Hometown Hero #14: The One Year Anniversary of IOAH
Photo by Wrenne Evans
You can find the record here.
Full credits (cause I’ll be referring to a whole bunch of names):
All songs written by Sofia Wolfson besides "Wannabe," written by Sofia Wolfson, Kane Ritchotte, and Malcolm McRae
Tracks 3-7 produced by Gabe Wax
Tracks 1, 2, and 8 produced by Kane Ritchotte and Malcolm McRae
Track 9 produced by Evan Vidar
Track 10 produced by Sofia Wolfson
Drums: Jorge Balbi, Kane Ritchotte
Guitar: Meg Duffy, Joseph Lorge, Harrison Whitford, Mason Stoops
Bass: Gabe Wax, Kane Ritchotte
Keys: Evan Vidar, Taylor Mackall
Bgvs: Joey Ryan, Malcolm McRae, Charlie Hickey
Engineered by: Will Maclellan, Gabe Wax, Kane Ritchotte
Mixed by: Omar Akrouche (besides Track 6, mixed by Gabe Wax)
Mastered by: Ruairi O’Flaherty at Nomograph Mastering
Photos by: Wrenne Evans
A year ago today, I put out a record called Imposing on a Hometown. According to the internet, it is my debut. I see it more as the third album, following a record I put out when I was 16, and an EP, Adulting, which felt more like a complete whole to me than a brief project.
But in a lot of ways, IOAH is full of firsts.
IOAH was a record I started writing in 2018 and recording in 2020. When I began making it, I didn’t know it was a record. It was just the song “Donuts,” and then the song “Wannabe,” which, at the time, felt like they lived in completely different sonic and lyrical worlds. It would eventually take the rest of the record for me to understand the bridges between the songs.
IOAH began in Kane’s parents’ garage, where we laid the original tracks for “Donuts” and “Wannabe.” When the world opened back up again, Kane, Malcolm and I finished the songs at Sound City. Actually, the very first thing we did when we got to Sound City was cut “Hometown Hero” in a matter of hours. I had known when I wrote it that it would be an album opener, even before I could picture the rest of the album. The recording of “Hometown Hero” happened surprisingly quickly, as if all the sounds we wanted were already there, under the surface, waiting to emerge.
Hearing my songs through Sound City monitors was the highest I had ever felt about music since I started recording and performing at 14. But highs are unsustainable; highs are often coupled with inevitable crashes. After we completed the three songs, I lost track of myself and what I was trying to achieve creatively (which I’ve written about before in this comically long caption).
Although I had told everyone I was making a record, the record itself disappeared before me. Too far into a self-loathing spiral, I couldn’t imagine asking friends for recording help, so the music making went on pause. I graduated from college. I began teaching and tutoring.
And then I got this unexpected call to work at Old Style Guitar Shop.
Working in a musical space that was so formative for me as a teenager (one memory: I went to see Mike Viola and Larry Goldings perform the night before my junior prom) was what eventually led me back to the record, even if the route seemed circuitous. What healed me about working at Old Style was that I was able to return to music as music (as trivial as that sounds), watching friends and artists I admire connect with the instruments in the shop. Too afraid of the whole career aspect of everything — and now, I understand that this makes sense, that my depression coincided with graduating college and everyone asking me what are you gonna do now? — I had forgotten that it was about the songs themselves.
It took me two years to return to making IOAH. It wasn’t just time; it was medication too, something I had been afraid of my whole life. I’m the type that believes I can outsmart any situation, that I can yoga, meditate, sober, read, talk, think my way out of a problem. But I recognize now that is asking way too much of oneself, especially when the brain is chemically imbalanced.
So that is how I ended up in Gabe’s garage in December 2022, mostly excited and slightly terrified. I had built this narrative up that I had entirely lost my ability to be in the studio. My brain had done ridiculous gymnastics trying to convince myself I wasn’t worthy of record-making, that everyone thought I was terrible at my job and wasn’t telling me. But the medication took the panicked veil off and made me see my life more clearly. Trying to anticipate others’ silent opinions wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
Gabe and I made “From Up Here” in one day, just the two of us, trading off instruments. It was the first time I played all the guitars on a song, even the lead parts, which I’d been too afraid to try before. Gabe has this fantastic ability to make artists feel completely at home, to let us try anything without judgment. He kept saying, It’s just music after all, which gave a certain lightness to the environment I didn’t know I needed.
