Another Week in the Studio
Oct 14, 2025
Hey,
I hope you’re doing well. I’m still at the band’s HQ this Monday morning after what has been such an inspiring week musically…! One of those where we reached new heights as well as fell way below ground, which means, in other words, very creative and brought loads of unforgettable moments and emotions!
Here’s what happened in between those moments!
🎧 What I’m listening to
Mono - Oath (Live with Orchestra PITREZA)
It’s been quite an interesting week musically, as we’re now in full motion working all afternoons and evenings on Alex’s new album or project — this hasn’t been clarified yet! :) But the great news is, music is all over the place for countless hours a day!
When this happens, we’re also in a listening-to-a-lot-of-music mode, as we’re looking and digging not only for great tunes but also constantly reinventing ourselves. So sometimes, a single tone, rhythm, noise, vibe, scream, whisper, or anything that can trigger something aligned with Alex’s never quite simple artistic approach! We’re all opening our own selves to the universe, hoping to receive a special message, a unique spark, making ourselves available to welcome something new and to retransmit it to you once it has gone through our artistic or twisted filters!
Since the day I learned we would share the stage of the Gloomaar Festival with a great Japanese band we all really like and respect here called Mono, a band I discovered a while ago since they started in 1999 and released 11 albums since. Their incredible and unique vibes and tones are always coming back at some point while I’m in this constant soul archeologist mode. Truly can’t wait to step on stage right before them on November 15!
📖 Reading highlight I’m pondering
Murasaki Shikibu and the Art of Living Through the Invisible
Following the fact that Mono got my attention again this week, and as I was in my own little creative space recording and digging for new sounds and noises that could hopefully make the mark to fit what we’re all working on right now, I went back digging into what has been one of the first deep loves for Alex around Japan and its wonderful people and deeply meaningful and spiritual culture.
I wanted to touch and experience something deeply connected to Alex’s long love story with Japan, not only as a place, but as a way of feeling and understanding life, since it’s in Japan where, for us, everything was born on so many levels: personal, relational, and artistic.
As I was literally getting deep into the journey, I ended up reading a text from Lauren Groff, who writes for The Atlantic, about a journey she did in Kyoto looking to learn and experience more about Murasaki Shikibu, the woman who, for many historians, wrote the very first novel back in around 1021 called The Tale of Genji.
Among Japan’s timeless voices, and often considered the world’s first novelist, but more than that, she was a poet of the unseen of emotions that move like wind through silence, of beauty found in impermanence, and of the delicate balance between longing and grace.
For Alex, who has been tied to Japan since 2007 through music, friendship, and creative refuge, Murasaki’s spirit embodies what, in my opinion, he seeks in art: honesty without noise, sensitivity without weakness, and meaning carried through time without losing its heart. Her writing reminded me that life’s most profound truths often exist in what cannot be said, a sentiment that also lives in Alex’s own music, feedback, noises, screams, letters, and even silences.
In many ways, Murasaki Shikibu stands as a reflection of what connects us beyond distance and language, a reminder that emotion is universal, that sincerity transcends time, and that beauty can still be found in the simplest gestures.
What a creative afternoon…! I miss Japan!
🎧 Podcast I’ve Enjoyed The Most
Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Interviewing Tony Hawk
This week, as I was listening to Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast featuring Tony Hawk, I was reminded how skateboarding is so much more than a sport. It’s a philosophy, a way of embracing failure as a rhythm, turning gravity into an ally, and transforming repetition into revelation. Listening to Tony speak about his process, I felt the same sense of spiritual freedom that lives in the heart of art, the beauty of falling, the humility of trying again, and the grace of existing entirely within the present moment.
When I was a teenager, I embraced this skateboarding culture a lot. It was everything to me — the punk rock and hip hop music, the fashion, the vibe, the community. This is where I found my tribe, but even more than that, this is where I found my own self. The only problem was, I really hated falling down and hurting myself countless times a day, so I wasn't really good at it, since this is pretty much the number one prerequisite as a skateboarder, right?! :) Well, thank God for snow, as I’ve been able to bring this culture and way of living into the art of snowboarding, which I was much better at, trust me!!!
If there’s a scene and a culture both Alex and I are fully agreeing on, it clearly is around skateboarding! That’s exactly why, years ago in Tokyo, we invited skateboarders to take part in the video for I Just Want You To Know (a song from our former band, Your Favorite Enemies). We wanted to capture the poetry of their movement, that instinctive dialogue between control and chaos, where art and life collide. It wasn’t about tricks or performance. It was about presence. About translating freedom into motion. About expressing what words can’t always reach.
In many ways, skateboarding, much like our music, is a meditation on transcendence, the art of finding grace in gravity, and of living authentically between falling and flying. Because in the end, whether through music, motion, or even silence, transcendence isn’t about leaving the ground, it’s about rediscovering what gives it meaning.
📸 My Picture Of The Week
Welcome to my creative crib! It’s the first time in my life that I have had such a space and I’m quite honored, blessed, and really aligned with being in a creative mode on a daily basis! I owe a huge thank you to Alex’s management, since, for years, I was spending almost my entire life in an office…! Now it’s only mornings and evenings before and after what I can now call my creative sessions!
Notice the tiny skateboard on my volume pedal — this is how close I can get to this incredible culture nowadays, but still, always a great reminder of its impact on my daily life!
So grateful!!!!
💬 Shared in the Long Shadows Chat this week
This week in our band chat, the conversations have been especially deep. Of course, always between great humor and funny stories and situations I unfortunately can’t share here, we found ourselves talking a lot about how impactful Japan and its amazing people have been for us and our story through their faithfulness, passion, generosity, welcoming, compassion, and how all of this has become rooted in how we need to be approaching this new musical journey.
This upcoming album, directly inspired of course by what’s happening in the world and guided by the words of Alex, feels like a natural extension of that Japanese spirit and connection we developed over the years: a devotion to beauty even within tragedy and to empathy as an act of creation.
Alex often says that Japan taught him how to listen to what is not even said, to find truth in the space between sounds, to embrace impermanence not as loss, but as a connection. That same language of silence and grace is now breathing through this new work, where the pain of the world meets the possibility of compassion and where art becomes a prayer for humanity.
Again, I miss Japan!
Let’s be great to one another!
Your friend and Chief Operator,
Jeff
