30 was probably the roughest year of my life, in terms financial and mental. It was one of the best as far as social and - well, bodily - concerns go. Things change.

Some things don't, though. At least I thought they didn't when I started writing this album. Here's the thing: back in 2011, the same year I started this birthday project, I had these four words stuck in my head: Brain, Bone, Blood, Stone. At the time I was regularly visiting the other member of A Truly Blonde Child. I would take a train and hang out for a week. Some days I would go off to see other friends. On days I didn't, I would read and write and then, when she got off work, we would go dancing or see a movie or hangout however made sense.

She was working at the time, so when she left I had a ritual. I would grab a couple donuts and head to Buena Vista park. I'd hike to the top carrying a notebook and a couple novels. I'd find a place that seemed amenable and I'd crack the notebook. Often, I'd draw a blank and choose one of the books. Either way (or mostly both), I would be there for around five hours reading and writing.

At the time I remember filling that notebook with a round of poems all centering around those four words. One of them - a reinterpretation of the story/image of Lot's Wife from the Bible - had a repeated figure in it that I would propose to be the name of our band (it was accepted. Thus the bad band name. Sorry.). Most of them were nothing. That notebook was, I believe, lost when I got mugged back around 2014.

I remember in 2015 I made a short record called Unemotional Christmas that took those words and turned them into instrumentals. The end of my 30th year seemed like a good time to revisit them, to write music and words that recontextualized this list-phrase that had buried itself in my psyche for nearly a decade. I started working, and quickly called on the aforementioned other member to contribute if she wanted. I'm extraordinarily lucky that she did.

Then, a couple songs in, I had the bright idea to actually look at Unemotional Christmas. Turns out, it was a five word list-phrase. And "brain" wasn't in it at all. As of when I recorded that it was: Teeth, Tongue, Blood, Bone, Stone. This sparked some memories. Of the importance of language in that list-phrase, and the metonymized mouth. Of the distinction of bones from bones-exposed-to-air. Of the lack of interest in the mind and its material puppet, the brain.

It turns out that this EP is a reinterpretation of that list-phrase eight years on. Because I'm sticking by my current four words. The critiques and curiousity I had then inform this. So do the things I've thought about since. So the words have changed.

Here are four songs, the first from ATBC in four years, on the occasion of my 31st birthday. I think we made some cool shit here, and of course it's still awkward and kind of cringe-worthy. I hope you enjoy.

-Bee