Releasing my album, in a physical and emotional sense…

It’s been a good while since my last blog post and believe me: it’s not that I haven’t had anything to share. Life simply got in the way. In fact, 2018 has been anything but boring so far with Mardi Gras in New Orleans, visits from family, going to Las Vegas for a personal development and leadership course at ChoiceCenter, and, only yesterday, rereleasing my Joni Mitchell tribute, ‘The Quiet of Knowing: Joni Mitchell Unknown’.

This album was recorded back in 2015 with two equally passionate Joni Mitchell aficionados: producer, recording engineer, and guitarist, Dave Blackburn, and keyboardist, Barnaby Finch. It was a labor of love; while in the studio, it felt as if the songs were just pouring out of us… it was quite magical. However, following the recording, I felt a lot of anxiety about releasing it. My perfectionist self was feeling that the music wasn’t quite there, so I shelved it for over two years (gulp!). Until one day I came to the realization that it makes no sense to aim for perfection in music (or other creative endeavors for that matter), as the spirit of the music will suffer from it. Also, I realized that if I didn’t release this album, all the energy invested in it would never get freed up. So in October of last year, I decided to finally share the album with the outside world. And yesterday, I released an updated version of the album with fresh, gorgeous mixes of all songs. I can now say that I’m really, really proud of this album as well as grateful for all the hard work that Dave put into it making the music shine. I now feel super excited to be sharing it! You can listen to clips of the songs and purchase the album here.

‘The Quiet of Knowing: Joni Mitchell Unknown’ indeed consists of all ‘unknown songs’, songs that were written by Joni Mitchell in between 1964 and 1967 (except for the song, Hunter, which was written in 1969), but which didn’t make the cut for Joni’s first release, Song to a Seagull, in 1968. Writer and website contributor on JoniMitchell.com, Mark Scott, has written a beautiful review on the website. Here is a short excerpt from that review:

“Christina Friis’s voice is not a knock off of Mitchell’s but it does have a quality that fits very neatly into these songs. She takes full advantage of the emotional shadings that the music evokes and brings out the fullest depth that the lyrics contain. Christina Friis performs the rare trick of leaving the mark of her own unique interpretations on Joni Mitchell’s songs while remaining true to Mitchell’s spirit and vision.” ~Marc Scott, JoniMitchell.com

If you’re interested in reading the full review, a brilliant, moving, and hugely captivating reading experience, I invite you to do so. I promise you won’t get bored if you’re even just slightly interested in Joni Mitchell’s music.

In my next blog post, I’m going to share with you some of the discoveries I’ve made at the personal development and leadership course at ChoiceCenter in Las Vegas, which I also mentioned in the beginning of this post. The course is happening all throughout this Spring and this coming weekend, I’m going back for my second weekend of the training. For now, let me just say that I’m learning SO much about myself and the world around me, knowledge that is coming from from unearthing my hidden beliefs and realizing that I actually, I can do ANYTHING I set my mind and HEART to. It is truly powerful stuff and I’m feeling crazy excited about it so far. I’m just gonna leave you with that little teaser for now 😛

Until then, I hope this Spring (or Fall, if you’re on the Southern hemisphere) will bring you many moments of fun, sweetness, and learning.

Thank you for reading,

xo ~ c