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Group Rhoda reflects on her latest album Phase 5:
Last month I released an album which took some time, because of the care I wanted to commit to it.
This work started from a place of confusion. I had lost my voice due to lack of practice, grief and a desire to not add to the noise of external projections.
I did not want to start with arbitrarily making sounds. I journaled a bit and then explored sounds that felt relational to the possibilities of an elemental framework, drawing influence from Wuxing (a core Chinese concept describing dynamic, interdependent elemental energy cycles). I was seeking a structure that allowed openness, without moving into a total void, in an attempt to recover and explore myself .
I have countless thoughts and ideas about musical processes. Day to day busyness often keeps this kind of introspection and development only dimly flickering in the background.
I first workshopped this material at the Katabatik Konclave in 2023, alongside my peers. I then refined and shaped it further.
Listening back, I hear things I love, I hear things I would change. It doesn’t really matter because I understand that the objective is self-cultivation. It reflects outward, so I can free myself to consider what might come next, and hope to inspire others to do anything of interest not typically expected of them.
The small acts of support from others means a great deal to me. External validation, showmanship, branding, pretending to be something within the visual centric framework we’ve been edged into seems fickle, or maybe I’m not meant for it. Nonetheless, if I needed to throw down on stage or in a parking lot and test my skill, I could.
It’s been a long path with many peaks and valleys. I learn each time and know that if something is hard it means I’m growing.
I was, and still am deeply inspired by the Bay Area music scenes - the interconnectedness, the solo artists that took chances, the wild women who were open to share their inner worlds, and so much more. The direct and indirect influences permeate into my own expression. I don’t think I fully understood how special certain aspects of those environments were until much of it was further out of reach.
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