im ur girl

I set out to write an “artist’s statement” for this project—but I think I ended up with basically a psychoanalytic journal exercise. I sat with this writing for a bit, considering trying to cut it to a more focused sort of formal write-up, but after re-reading it for little edits a couple times, I’m deciding to leave it as is—there’s something about the all-over-the-place nature of it I think speaks better to this project than a properly structured write-up ever could. So on that note…

WHAT’S GOIN’ ON WITH ME LATELY

The more I write about my relationships with others—the closer I get to myself. Or “myselves” I should probably say. And the more I treat my various selves and my organic body as if they were the people I have relationships with—the better my life gets. “Treat others as you would like to be treated” is a great start—but I would expand it to explicitly add “…and treat yourself like you would treat your loved ones.”

I don’t think I really came to terms with how horrible I’ve been to myself until quite recently—under the guise of “humility” I have systematically annihilated my self-worth over the years. I had a lot of really big perspective shifts occur back in December, involving a lot of changing relationships with various folks including my selves—and I came into the year treating my life basically like a creative project.

im ur girl, and its accompanying art, have been basically my inspiration I look at and listen to every day. I find the word “manifestation” to be a bit loaded lately via a lot of tacky wellness culture—but I’ve grown to appreciate what it can mean if I just “embrace cringe” and try to focus on the less marketable usages of it historically. This photo is of my older sister and I back when I used to attend ballet with her. I think I’m maybe 3 or something here, really young—and I knew exactly who I was, no question about it. When I look at us here, I see a totally different timeline, I see a world where I was this “me” since age 3, and I imagine what I’d become by now at age 27. Decades of time where I had to rebuild what was already there. This goofy, happy kid in a leotard—one of the girls. And so the title “im ur girl” references that feeling, in the context of this photo, speaking a bit to my family and myself. They loved it, I loved, but everyone else was not quite ready.

But the point of this project, and why it means a lot to me, is that it’s not some simple “what could have been” sad sap narrative. It’s a reminder to myself of what I desire from me and from others. I want relationships in which I am someone’s “girl” in the overused weirdly-ownery sense. I want to remind myself that I am my own girl on a daily basis. The specificity of she/her transness is not critical here, but the idea that I am in the driver’s seat, and I have been since I was a child. I’m just old enough to work the controls a bit better.

And getting back on track—those controls for my organic form can and should be exercised to shape what I want from them. So what I love about the ballet imagery is a focus on that physicality. I have relied on good genes to get away with filling my body with garbage and never worrying about things like cardio and carbs but I decided that I wanted control over my body and that this would be a way to exercise it. So I started actually eating vegetables, stopped eating KFC, and started running and working out regularly. On a very graphic sexual front, I started “training” a certain orifice of mine to do what I’d like it to do—I want to push my body to be something more than what I expect it simply “is.” And beyond that, I’ve begun the process of going on HRT, which has involved a myriad of fascinating adventures (courtesy of the UC healthcare plan) in sperm freezing, vocal coaching, and laser hair removal. This has pushed a lot of questions into the forefront that I simply never had to even consider. For example—have you ever wondered what should happen to your frozen sperm if you were to die tomorrow? That was new to me.

The point of all this TMI is to get across the intentionality of the project I’m undertaking—one to shape my life, my mind, and my body all into what I want and frankly deserve. I am in pursuit of something that feels like a “realness” to me—and with this pursuit of “the real” I take us into the album.

PROCESS & INTENTIONALITY

Free association was basically how this album got made. Everything from the instrumental writing to the vocal melodies to the lyrics. While “dissociated” and “manic” switches have generally been a big part of my music for as long as I can remember—I definitely amp them up with some of the flips into sudden screamo sections or hardcore bass drops. But vocally and lyrically—using free association pushed me to write better stuff than I’ve ever done before, I think. The process was—sing some wordless vocal melodies over tracks when I came up with ideas (either at random points throughout the day via my iPhone’s voice memos, or during production), let whatever phrases felt right come out of my mouth, and then go back and try to listen for what words I think I may have been trying to form in retrospect. Then I go to my notepad and start trying to write lyrics to those rhythms and melodies.

Keeping this process going, I just wrote about whatever felt the most emotionally active in my brain at the time—usually this came in bursts where I’d just sit down and start typing. Usually I get hung up at this point trying to tell a narrative or make perfect rhymes, but this time around I just let myself run. From one person to another, from one topic to another, from one phrasing to wherever—I just let it go. And the weird part is that it always seemed to find it’s way back to a core concept or idea, even if I didn’t know what that was from the start. And this is the core concept behind the whole project, and behind my whole general life project right now—trust yourself and be vulnerable, be open, and let things form together on their own—because they will. My process has felt like I’ve just woven networks of random thoughts in orbit around some sort of something that feels strong—and the more and more I explore, the close that orbit becomes. When I train my body, when I explore my relationships, when I treat myself with intention—I get closer and closer to something at a core point. I think this something could be described as “the real.” And that’s what this is all about.

SOME LOOSE THOUGHTS

On the multibody question of lyrics—I think all the songs are about probably around at least 4 people at all times. Me (whatever that even means anymore), my best friend, my “former partner,” and a very confusing relationship. At any given time, any lyric can be about any of these people, from the perspective of any of these people.

