is sustainable in the long run is to recognize how truly demanding it is in the first place.
It is the piling up of bodily and brain stressors in a short window of time away from the normalcy of home that is problematic in touring, and that is why, in my opinion, for most “regular” people, touring is safe only in short bursts. There are many reasons why one may have to go through the classical grind of the “one show per day for a month/whatever length” classical touring schedule (economics of course, but also preferring to be away just once and then be done with it). As far as I am concerned, I would end up on the floor if I did this.
A non-exhaustive list of stressors: standing in line repeatedly to check in your suitcase, go through boarding pass and/or passport control, then security, board the plane, go through immigration control, get your suitcase back (on some days, this can pile up to 3/4 hours). Long travelling hours in a plane + usually one or two car transfers. Irregular eating and hydrating. Poor quality insufficient sleep, possible jetlag. Extreme air conditioning or heating.
For the show of the day and upcoming days, whilst more emails keep pouring in, often about future shows, keeping track of: travel schedule, times of load in, soundcheck, dinner, start of show, curfew, mixing desk model, merch situation, guestlist… Rinse and repeat.
If you are touring at the time of your album release, you have already worked through tons of details regarding the release itself and promotion work. In my case I also had to get a new US visa, which – as usual – proved to be both demanding and stressful.
Photos of my show closing the Ekko festival in Bergen, Norway, in the stunning setting of Slettebakken Kirke, on 5th November 2023, are all by Oddbjørn Steffesen.

REFLECTIONS ON GOING BACK TO TOURING – PART IV: I NEEDED TO BE IN GOOD HEALTH TO DO THIS AGAIN, OR: THERE IS NO WAY AROUND ADVOCATING FOR YOUR HEALTH.

I probably could have cut down this whole series to one sentence: you cannot work hard unless you are in good health. I couldn’t have done this 3 years ago, and I am acutely aware that I mustn’t overdo it, because I know I do have limits and aging also means that more shows is not the way it should logically go.

This is perhaps the most important topic related to touring – namely, how being in good health is actually a prerequisite for it, and how it can jeopardize your health – but I feel that, barring a few exceptions when very famous artists have had to cancel huge tours, especially at the time of Covid, this is brushed under the carpet, as if too private somehow or perhaps even embarrassing (aging and illness are probably the most rejected aspects of human existence).

And sure, a person’s state of health is eminently intimate and no one should feel like they have to disclose anything they are not willing to disclose, but to me this general state of affairs often feels like the elephant in the room, one that perhaps prevents us from hammering a truth that is however well-worth hammering: advocating for your health will probably be necessary at some point in your life, it will be probably be the hardest thing you’ve ever done and it will also be the most important.

I couldn’t have gone back to playing shows if I had not been proactive about getting proper treatment for my untreated, then undertreated autoimmune hypothyroidism, which left me in a zombie-like state from 2018 to 2020. When I decided to quit live playing in 2021, I was still in the process of getting my energy levels back to normal again, and my fear of not being able up to the task was the main factor in my decision to quit, along with chronic stress, which was exacerbated by that fear.

I won’t go into more personal detail here, but I still have to advocate for my health, and if you are going through health challenges, I would like to send you my encouragement to start or keep advocating for yourself, in spite of how hard and infuriating this can be.

Photos are of one of my favourite shows ever, the Berlin show at Silent Green on 20th October 2023.

23 FEBRUARY: ALBUM LISTENING SESSION IN CHIQUITA ROOM, BARCELONA

On 23rd February, we will hold a listening session of Le jour et la nuit du réel at art gallery Chiquita Room in Barcelona: I will be there to present the album and we will hold a Q and A afterwards.

It is one thing to intellectually understand the proverbial truth of the “two sides of the coin”, it is another to truly emotionally accept it. Perhaps that was my main problem in the past with live playing: I fantasized about a magic carpet that would enable me to just land in the venue, play and then go home, without all the stuff that can go wrong in real life travelling.

Last spring, I started to educate myself on Buddhism. I am fascinated by the accuracy of its views on human nature and psychological suffering: in a nutshell, we cling to what we want, reject what we don’t want, and mistakenly believe that happiness would come *if only* we could have just what we want and avoid what we don’t want. This spoke loudly to me, and although I am not a Buddhist, I have tried to act upon this in the way I emotionally react to things not going my way.

The US tour proved to be a perfect testing ground: it started wonderfully with a perfect flight to JFK and a perfect show at Public Records, but things soon took a different turn over 5 consecutive days. Philly was hit by a tropical storm and my performance at Making Time was postponed, then cancelled. The morning of flying to Toronto, I nearly missed my flight as I had not been told I needed an Electronic Travel Authorization. After the Toronto show, my friend Joni Void accidentally broke my suitcase, which I realized the next day at Pearson International Airport… only to be told a few minutes later that I was at the wrong airport. By the time I landed in Chicago, I was in desperate need of rest, but instead had to go and buy a new suitcase at Target, which took a good 2 hours since I had to check if all my gear fitted. The next day, I was told that the suitcase was 2 kilos too heavy, and I was plagued by this problem for the rest of the tour.

