Rostam has released another teaser from his upcoming new album, ‘Changephobia’.
Set for release on 4th June, it follows-up on debut album ‘Half-Light’ and features the previously-released ‘These Kids We Knew’, ‘Unfold You’ and ‘4Runner’.
He says: “‘Changephobia’ was one of the last songs I finished writing for this album. The chorus came to me sitting at the piano in my living room; I spent weeks picking up and putting down ideas for the verses. One day I sat down with an acoustic guitar, feeling close to giving up on the song altogether: all of a sudden a new melody, a new feeling, and new words came out of me and I felt like I could be honest with myself about what I wanted to say. The song ‘Changephobia’ is partly about something we can all be guilty of, avoiding our own feelings. I think of it as a reminder not to.”
Give the album’s title-track a listen below.
Produced by Rostam over the last three years, he explains of the record’s title: “A few years ago I met a stranger on a park bench, somehow I found myself opening up to him; revealing recent changes in my life that had altered its course, and he said, “Change is good. Go with it.” I realized that I had never heard that sentiment expressed before.
“Transphobia, biphobia, homophobia— these words hold a weight of threat, and it occurred to me that the threats they bare— the fears they describe— are rooted in a fear of change: a fear of the unknown, of a future that is not yet familiar, one in which there is a change of traditions, definitions, and distributions of power.
“So gender, too, was on my mind while creating this album, as I came to find myself writing about love and connection but not wanting to place relationships in a gendered context.
“This collection of songs is not celebrating a fear of change. Rather, it’s the opposite. It’s about who we are capable of becoming if we recognize these fears in ourselves and rise above them.”
You can read our recent in the studio chat with Rostam here.
The tracklisting to ‘Changephobia’ reads:
- These Kids We Knew
- From the Back of a Cab
- Unfold You
- 4Runner
- Changephobia
- Kinney
- Bio18
- [interlude]
- To Communicate
- Next Thing
- Starlight
