Simón Willson - Feel Love (2025) [Hi-Res]

To me, love has always had an inevitability about it. The pull I feel from something that attracts me always presents the dichotomy of either following through with that initial reaction or not. Reason and instinct create a deep bond that is fueled by the powerlessness I feel by attraction and the strong will to pursue it, a strange contradiction that has shaped my life and that feels like the motto of my existence: I choose and am chosen by love. Once I have chosen love, there is a commitment to renew vows with it every day. Love in words: a harmonious combination of freedom, responsibility, care, authenticity, faith, and growth.

I have been plagued by mysterious circumstances that have made me face propensities that, with time and through love, have become full-fledged realities. From a young age, I’ve dreamt about living in NY; the music my dad listened to growing up is what I play today; and even playing music for a living feels like something that I chose, but at the same time chose me. I met my wife at a gig, and from those first encounters I felt a connection that made it impossible not to follow through.

How does love happen? I know how to grow and protect it, but I have no idea how it originates. What is falling in love? That mysteriousness is what I’ve tried to explore in the pieces on this record: embracing love in sound and presenting it as a token of appreciation to people, places, activities, hardships, and challenges I felt I had no other choice but to fall in love with.

What makes music and love global? It is not that musicians become worldwide phenoms or that people experience the same kinds of love since neither are true. The consciousness behind the act of creating and loving inhabits a world where there is a will to make sense of our existence and experiences, to further the oneness with our surroundings and with each other. That cognizance makes music and love both extremely personal and universal, and I pray this album reaches for those two realms in a deep way.

Simón Willson
Spring 2025

“...Your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour– and in the oddest places! — for the lack of it.” - James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

Simón Wilson - bass & compositions
Neta Raanan - tenor sax
Evan Main - piano
Kayvon Gordon - drums