Art begins before it’s created. This is Spare Notes.

Curiosity, Relationships, Grief, Family, Hope—all these things are baked into the artist's brain before they play a single note, before they paint a single brushstroke or create something that is a passive or intentional expression of themselves. No artist's path of experience is the same as another. This segment is Portrait of the Artist, where the artist is interviewed about their path and about their art.

In this episode Jonah talks to Kelsea Feder, also known as Blums. Her amazing debut album, Sunk Cost Fantasy is out on Take Care Records as of August 7th. It’s a collage, it’s theatrical, it’s a soundscape, it’s a pop record, and it’s a rush of complex emotions and experiences that are sonically explosive. Blums has an extensive background in theater and film, and she has a pop music influence—these show on the record.

Jonah and Feder talk about her background, resilience, personal memory vs art, evolution as an artist, the stakes of relationships, and how Sunk Cost Fantasy came to be this emotive amalgamation of her experiences and reflections.

Bandcamp: https://blums.bandcamp.com/album/sunk-cost-fantasy

IG: https://www.instagram.com/blums____

linktree: https://linktr.ee/blums____

https://www.takecarerecs.com/

Episode Tracks: 1. "Still" 2. "Side of the Road." 3. "Celsius." 4. "Judy." 5. "Cashout." From Sunk Cost Fantasy.

Intro Music: is "XXO" from the album Teeth by Magana: https://maganarama.bandcamp.com/album/teeth

Art begins before it’s created. This is Spare Notes, hosted by Jonah Evans. In this segment, Three questions, Jonah asks the artists three questions. At least one question is about the artist's current project, and the other two are about ideas connected to their artistry overall.

In this episode, Jonah talked to Diego Ramirez of Joudy. Joudy is a Brooklyn-based band, originally formed in their hometown of San Cristobal, Venezuela, in the mid 2010’s. Their new album, Permanent Maintenance, came out July 24th on Trash Casual Records. The band fled intense political climate from their home nation within the last decade and this current record mirrors our current political climate that banks on our constant burnout. There are parallels to what they lived through in Venezuela in the US now. Of Permanent Maintenance, Ramirez said it’s “about accepting that we’re never finished—that healing, love, resistance, and self discovery are all part of a lifelong process of becoming." In the interview, Ramirez and Jonah dive into this idea of permanent maintenance of the body and mind, what it’s like to live in survival mode and transition out of it as well. See you on the other side

Web: https://joudyjoudyjoudy.com/

Bandcamp: https://joudyjoudyjoudy.bandcamp.com/album/permanent-maintenance

IG: https://www.instagram.com/joudy.joudy.joudy/

Trash Causal Records: https://www.trashcasual.com/

(Cropped) Photo by Gabriel Duque: https://www.instagram.com/notduque

Intro Music is "XXO" from the album Teeth by Magana: https://maganarama.bandcamp.com/album/teeth

Spare Notes: Mental Health in Music.

How does music help us process emotion? What does it mean to truly be seen? And what is the distance between who we are and who we think we need to be?

These questions are prevelant in Orphan Prodigy's latest album, Medication for a Modern World and in this interview. It's a title that feels especially relevant today. We live in a world of constant stimulation, endless expectations, and a culture that often asks us to keep producing, keep performing, and keep moving. So what becomes our medication? Is it therapy? Music? Community? Exercise? Authenticity? Or is it learning to build a life that works with our minds instead of against them?

For artists, these questions become even more personal. Creating meaningful work often means balancing creativity with survival, vulnerability with expectation, and finding ways to keep making art in a world that doesn't always make space for it.

In this interview, Jonah Evans is joined by Ian Keller and Danielle Hope of Orphan Prodigy. What began as a conversation about music and mental health became something much larger. They talk about panic disorder, adoption, exposure therapy, authenticity, and what it means to stop chasing the version of yourself you think the world wants and start building a life around who you really are.

Orphan Prodigy: https://orphanprodigy.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/orphanprodigy/

Photo by: Francisco Gallo

Jonah Evans: https://jonahinthesnow.com/

Spare Notes Substack: https://sparenotes.substack.com/

Intro Music "XXO" from the album Teeth by Magana: https://maganarama.bandcamp.com/album/teeth