What happens when the joy of creating something new crowds out the fear of everything else? Enter Octopus. The Octopus project includes songs written and recorded across the last 6 years. Moments of bliss and loss have inspired the lyrics, while other records were built upon a shred of beauty found in a place, a moment or an idea, either real or imagined. Just as an octopus is a versatile and complicated creature, the Octopus project has been a joyful experiment in creativity and collaboration with other artists and a myriad of musical styles. The album’s songs range from folk to pop with sounds inspired by performers as diverse as Loreena McKennitt, Coldplay, Halsey, Masked Wolf, Jackson Dean and Beyonce. While Octopus has been a grounding exploration of self, the album wasn’t engineered to be a shadowy unfurling of my songwriter’s authentic voice. It simply – gently, slowly, sweetly – through time and testing, unfurled its arms and was born. As to its interpretation, the whole point of art is to leave the answers up to you. What I will share is that from my view, imagination is the most provocative muse. And music absorbed with a bent toward fantasy and introspection lands softer than on the literal ear.

At its soft and squishy core, the Octopus project is all for fun.