An album, a collection, a bundle, a root system, a packet of seeds, a rhizome…

Making a music album — maybe especially in an era when most of us listen to singles, playlists and fragments — can invite a listener into a collection of ideas or feelings that make more sense when gathered together. Curating an album of folk songs that ‘formed me’ helps me make sense of the new sounds I create today. Gathering these songs, these stories and these pictures helps me know why certain songs (and people) keep nurturing and challenging me across decades — allowing me to remain a ‘resonant reed’.

I feel very lucky to have grown up with a sense of songs as shared treasures, like stones, shells, leaves and other tiny things gathered on a walk to share later with others.

Several of the songs in The Rhizome Project were the first songs to allow me the confidence to sing alone, while others here outlined elemental ethics that my little voice could grow into. I remember realizing sometime around age 10 that I belonged to generations of little voices raised bravely and plainly - close to the natural world, and singing in spite of our insignificance. Therefore, songs raising a hand of protest also reminded me to catch wonder and awe in the other hand.