Rainbow Rodeo says my new album "shines a powerful light," Invisible Disabilities Week, my new fav Surinamese DJ

Hey folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes! Read online here.

Rainbow Rodeo says my new album "shines a powerful light"

Rachel Cholst of Rainbow Rodeo gave my album such a thoughtful a review, and her own insights gave me pause.

The album's first half evokes a fucked up 1980s, a reminder that the past we may have wished to bury with Reaganism is rearing its head, stronger than ever. These forces culminate in "God Help Us If the Christians Ever Rule," with Jessurun's alienating cosmic background of electronica clashing with their human cry.

The Tower of Babel Falls is out now. CDs also just arrived in the mail! (So I may be shipping them out sooner than expected.) Buy CD or digital here.

Invisible Disabilities Week

Invisible Disabilities Week draws to a close. For the last few years I've been dealing with an undiagnosed (not for lack of trying) chronic illness that looks a lot like long-COVID, fibromyalgia, and ME/CFS. Today, what I wish others understood about my chronic illness is this:

The naive hope that there is a miracle cure is often one that is steeped in ableism. We would not need to place so much burden on the hope for miracle cures if we instead just created a society that simply accommodates disabled people. I would have a much easier time being chronically ill if society weren't predisposed to sideline me for being ill.

Keep caring for each other, especially in this age and country where illness, physical and mental, has become politicized and demonized.

My new fav Surinamese DJ

I've written you previously about exploring my Surinamese heritage through music. We've got a lot of great DJs! My Opa used to say about dance music, specifically Caribbean dance music, "It's in your blood!"

Enjoy the hip-hop, downtempo, deep house stylings of DJ Sun. I recommend his track "Sensation" (which features a spoken word sample from a classic Surinamese soul record, I just don't remember which).

In the future, I'd like to create a mix of some of my fav Surinamese tracks. Lmk if that sounds interesting to you. :)

Peace,
Arend

Listen to my music

Make a record with me

Take lessons with me