Looking Back at Starlight Calling

It’s been a couple of months since I released Starlight Calling, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what this album means to me now that I’ve had some time away from it.

The funny thing is, I never actually planned on making an album. These songs came together over the course of about a year, one at a time, without me really knowing where they were going. It wasn’t until I listened back to everything together that I realized there was a story there.

A lot of the album came from the beginning of my spiritual and self-love journey. I was going through a lot of change and, in a lot of ways, grieving older versions of myself while trying to figure out who I was becoming.

I think that's why the album feels so cohesive to me now. Even though I wasn't consciously writing one story, all of those songs were coming from the same place.

One song in particular, Linear, feels like the key to that whole period of my life. That song came from somewhere really deep in me. It wasn't something I felt like I had to force. It just came out, and looking back, I think it helped shape what the album became.

One of the strangest things about listening to Starlight Calling now is hearing myself talk about certain things as though they would never happen for me. At the time, I believed some of those things were out of reach. Now I get to listen to those songs from a completely different place.

That might be my favorite thing about looking back at old music. You don't always realize how much you've changed until you hear yourself talking about who you used to be.

And probably the most meaningful part of releasing the album has been hearing from people who connected with it. Getting messages from people saying that a song or the album helped them through something is a thing that I won't ever ever take for granted. You make something because you need to express it, and then suddenly someone else finds a piece of themselves in it.

If I could go back to myself while I was making this album, I'd probably just say:

Keep going. This is going to be great.

Frost Blooms

Now I'm moving into something new with my next single, Frost Blooms.

The song is about returning to a past version of yourself, almost like returning to a ghost. Sometimes we go back because there's comfort in what's familiar, even when we know we've already outgrown it.

For me, Frost Blooms is about recognizing that you can't keep returning to that version of yourself if you want to keep moving forward.

The line that probably captures the song best is:

“Why do I keep returning to the ghost I left behind?”

The title comes from that same idea. Something beautiful being overtaken by the cold. I think of it as finally coming out of the cold, only to feel yourself being pulled back into it.

But the song isn't about staying there. It's about getting past it. Getting past the things that happened, the versions of yourself you've outgrown, and eventually learning to love yourself again.

Musically, Frost Blooms is also a pretty big change for me. The production is different, the sound is different, and even the subject matter feels like I'm stepping somewhere new.

The first time I heard the song play all the way through, I knew it was going to mean something. I couldn't completely explain why yet, but I could feel it.

And that's what I'm most excited about with this release: letting people hear a completely different side of ZxP.

I think Frost Blooms is the beginning of me taking more risks, trying new things, and getting out of the old.

I want to look back on this project someday and see it as the starting point of fully expressing everything about myself.

I don't know exactly what that will look like yet.

And honestly, I'm excited about that.

From the clouds,

Zookiee