We did these songs as an attempt to update them to reflect what they really sound like. Though we love our old, strange recordings from the basement of the Y, the truth is that we made them before we really started performing regularly as a band, and so we ended up with a great deal of distance between the experience of our live shows and the sound on our record.

When we went out to record with Karen, I knew that I wanted to make an attempt to show what these songs really sound like five years down the line. She understood us and the songs beautifully, and Loss, Angeles was born. I’m proud to say that these songs are no longer my best, but they definitely were at the time, so I’m very happy to give them the shine they deserve with these recordings.

At the time I wrote these songs, I was grappling with the many dimensions of strong infatuation. Can you trust those feelings? Can you trust the person you feel them for? Love and doubt went to intractable war in my mind, creating paralysis. I was constantly stuck at a fork in the road, determined to stick it out in unfulfilling relationships, denying and distrusting my true desires, and holding candles for people who were physically, spiritually, or emotionally very very far away.

The love I felt overpowered everything except my fear. I defined myself by my desires, but I never acted on them. I carved a house into a pillar of salt.

I am a more decisive, more motivated person than I was then. I mythologize less and consider more. The love I feel is for people, not ideas. Sometimes I worry now that I have too little love for ideas. But ultimately, my friends, an idea cannot love you back. Though they are unpredictable, unreadable, and too beautiful to gaze upon for long, you must love real people if you ever want to be loved yourself.