pain of the fool is out. updates and more

hello hello. read on.

growing older with this project has been challenging and sometimes invigorating. i wonder about how to connect my different eras or be kind to them. i think bitter camari is separate from me but it follows me; we are on parallel paths.

i’ve lately felt the need to withdraw and look at her with more detail. is she doing what i need her to do? for me? am i asking the right questions? giving her the challenges she needs to grow?

so i’ve withdrawn. bandcamp is a nice platform but all of my new releases will up here, on my website. i may put some of my old work up there but it will be more expensive than if you bought them from here and without any additional trinkets or gifts i might send you with your purchase. i want to show more sides of this project than only the music and lyrics. i haven’t gotten to really explore those.

i want a more precise project, something i can walk myself through like a mind map. “my bed goes here. this is my cup.” and so on.

i want it to feel good; more sensory information, more worldly and tactile.

i wrote all of that above before I finished ‘pain of the fool’. this is me writing now about 3 weeks after its release. it is a hot summer day in Portland. i am locked away inside my apartment, not really looking at my phone but aware that my loved ones are reaching out to me and saying nice things. i sometimes come to bitter camari when i want to step away from my life or try better to understand it. now is both of those times.

i feel very good about pain of the fool. it feels like my most calculated and mature record yet, musically. i really spent a lot of time making sure the composition, arrangement, and mixing was as good as i could get it before releasing it. i don’t usually do that. i like to move fast so that i can explore a lot of different sounds and ideas and then later come back and sift through what i created. but i think i’m coming to a point with this project that i want more from myself.

i really want to take bitter camari on tour. i stayed in new york for a bit last year and got to perform for audiences there. the reaction was not what i was expecting. some people really loved it. some rooms were completely silent after trans supremacy. i guess that is to be expected. but i remember being confused and a bit hurt then. i want to know more, though. how could i grow and who could i meet?

i also want to do more digital artwork. i’ve mostly done all of the covers for my albums, and i think they are nice, but i want to be in galleries. i want to paint scenes. visual work can sometimes tell different stories than sound can. i wonder how my work would be received in the caribbean.

i’d like to take bitter camari outside of hip hop more, too. maybe you will someday hear a bachata album. or an ambient one. or an ambient bachata album. i’m thinking.

anyways, thanks for reading. i’m going to release a deluxe version of pain of the fool i think. and then onto something different!

P.S. the bandcamp is no more. if you purchased an album, you should still have access to download copies of them. if you don’t, email me at bittercamari@gmail.com and i will send them to you.

love