boundarypush by Wren Dove Lark

"boundarypush" is the first album of a double album which together accumulation of about 4 years worth of hard work and perfectionism-induced anxiety. The concept of the double album was to take the production tricks of the contemporary Christian worship music I experienced in evangelical churches growing up which work to evoke senses of euphoria and spiritual ascension, and reappropriate those sounds into a queer and transgender affirming context using sampling. I ended up writing so many songs which could be categorized into two themes: "navigating transness in public and in the family" and "T4T sex, love, friendship, and community". "boundarypush" represents the former category, and another album "anticipatience," which will come sometime later when certain challenges of mine can be overcome, represents the latter category.

These songs started off very abstract, and my goal was to try to distance my personal life from my music for a bit. But that goal was thwarted when a bunch of crazy stuff happened in my life which caused me to have a lot of traumas/stresses and feelings to process. Some examples: COVID obviously, I came out as a trans woman after years of IDing as nonbinary, I fell out with several family members over that identity bc of their QAnon-sourced groomer beliefs about trans people, I moved into a national park to work an environmental educator job in Tennessee that was really fulfilling but really difficult and overwhelming, there was a really traumatic transphobic incident at that job, Tennessee descended further into fascism and Nazi protests threatened the few queer spaces my friends and I could safely enjoy, I applied to grad school, I got accepted into grad school and had to plan a cross-country to NJ while simultaneously being a broke-ass.

Those crazy things combined with my own internalized shame and perfectionism and self-criticism issues delayed me finishing this album for so long. I had generated some buzz for myself with past releases I had done, and I had given in to the capitalist idea of making my therapeutic pastime into a second full-time job and trying to get BIGGER and BIGGER and build MOMENTUM with each release. This attitude had just one helpful effect though: I got a lot better at production, I believe, especially with using samples. I'm really proud of these songs. I pushed myself to make something of the same quality I would make if I had some kind of financial backing for my music, just with basically no budget.

I'm doing some trauma work in therapy, and I just started on a new anxiety/depression med combo trying to get my mental health under control. And I've just come to the point in that work where I realized that I will keep finding things to tinker with on this album if I look for them, and the only purpose doing that serves is to result in me never releasing it. I can keep letting big aspirations for what I wish I had the capacity to do for rolling out this album get in the way of me actually figuring out a way to release it. Or I can practice the art of letting go and surrendering to imperfection, and finally release this body of work I've been sitting on and pondering for so long.

Every song except one on the main album (and all three bonus tracks) were made by sampling contemporary christian worship music in some capacity. I remember sitting in church as a kid and hearing these crisp reverb-heavy pianos and guitars and anthemic choruses designed to give you goosebumps. I remember those production tricks that made me feel a spirit move within me. I also remember how hard it was for me to grow up as a closeted queer and trans kid with no verbiage to understand or explain myself in that space where I was made to feel like a sinful abomination. I remember physical, emotional, and sexual assaults I received from peers who would bully me and harass me because of their hateful upbringings within homophobic and transphobic churches. It creates this weird split identity in me, these contradictory memories. I realized then that what I wanted was trans-affirming pop music that used these similar production tricks to evoke gender euphoria and/or catharsis in especially trans women who listen to my music. If it has a similar effect on the rest of you, that's great and special too.

I gave details about every song in the "about" section for each song, so if you're curious about what each song is about or want to know the lyrics, just click the song's tab to find those!

Thank you to Chloe, Savan, Hannah, and Joey for your contributions to this album. This body of work would not have been possible without you.

Thank you to Hannah, Joey, Annie, Alex, Sleepy, Mercury, Sophie, Cael, Dominique, Rachael, Tara, my mother, and all my teacher naturalist friends for listening to this music at various stages and giving me feedback. And thank you to every one of my followers here who have followed and supported my music in various ways over the years. I have a number of emails from some of you saying how my music has helped you in some way which I always return to in times of questioning my own worth or my own path. It has been such a blessing to be in community with you all.

When the album is released, I can't wait to know what you all think! <3 As always, I appreciate any purchases but please don't feel pressured. I really appreciate any bandcamp reviews y'all are willing to give it, and I enjoy getting messages letting me know what songs you liked! :)

All the best to everyone.

Free Palestine! 🇵🇸

With love,
Wren

I'm Wren (she/her). I write weird pop music for trans girls to cathartically cry to. If others get something from my music, that's awesome too. :)

Free Palestine 🇵🇸