The Saga of my Debut Album, Chapter 3
Each week in the lead-up to my album release, I am sharing a chapter of its story.
To mark the upcoming release of my debut album All Those Things I Thought I Knew, I have delved into my memories and old diaries to share the story behind the six-year writing and recording process.
Chapter three covers the period of Autumn 2019 to March 2020. If you enjoy any of this, please consider subscribing to the newsletter so you can be the first to know about new music and announcements.
Read chapter 1
Read chapter 2
TW: in this chapter there is some description of mental ill health and the overall tone is a little darker.
Adjusting again
I’d never been to Manchester before. It seemed to tower over me in every direction, its seemingly endless office and apartment blocks closing in on me. There was an energy to the place that I simultaneously enjoyed and felt suffocated by.
It was October, and I was in the middle of my mini autumn tour, which had been something I was really looking forward to. Since quitting my job, I had been determined to utilise every moment of my new-found time in order to finally get my music career off the ground, and had been massively overdoing it without quite realising.
This is a pattern I have noticed over time that I seem to repeat over and over, no matter how hard I try.
First, I notice that I am having a ‘good‘ day, physically and mentally. I start brimming with ideas. I am excited and enthusiastic, setting myself grand tasks (sometimes more than one simultaneously), and I find myself working obsessively and finding it hard to choose a moment to stop. My brain doesn’t realise that I am overdoing it, but eventually my body catches up. I have an M.E. crash, and the combination of stress and tiredness also triggers my OCD, all of which forces me to stop working and rest for a while, feeling like a shadow of myself. I sometimes have to rethink or cancel some of the plans I made when I was feeling ok, then I recover a bit, and feel a need to make the most of what could be a small window of good health. The cycle begins again.
That night in Manchester, I was at the bad end of the cycle. I had played as a support act for a punk band (and not for the first time, might I add) and the venue and people had been lovely to me.
It was only when back at the hotel, trying to get to sleep, that the feeling began to hit me. I started to hyper-fixate on my breathing, fearing I was going to have a panic attack. Everything I seemed to try to calm myself down only worked for a few seconds, before I would notice the feeling again and my anxiety would rise once more. I felt trapped in the room, trapped in Manchester beneath all of those high-rise buildings and trapped in my own mind. And worst of all, I didn’t exactly know why, so I didn’t feel as though I could do anything to fix it.
For days when I got back, I felt unable to function. I had to stop working, because once I thought of anything beyond the very next thing I had to do, the feeling would return. The only thing that seemed to help was sitting on my bedroom floor listening to music. I was so confused and frustrated. I understood why I had struggled upon leaving work, but I thought by now I had found a balance and begun to embrace my new life. I couldn’t believe I was this unwell again.
A few weeks later, I was due to perform again in Nottingham. I barely felt up to it, but I knew I had to carry on with the things I enjoyed and not let the experience beat me. Although the wait to get onstage and go home afterwards felt agonising, I had a good show. A photographer at that gig captured a photo of me on stage that has become one of my favourites. To me, it encapsulates what performing does for me and how empowered it makes me feel. For those few minutes, I wasn’t scared. I never am when writing music, singing or performing it. Perhaps that is why, despite all of its downsides, I continue pushing on with my music career. As emzae I can embody my inner confidence, self-expression and determination.
(Photo credit: Andrea Bottino)
By Christmas, I had arranged an appointment with the same doctor who first put me on Sertraline. I had always felt that I could have done with being on a higher dose in the first place, but as the years had passed by I’d never got round to it. Starting, stopping or changing mental health medication often takes months out of your year which you basically have to write off as time to spend resting and riding out side effects.
I was due to see the doctor in early January, with a gig booked in for a few days before. After playing what I had thought was a good set, the sound engineer came over to speak to me. I expected him to politely tell me I’d done a good job, as he would probably say to every act, or maybe make a small remark about the sound. Instead, he started asking me if I’d heard of various technical mixing terms, then told me to get in touch with him as he could make my music sound professional. In my already shaky state, it really upset me. I am still insecure to this day about my lack of formal musical education, and one of the main reasons for this is sadly the tricky environment that still exists within the music industry for female musicians right from a grass roots level. I have long felt as though I am never considered ‘enough’ as I am. I am presumed to continuously be at the start of my journey, looking for tips or collaborators to enhance my offering. I have been encouraged more times than I could count to hire a professional mixing engineer or producer, rather than to stick at it with something that I enjoy doing myself. My artistic or stylistic production choices are sometimes even interpreted as rookie errors. I have no problem with receiving advice, but I prefer it when it comes from a well-meaning place rather than one tinged with multiple types of ‘isms’.
The experience sunk me into a deeper sadness, which continued as I began to take the increased dosage of my medication.
I started a short diary as a way to keep track of my side effects and provide me with the motivation to stick it out.
Day 12
Still finding it hard to think and talk properly. My mind just wants to space out. Feel down and despondent about the future. Feels like everything is downhill from here and there’s no hope - everything revealing itself to be some pipe dream. Feels like I’m trying to carry on as normal but things are falling apart. Trying to have hope.
On day 18, I was due to play Beat the Streets festival. I had now seen the sound engineer’s comments for what they really were - an ill-timed sales pitch - but my confidence as an artist was still pretty low. On top of that, I felt as though I could barely be bothered to muster up a coherent conversation with anyone, and remembering my set felt like wading through brain treacle. That day, I stared blankly out at the audience, just trying my best to get through it. It wasn’t good, but at least I wasn’t overcome with anxiety. My biggest concern was still being able to be nice and friendly, and thank all of the people whose kindness deserved thanks. I hated the idea of anyone getting the wrong impression of me for reasons I couldn’t control.
Luckily, all seemed to go well and no one seemed to notice.
(Photo credit: Nigel King)
I tried to keep getting up to work each day as normal - albeit on a slightly reduced schedule - and set about putting the finishing touches on my next single “Waste Our Time”, which was due to be released on 7th February.
Unfortunately, the medication had by this time moved on to a new phase of sending my OCD into overdrive, which meant every couple of days I would have what I personally refer to as an ‘episode’. An episode, to me, is an occasion when a trigger occurs, but due to factors such as stress or tiredness, you are unable to respond to it correctly or identify it as insignificant or false. Therefore, the angles you take to try make things ‘better’ actually make things worse and worse, until you spiral into a feeling of despair (I also get a burning sensation in my head) in which you completely shut down. They can take anything from a day to several weeks to heal from , during which it feels as though you have some sort of ‘brain flu’.
One of these such occasions occurred right on the evening before “Waste our Time” was due to be released. I tried my best to continue as planned with the roll-out, but it was a case of working on autopilot.
The truth is all I really wanted to do at that point was quit the music industry, erase everything I had ever made and pretend that emzae never happened. I went over and over how I could make that possible in my head for a good few weeks, but kept forcing myself to continue with the reassurance that the feeling would pass.
As mentions of a new virus called COVID-19 started ramping up in the news, I was mainly spending my time playing on SSX 3 on ps2 and listening to “Never Ever” by All Saints on a loop.
To be continued.
You're performance at Beat The Streets was exact, a stand out performance.
What an amazing woman you are