Music is always about the past. In 2013, I realized I had to write an album so my future selves could remember who I was in the past.

I decided to compose one piece of music a year. Every year. These 9 compositions took me 9 years to write. They express what I felt when I wrote them. And they serve as a portal for me to connect to my past.

These songs are my home.


2013 August

August was the first “serious” composition I ever wrote. I was hungry to prove to the world that I was a “real” musician. Whenever I listen to this composition, I am filled with intense nostalgia. A deep longing for the feelings, the emotions, and the atmosphere of my youth.

2014 Oak

2014’s composition is centered around a feeling of longing for my native village. There is a riverbank with a large oak tree beside it there. That spot is incredibly dear to me. If I was asked to name the most beautiful place on the planet, I would choose that riverbank. In this composition, I tried to portray it and the feeling of nostalgia for the carefree summers I had spent in the village.

2015 Misa

One of my favorite writers is Haruki Murakami. In this piece, I wanted to convey the atmosphere of one of his novels, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Year of Pilgrimage. One of the ideas presented in that novel influenced me a lot. It’s the idea of every person having a place to return to. For me, it’s the river Misa. It’s a place I can always return to when life gets overwhelming. When I composed this piece, I wanted to capture the river’s sounds and the songs of the birds that lived there.

2016 Sun

The sun is a symbol of infinity in Latvian culture. Every day starts with a sunrise. And it ends with a sunset. Likewise, this composition symbolizes the end of one chapter and the start of the next. Every day something new happens. Development. Eternity that brings with it complexity and development.

2017 Moon

Once the sun sets, the moon comes out to shine. But the two can never meet. So the moon is always cold and quiet. This composition is a natural development of the ideas that I started working with in 2016.

Ai, Saulīte, Mēnestiņi,
Kā jūs skaisti mijaties!
Kur dieniņu Saule tek,
Naktī teka Mēnestiņš
.
Kas to teica, kas meloja,
Ka Saulīte nakti guļ.
Vai Saulīte tur uzlēca,
Kur vakaru norietēj'.

Dienu loka zaļas birzis,
Naktī jūras ūdentiņ'.

2018 One

This song marked a new stage of my life. I had just started studying at the Latvian Academy of Music. I spent a lot of time being alone. And being happy. This song conveys the feeling of accepting yourself as the person you are. The feeling of dancing alone in your room and not caring if anyone sees you.


2019 Hear the Wind Sing

That happiness was not long-lived. The grind began to get to me in 2019. Latvia is a land where you hide your emotions because you’re afraid of what other people might think. You don’t call things what they are. You don’t speak out of line. You just do what you are told. And I began to hate that. Named after Haruki Murakami’s first novel, it symbolized my resolution to forge my own path in life.

2020 Breath

Then COVID happened. The lockdown was a bittersweet period for me. On the one hand, I desperately wanted to play live again. On the other hand, I could read more books than ever before. And I had more time to compose new music. Breath is a song about dark times with light on the horizon. Later on, I wanted to rename this composition To Live, but first thought is best thought.

2021 Last Life in the Universe

This song ends not only this album. It also ends a chapter of my life. It is about the pain and loneliness of one-sided love. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but this album will always help me remember who I was.