Jeremy James Meyer - Astoria, Pt. 2 (2025)

Tracklist

01. Eggs (Terme Di Saturnia)
02. Airport Song
03. Cabbage Hill
04. 10 Years
05. Funeral
06. High Water
07. Time At Sea
08. Worry Free

Where does one thing end and another begin? When liminal reaches its peak, rearing up, sending out a final flare to its terminal existence. How long can we exist there? And what could catalyze its transformation?
I found myself in Astoria, Oregon in February 2025. Having flown into Portland in the early hours, the car rental agency had closed for the night. I awoke at Brett’s house and went back to the airport to get the car the next morning. I then set out for Astoria, and for Olaf, and for Jack, and Chicken, and Arthur.
Holed up in Olaf’s house (the Hole in the Wall Studio), wood stove crackling and cats sprawling, we worked our way through each song--simmering, stirring, plunking--most of my adult life has revolved around the pursuit of moments like this. Friends, food, art. The power went out once or twice, and we would gestate, allowing silence to fill the room. The storm brewed, and we played piano.
Olaf’s house is situated on the Eastern edge of Astoria, tucked into a hill within a hill. Looking out from the road you can watch the tankers and cargo ships holding anchor as they wait at the mouth of the Columbia River. Their cargos coming from far off shores, their crews the same. They’d wait for customs, or for dock space, or the right tide or weather conditions. Apparently during Covid, there were several ships that laid anchor and remained in place for months, crew unable to disembark due to immigration and travel restrictions. Their basic supplies would be delivered by an American vessel.
My brother Oliver once worked onboard a large ship in the Bering Sea, fishing or crabbing I believe, and a processing facility too. He was contracted as a cook and I recall it being a period in his life where sobriety seemed a possibility and stability could be found. But there was always a shadow there and the season ended and he returned--Thanksgiving at the Millehrer’s, I remember him then with some pride for the work he had done, and also a boredom, or some other lonesome feeling I couldn’t define.
Astoria has been home to the Fisher Poet Gathering since 1998, and with the exception of a year or two during covid it has been held in town each winter. A gathering for fisher-industry folk, to meet and share poems and writings, from the sea and beyond. Olaf had commitments to run sound for some of the events at Fort George Brewery during our recording week and so we spent our evenings hearing the stories and words of salty sailors.
The air in Astoria has a thickness to it, I think it must be because it's smashed up against the rainforest, inland and to the south, and it sits at the mouth of the Columbia River, as it meets the dark waters of the great Pacific Ocean. It's easy to imagine ancient peoples occupying these lands. Everything is striving towards life, leaning into the headwinds, squinting into the setting sun. I can imagine them sitting on these hillsides, watching the sun disappear into the sea, the edge of the world, how dark it must have been, how bright.
For years I’ve dreaded receiving a late night phone call--Oliver’s in the hospital, it's not looking good-when it finally happened, this January, time and space came together and reared back its head, It gave its final roar, and in that moment-when space shifts, and a new reality sets in--I cried. I cried for the boy who hid away, I cried for the mother who tried everything, I cried for the brother who felt rejected and abandoned. Tears well, and become droplets, rolling down cheeks, wobbling through space, catching the last lines of daylight. My vision blurs--as they fall the edges become infinite in an amorphous dance downward, making far off ships appear as shadows against the light, like old memories, faded to the point of obfuscation. And darkness sets in, it is winter, the season of death, of rebirth; and the lights of Astoria dance.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [mp3]

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]