“From Up Here” immediately felt right, so a couple months later, I went back in to do: “Fine,” “View,” “Half Heart,” and “New Year’s Eve.” Although Gabe and I had used cut up and spliced drum loops for “From Up Here” (I was insistent on that math-y moment at the end), we brought in Jorge for the rest of the songs, who had played drums on Adulting. Meg came in for a day to play guitar, which was a full circle moment for me. When I was 16, I was moonlighting as a photographer for my journalist mom at Outside Lands and I came across Kevin Morby on a smaller stage. Meg was on lead and I was transfixed. Although I had been playing guitar for a decade already, I had this overwhelming feeling watching them that I was discovering my love for the instrument all over again.
The final piece of the IOAH puzzle also happens to be the last two songs of the record, but perhaps that’s not as coincidental as I think it is. Ultimately, the album tells a narrative, whether I fully intended that or not, and my inclination towards narrative structure relates to my love for fiction writing. “IJWBWY” (“I just wanna be with you”) was a song I wrote during that dark period, which I strangely feel I don’t have any access to now. I was so far away from myself. I would go on to record it with Evan, who had the idea to bring in Joey as a duet partner. Harry added the insane layered guitars and finishing touches. Harry’s one of those friends who instantly gets it without me having to explain myself. In fact, I’m writing this right before heading back home to make my next record with Harry. I guess I’m terrible at keeping secrets.
I always knew “History” would be a solo song, and although I wrote it on guitar, something didn’t totally feel 100% right about the tone. I asked Taylor to record himself playing felt piano at home and he sent back the track in, I kid you not, 15 minutes. The feel was perfect, the exact texture I was looking for. I recorded the vocals for “History” (and for most of the BGVs on the album) in my Los Feliz closet on a hot summer afternoon, wrapped in dissonant winter coats.
And that’s when I knew it was done.
But what I was left with were ten songs from four completely different environments. Gabe recommended Omar to mix, who truly is the hero of this record. Omar and I talked extensively about my mix goals, references, and how to piece together this thing. What initially felt like a disparate project, Omar gently wrangled into a cohesive whole.
It wasn’t until I heard the album in sequence in Omar’s studio that I understood its wholeness. Although I hadn’t initially sensed the thread between individual songs, I now understood the creative thesis across the mychorhizzal network under the thing itself. The songs had all come out of a period of my life where I’d moved back home after living in Boston, and although the return was intended to cure me, I’d never felt farther from myself. I’d had a sort of break-up (pretty apparent throughout the songs), as well as a falling out with a mentor, both of which led me to believe I was completely out of place in my hometown. Hopper’s “Soir Bleu” has been with me since I was a kid, and suddenly I couldn’t stop picturing the clown at the table, so obviously incongruous against the landscape. As much as I have tried in the past to superimpose themes during a creative process, it was in this moment, hearing the album sequenced, that I understood the importance of letting the meaning emerge from the work itself.
So that’s the long tale of how we got here. I learned a lot about the ways I work best and how I want to make this next one, which we’re starting Monday. I learned that I have the tools to produce myself, that the narrative of my supposed incapability is childish and outdated. Some of my favorite moments on IOAH are strange little choices I made, and I’m trying to get better at saying that out loud.
I was going to tell you about what happened after the album was completed and before it was released, how no label wanted it because I wasn’t dancing on Tik Tok, because I didn’t have streams, but I don’t find that memory path relevant to the story of IOAH and what it became. I am not responsible for this iteration of the music industry, nor can I change it. All I can do is find my own way to relate this project, which has changed over time, especially now that I’ve approached the one year anniversary.
I could focus on what I perceive as losses, or I can reattune myself to all IOAH has given to me, has taught me. And that’s a way more buddhist approach to a reflective piece of writing. I’ve gotten to play some of my favorite shows, headlining and supporting artists who heard the record, performed songs on English radio, became a sideman. The album made some best of lists, including The Line of Best Fit, New Commute and Cosmopolitan without any PR team, etc. But most of all, it’s been a year of hearing how the songs have resonated with people, which is so much more of a gift than any Spotify playlist/numbers game. Every time someone tells me how they relate to a song, I am reminded why I still do this, 12 years in.
Thank you for listening to this record I never thought would get finished, then never thought would get released. Thank you to everyone who helped bring it sonically and visually to life.