On September 7, 2022, my 47-year-old sister, Jenni Lynn McWilliams, died after a 2 1/2-year struggle with metastatic breast cancer. Born in New Orleans just like me, she ended up living in south-central Pennsylvania where much of my extended family lives. My dad and I arrived in Pennsylvania just hours after she took her last breaths in my mother’s arms. I spent the next 7 days with my family, planning her funeral, staying in her home with her son and his father, and trying to feel whatever I felt.
One of the things I did every morning was sit down at their little Young Chang upright piano and just play. I started recording my sessions with voice memos on my iPhone; in the afternoons, I started finding noises within each extremely lo-fi recording, and I used those noises to create the textural sounds you hear in each piece: the sound of lying down my phone on the piano bench, my mother laughing three rooms over, me sniffing before I started to play.The first 5 piano pieces I recorded in Pennsylvania. The last 5 I did when I returned to New Orleans following Jenni’s funeral. The 4 songs in this collection are songs I have written about my sister since 2014. “This is Old” appeared on my very first S/T Silver Godling album. This version I arranged and recorded following my sister’s death. “This Could’ve Been You” (the working title that appears in some of the artwork is “Jenni Song”) and “I Can Choose” both appeared as part of my 13 Months subscription series. “Naming Time” was previously unreleased and the first song I wrote about Jenni after her initial diagnosis in 2020. I didn’t realize the extent to which Jenni loved flowers until after she was gone. I brought home with me most of her floral jewelry as well as a carnation from the wreath that surrounded her urn. Even amidst chaos, she loved beauty. For Jenni Lynn McWilliams, forever in my heart. b. September 27, 1974 ~ d. September 7, 2022
My friend, Mitch Wells, directed a video about the album and the fresh grief that went into this therapeutic process. In the video, I talk about my sister, Jenni, as well as the process behind what turned into this unplanned album after her death. The song playing throughout the video is “This is Old (2022)” off of Jenni. You can watch it here.
