Release
Release Notes: Même sans ailes
*Même sans ailes* had been around as an idea for a while. We knew what we wanted it to be about. We just did not really know how to say it without making it heavier than it needed to be. Because it is not exactly a happy subject. Things pass. People change. Some promises do too. Friends can become strangers, scars stay, and sometimes there is no way back to whatever something used to be. That is life. Not the particularly fun part of it, but still.
What mattered to us was what comes after that. Not revenge. Not bitterness. Not pretending nothing happened. Something can leave a mark without getting to decide where you go next. Even wounds are not forever. You keep walking. You choose calm. You build tomorrow. One breath, one stone, one truth at a time. There are personal traces between the lines, obviously, but this is not a diary. Some things have been lived, others simply feel familiar. We wanted enough space left for somebody else to hear their own story in it.
*“J'ai jamais cherché la couronne. Seulement le chemin.”*
No crown. Just the path.
Somewhere while making the track, that line started meaning something else to us too. When SOLANOXX started, we did not have a plan for where any of this was supposed to go. We started because making things together was fun. That was basically it. We did not have everything we might need one day, and we definitely did not know everything we know now. We learned while doing it. And we still do.
One thing led to another. A track needed something, so we learned it. Then the next one needed something else. Music led to visuals, visuals led somewhere else, and somewhere along the way a collection of things we enjoyed doing became SOLANOXX. Maybe that is the lighter meaning of *Même sans ailes* for us. You do not have to wait until you have everything. You need enough to start. You can learn while moving, change direction when you need to and find out where the road leads while you are already on it.
We still do not know exactly where ours leads.
Good.
Making this particular track was slightly less philosophical. There were three fucking clicks in my vocals, an unreasonable amount of zooming into waveforms and eventually an entire forest full of suspicious trees. We already wrote Notes about that particular descent into madness, so we will spare you the forensic report here. The important part is that eventually the clicks were gone and the track sounded finished.
MiK and Novalis disagreed with that last sentence. Maja and I listened on different headphones.
“It shines.”
“It sparkles.”
It was done.
So now they have computer ban.
The funny version is that we overruled them. The real version is better. They trusted us. We know each other well enough to recognize when somebody is making something better and when they are only making it different. This time, they needed somebody else to say stop.
They did.
Mostly.
MiK and Novalis were still discussing when and how we should all make the final release decision together. Maja and I had apparently already solved that particular problem.
DistroKid noises.
“Wait. You uploaded it?”
Yes.
There was then a small French grammar incident. Emergency computer access was temporarily restored. Things were corrected. Nobody needs the full report.
DistroKid noises.
The cover followed much the same philosophy. We could have chosen wings, a huge symbolic sky and serious faces looking meaningfully into the distance. Instead, we chose a railway station and a picture of me with my face inside a bakery bag. It makes us laugh. It is easy to remember. And it might make you wonder what kind of track could possibly be hiding behind it. That is enough. We take the music seriously. We do not have to take ourselves quite as seriously.
Maybe that is where the two sides of *Même sans ailes* meet. Sometimes life gives you reasons to stop, and you keep moving anyway. Sometimes you simply start moving because something is fun, and only later realise how far you have come.
We started before we knew where the road was going. We are still learning. We are still moving.
*Seulement le chemin.*