When I write—they flow from one to the other seamlessly, and that allows me to investigate larger themes and feelings I wouldn’t be able to pull out otherwise. By allowing my brain to write freely about everything at once—I can get closer to understanding each specifically. It’s counter intuitive, but a lack of focus seems to bring clarity. I see overall feelings and issues that I can then explore. Part of the reason I enjoy making music is that it really does something for me—it’s a way not just to simply express how I’m feeling but to work out what I even am feeling. I don’t think I even know until I try to write it out. In an analytic framework—I’d say this feels like revolving around “the real” in orbit.

I try to tap unconscious thoughts by singing melodies with only semi-formed words throughout—then going back and trying to figure out what kinds of things I hear in those loose noises. Rather than sitting down and saying “ok, I’m going to write about this or that”—I let my vocal timbre, rhythm, breath etc. bring the topics out of me. Many times I don’t understand what moments in my life are emotionally significant until they come out of me in this form. Sometimes I hear a word in my mumblings and sort of act like the analyst—asking myself why I chose that word, to then explore my feelings on the matter as if I were having a conversation with another being.

I allowed myself to write basically in any “genre” direction for this as well—which lead to a pretty rapidly shifting feel for the album. On a psychoanalytic sense—I’d be tempted to throw two words commonly associated with my work: dissociated & manic. These are words I’m neutral on—they’re both helpful and destructive to me. But part of that free flowing structure is what allows for more honest depictions of my mental state. On a moment to moment basis—my emotions range a great deal, so how am I supposed to write one cohesive 3 minute track about one of them? I choose not to. To me—the shock and pleasure it can bring to feel a song shift pace so hard tend to poke at “the real” in a sense—it’s raw “affect” that slams into you.

This work explores feelings in retrospect that occurred during dissociated episodes—ie who I become dancing in a club, who I become in performance scenarios, etc. There’s a lot of double talk—ie “lemme tell ya bout, i don’t wanna talk about” with these sort of clashing personas and states of being. Clearly something in me wants to destabilize the listener, and myself, heavily.

I definitely also worked with intention to shift sonic spaces to try and give a dream like perspective—wondering how you got from one place to another as being dream like—teleporting. Capturing that. Also aiming at the sleep/waking split trying to keep that moving, lots of moving back n forth between memories, people, selves, etc. Some of the melodies I work with come from dreams, some of the lyrics come from them too—by capturing this sort of disjointed feeling, I think the music taps into that dreamstate more effectively thematically.

The biggest theme across this project I’ve found to be the most fulfilling though is this act of becoming that occurs via writing about “others.” So much of the content of these tracks was written about what I thought were other people—but in turn became about myself. Lines like “fingers through the grooves in your tattoos, and it started to feel like home with you” spoken about another’s body, then became about my own after I myself added some ink to my left arm and ran my fingers through it. “I’m starting to let you go”—this is about someone else, but it became about my releasing from a former concept of my body, who I was. The music becomes the work, the others become the self, and it reaffirmed why I keep making music—it really does things for me.

A FEW NOTES, BY TRACK

Lastly, I’ll provide a few individual track notes here, if of interest.

feels like home I wrote this song about a number of people, including myself. One of which I’m involved with in many different aspects of my life—and the wild thing is that over time I’ve come to hear this song as being more and more about myself, with a level of literal meaning even surprising to me. Some kind of manifesting into this image I depicted of a person I really respect & admire. At the same time, lines about letting people go started to become more about myself letting go of some past image of myself, rather than another person. This song helped me a lot.

one time thing was written while I was feeling very rejected and kind of used—but became a sort of weird interrogation of how I deal with those feelings. I don’t wanna talk about—but clearly I do. Originally the lines were just variations on “i don’t say it enough, I love you” which was directed at my friends, as well as myself.

go ur way I still don’t know what this is about—but there’s a general feeling of dread about the future that I think I’m constantly trying to shake. I’m not a “positive” person by default—but I’d like to be, and part of this track is me working through that. Lyrically—I would like to push it further.

im not myself this shit wrote itself. I was using a sample of that main vocal hook “i’m trying to love you, but lately I’m not myself” because it just nailed feelings I was having towards myself as well as the feelings a person was having about me. I didn’t attempt to write lyrics here—I just knew the line “every night I’ll be saying your name” was it, that was the vibe. This is a track where dreams built out the inspiration. I have a really overactive imagination while sleeping, and a lot of people like to make uninvited appearances on a recurring basis.

hot n bothered is probably one of the most direct ones here—and it’s because I wrote it very quickly after a really intense conversation. The weird thing is how much it blurs other folks into the mix that weren’t there.

last to the party is a bit like “im not myself” in that one line tends to drive it: “I don’t wanna show up last to the party.” That has a lot of meanings to me. One of which is being last to the party on estrogen. Another is being last to the party in a polyamorous relationship, which placed many new questions in front of me. And another is a quite literal interpretation around my general social anxieties. Together they wrap to be one sort of affect ball.

change ur mind is one of the wildest in terms of range to me—but revolves around this attempt to change yourself and to change others’ minds. The self part should be obvious by now, but the other in question here was my attempt (and one I felt weird about) to change a perception of me in a relationship. I don’t pine—but apparently I do. I learned a lot from that experience.

Anyway, that’s the end of my oversharing—this has been helpful for me to just try and write out, and hopefully it’s been in some way engaging to read/listen to. This project completely changed the way I write music, and I aim to continue pushing on these processes going forward—I have no idea what’s next, but this thing honestly brought me back to loving music and feeling loved by music (and through it, myself) in ways I did not expect, but dearly needed. Basically every day I started putting it together, I’ve looked at that photo, listened to the tracks, looked in the mirror, and I said “im ur girl.” We’re livin’ it.

Max SchafferMarch 14, 2022