Hiemal by Alison O'Reilly

I’m finally releasing a tape I had plans to release exactly 10 years ago! It was made almost exclusively on my Tascam Portastudio 4 track cassette recorder, with a bit of Audacity mixing and editing. All the vocals were iPhone 3 voice memos. The ‘Hiemal’ recordings make me feel complicated feelings, the tracks were left pretty unfinished and I have no desire now to add anything to it, I wanted to preserve the way it sounded back then. But I’m learning not to feel ashamed of things I made and share them even if they aren’t perfect and I feel vulnerable. Eep!

Looking back on that time as well is really hard, and I see it as a remarkable thing that I made music at all. On one hand, it was a really fruitful time of discovering new and unusual music that inspired me to experiment with sounds. On the other hand I was beginning to struggle with what became quite severe mental health problems, and I was trying desperately to escape my abuser, and come to terms with what I had gone through. I would try to grasp onto any independence that I could find. I didn’t really feel like I had any support or that anyone understood what I was going through. I tried to collaborate on music with other people that just exploited me. In the years after I made these songs, I didn’t make music again for years because I was too depressed and traumatised. I eventually sold my Yamaha CP-30, which I am still sad about, but it lives forever in ‘Cold Blue’!

I am finally making music again, I’m still weird and nervous about sharing it, but it’s the most important thing to me so I’ll just keep trying until I die I guess. I want music to always be present in my life, I want to feel like my voice has value! Not to be dramatic but I think it’s crucial to do things you love and be creative even if the world only wants you to eat shit and do shit jobs that you hate!

A big mihi to Ru for helping me to mix and master the songs faithfully to the condition they were originally in, in all their janky glory. Also for the emotional support and caring enough about something so small but formative for me :) Also shoutout to Hannah for lending me your Casiotone all those years ago! ❤️

The lost Hiemal tapes finally have their chance to be heard. I hope you cherish and celebrate every small thing you make.

"I made myself a vessel. I know its shape. But not the clay. Life danced me. I know the dances.
But I don't know who the dancer is."

- Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu

Lo-Fi tapes from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa.

Chains by Daily Secretion.