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after the sun hit the roof is out now <3

Artwork by Sage Sidley

My educational background is in environmental studies and geography; I spent five years learning about fluvial hydrology (how rivers flow) and orogenesis (how mountains are made), analyzing forest fire trends, mapping spatial data from urban heat islands.

I moved to the sub-arctic and saw how acute the impacts of climate change were on communities and ecologies in the far north- impacts that still felt far-off in more temperate places (less so now, a decade later).

Still, I drove from Dawson City, Yukon to New Orleans, Louisiana in beater cars that leaked oil and sometimes I didn’t rinse out my recycling.

Why is it so hard to remain connected?

What is that part of us that shrinks away from responsibility to the one thing we are surely all stewards of: our home?

after the sun hit the roof was written in my friends Maggie and Pat’s house in Petite Riviere, Nova Scotia. The house is haunted, for sure, without a shadow of a doubt. I felt accompanied at all times while sitting at the piano, reading on the couch, writing in my journals at the kitchen table. (Maggie said she thinks it’s a friendly presence, but I wasn’t sure.)

Haunted though it may have been, it was the right place to sit with the project. The chill that followed me around the house, opening cupboards and spinning baby mobiles, added to a sense that time had collapsed. Past was present was future.

The songs became explorations of how it felt to be a person on this planet at this time. Not judging, espousing, or romanticizing.

It feels heavy to be dropped into a timeline where we have, realistically, very little control over our surroundings and still must work to remain present (“Ghost Ship”).

It feels unfair to be saddled with previous generations’ burdens, while knowing that future generations will have it both worse- and better-off (“Inheritance”).

It feels hedonistic to chase experiences that have negative long-term consequences (“Hot Nights”). Yet also important… and fun………

It feels hypocritical to judge people for tuning out reality in their own ways when we all apply a filter of some kind (“Path of Totality”).

This project became a refuge. It was a place where I could express all these messy feelings with honesty and compassion. In doing so, I was able to have more empathy and understanding for other people, wherever they may be on their journey.

It is my hope that this album, and the world it lives in, becomes a place like that for you.

The album release show is on November 21 at the Sanctuary Arts Centre. You can buy tickets here.

RAHHH I’M SO EXCITED. LOVE YOU!!!

xoxo

sophie noel