Amazingly, and in a first for me, I managed to let the stress roll over me without dwelling over each episode, and I felt very deeply that this was just “the other side of the coin”: I can’t have the amazingness of live shows without the risk-taking of touring.

In daily life, I think, talk and dream in Spanish, with English being my work language and my maternal French the one I’ve spoken the least since moving to Spain in 2010. As I started to write this series, I realized there is a striking difference between the English expressions “to change one’s mind/to make a decision” and the French and Spanish equivalents, “changer d’avis/cambiar de opinión” and “prendre une décision/tomar una decisión”.
Both French and Spanish state that what is changed is simply an “opinion”, whereas English is much more radical and ambitious, saying that what has been changed is the mind itself: read like this, “I’ve changed my mind” sounds like a near-magical act, almost as if we had swapped it for somebody else’s.
As for decisions, French and Spanish seem to imply that we just choose or pick from a pre-existing array of decisions (we “take” them), as if from a deck of cards, whereas English says we actively create the decision by actually “making” it.
Maybe it’s the former English teacher in me that speaks here, but I do find these differences illuminating, and I would say this is a case where English “wins” over French and Spanish in terms of psychological accuracy.
In my case, psychotherapy has been one of the main spaces where this process has happened: I started going to therapy for personal matters in December 2020, and before I knew it, there I was unpacking a decades-old work-related chronic stress bundle. In the middle lay the big lump of touring: the admin, the rehearsals and yet the uncertain results, the travel fatigue, the lack of sleep… It was easier to be extreme, just ditch the whole thing and be relieved once and for all. This worked so well that in the summer of 2021, now relieved from touring duties (I just had one show in London left, postponed due to Covid quarantine), my mind was finally free and relaxed enough to realize just how much I loved playing live. And thus began the process of starting to “change my mind”.

All the following photos were taken by Mike Boyd of Thrill Jockey Records during the setup and show at Constellation in Chicago, 27th September 2023. At the end of my Instagram post, you will also find 2 short videos showing bits from my post-show work process demonstration.

Dear everyone

Ever since 2020, January is the month I associate with adoption,  namely my plan to adopt 2 cats (so that they would keep each other company) from the Lliga per a la Protecció d’Animals de Barcelona. 

From their website photos, I initially chose 2 cats that were brother and sister, but I had noticed the photos of Sol and Klee, and on my first visit, Sol stepping onto my lap with his paws wet from the freshly cleaned ground started to make me doubt my initial “choice”.

On the second visit, I was able to see Klee, who had spent 3 months hiding in terror since his arrival.

I adopted them right as I went through my first Covid, at the very start of the epidemic, even before it had officially arrived in Europe (mid-late January). It turned out to be one of the most challenging years of my life, and each year at this time of year, I reflect on the power of adopting an animal in need. A huge responsibility, yes, a huge happiness and blessing also, every single day.

Sol and Klee are not brothers, and I know very little about them, except that Klee, who is now 7 and a half, grew up with Sol, who is now 10. I think that Sol could live without Klee, but Klee would have a terribly hard time without Sol. Here you can see them at the shelter together (photo taken by the shelter).

Searching for the pre-adoption photos, I have even found this one from the first visit, in which I inadvertently captured Sol sleeping behind Leia, the very furry cat in the foreground I was about to adopt with her brother. I can’t help but wonder where those two are now and if they are doing as well as Sol and Klee, and how it would have been to adopt them instead of Sol and Klee…

It feels just right for me to start the year by sending your donations from my Bandcamp animal shelter initiative of the month of December, 213 $, to Sevilla-based Fundación Benjamín Mehnert, who rescue and rehabilitate Spanish greyhounds (galgos).

This month, donations will go to a small organization in the city of Jaén, Andalucia, @huella_de_jaen : I discovered it through the work of the incredible photographer @andreslopezphoto and a reel by @chuchosselectos on the history of this dog, Naty.
It moved me so much I chose them for this month’s Bandcamp donations.

I have added my rare Mort aux Vaches VPRO session, so now the donations will come from sales of “Conditional” , A Flame Variations – Live in the Moog Sound Lab and Mort aux Vaches.

Again thanks a million for your generosity with getting on board with me for this project: in less than 7 months I have been able to send 1334 $ to 8 organizations. It has been one of my most cherished projects of 2023, one that contributes to my feeling of being connected to other beings, both animal and human, at a moment when there are many reasons to despair of human beings’ sanity. 

Wishing you a peaceful 2024

Cécile, Sol and Klee