grapefruit meditation by maví lou

paris, june 14, 2024

on may 29, 2019, i was driving home to nashville, tn from a dove & the wolf tour that ended in nyc. i must have been listening to an inspiring radio show on the drive, i can’t really remember but i decided that to keep the inevitable post-tour blues at bay, i was going write a song a day until my birthday. so i got home, and did exactly that. the rule was to write something new each day, record a simple demo before going to sleep and just let it be. on june 14th, i wrote the last song of that session and left for tour again.
a few months later, i selected 6 songs from this session and showed them to my friend thad : we took the original tracks from the demos and started working off of those instead of rerecording the songs from scratch. this process allowed us to preserve a form of authenticity that is rare and often hard to capture when recording music.
the vocals for « fading » that you hear on this record are the original vocals i tracked alone in my bedroom late at night, moments after i finished writing the song. i remember trying to be as quiet as possible so i wouldn’t wake up my housemates. « fading » was the first song i wrote during this session, and the first song i ever wrote as a solo artist, so it's a pretty special thing!
i’m not sure i remember what language i was speaking, but love was at the center of it.

so thank you thad, i could not have dreamt of a better musical partner to begin this new journey with. making this record with you was the most fun and incredibly freeing.

thank you to all my friends and stellar musicians involved in the making of this record, for the time and love you gave it, i couldn’t have done it without you.

thank you to brother the dog, annali, brennan and brooke at the sunnymeade house, who were the first to hear these songs, for being the best housemates, and to scott for being my eyes when i couldn’t see.

thank you to brett, for making my visual dreams come true, you have the kindest and softest eye - to pierre for treating my songs with such care and playing them with me on stage - to paloma, ma soeur without whom i could not have possibly gone this far - to liza whose friendship has fueled my creativity and heart in so many ways - to fiona for always finding the right words - to giordano for making me fall in love with music all over again, each day - to my family for believing in me and keeping me grounded - and to you, for reading all this and for supporting independent music.

a move across the ocean, a couple grey hairs, a year and a global pandemic later, my « grapefruit meditation » is yours.

love,
mavi lou

grapefruitmeditation.com
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