Tara Jane O'Neil Shares "Curling" - Ghettoblaster Magazine

Acclaimed musician/multi-instrumentalist/visual artist Tara Jane O’Neal (Rodan, Retsin, The Sonora Pine) just shared the new single “Curling.” The single is off the newly announced album The Cool Cloud of Okayness (Orindal Records) which will be released April 26, 2024. This will be O’Neal’s ninth full-length release.

The Cool Cloud of Okayness sings sometimes like a promise, sometimes like a mantra. It says “We are bright, like the fire. Joy too can be a way of fighting.” In the persistent rhythms, every repetition feels like a challenge. How many times around the sun? What changes every time? How much loss can someone take? Grief becomes a feedback loop that drones on and on, yet if we listen closely one can almost hear the hope sprouting up, little seedlings pushing through the mud. The Cool Cloud of Okayness is both a celebration and a requiem, it transforms grief, it carries a torch, and the torch is bright.

“’Curling’ began as a bass figure, discovered on one of many afternoons in a desert studio inside the first year of the pandemic. Jmy Kidd and I spent the time there keeping our public practices of dance and music going but in private chambers of improvised realities. Most of the music on The Cool Cloud Of Okayness started in this way and then found fuller shape with time, intention, and Sheridan Riley on drums and Walt McClements on his effected accordion. Like mantra, propulsion, persuasion, ‘Curling’ is a repetitive drone piece, rendered as a lively jam.

Lyrically this became a portrait of a shapeshifter- transforming, transfiguring, evolving and surviving. With an eye toward the queer kids coming up in my hometown during this era of legislative oppression against inclusion, expression, and safety.

To quote another song from the record, ‘joy is a form of fight, We bright’

One step more, forward.”

– Tara Jane O’Neil