minyan by jacob wolos
this collection is a meditation, an imperfect record-keeping of the passing of a year.
in autumn 2020, i released passenger, an album about my own withdrawing from the world due to both internal challenges and a global pandemic.
after two years of writing, recording, and editing passenger, the final days leading up to its release were hard-fought; the quietude of the year had asked that i speak, that i transmit something, myself, into the sequestered, ravaged lives of loved ones. creating that new work emptied me, and i responded to the emptiness with observation.
this collection is a photograph, a smudge of moment overexposed.
in autumn 2020, my partner and i left our quarantine home for our first large foray into the world, a trip to coastal maine, remote, quiet, apart from the world.
there, i began to write again.
that writing became a practice to ground myself, a year of moments spent in the quiet corners of my mind, among the places and people to whose beauty i am awe-struck, to whose glamour in any other version of myself i might have otherwise been too distracted to fully comprehend, to whose love and patience i am forever indebted.
i was raised jewish in the absence of jewish community, yet found my way to stories and sounds and movement, to pondering and longing and loving, to argumentation within and without; during the recording of this collection, i was learning to understand myself, to embrace that mine has been a very real lived experience of judaism, one spent almost exclusively apart from communities. that distance, from self, others, and tradition, is a defining aspect of the experience, and one that has brought me closer to the universe.
i named this work minyan in honor of the universe, of the dreams, the words, the planets, the fauna, the flora, the ghosts, the smiles and sorrow and hope and dread that make up the holiness of living.
this collection, small as it is, has emptied me once again. here, i have poured myself out so that you might now join me and my memories to celebrate across space and time.
i named this work minyan in honor of you.
Tracklist
| 1. | blush | 0:53 |
| 2. | fever | 0:43 |
| 3. | smoke | 0:43 |
| 4. | the great conjunction | 1:22 |
| 5. | lain in wait | 1:46 |
| 6. | bloom beset by bones | 0:53 |
| 7. | ghost stories | 1:28 |
| 8. | how i dreamed to leave the light on | 1:00 |
| 9. | aggregate | 0:49 |
| 10. | exuberance | 0:56 |
| 11. | ourselves again | 1:03 |
| 12. | i saw the moons of jupiter and wept | 0:54 |
