Karoline Hausted - One and Apart (track by track)

ONE AND APART - TRACK BY TRACK

A Year of Exploring Home and Belonging

In 2011 I moved from Denmark to California. It’s been a journey both outwards and inwards. Needless to say it has brought up many questions and opportunities to explore the idea of home. What is home? Where is home?

One and Apart is a cycle of songs that reflect upon these questions and my experiences of immigrating. The songs were first published once a month from Oct 2014 to Sept 2015 - each accompanied by a short story.

Some songs are based on recordings and diary scribbles from my first year in Los Angeles. Others were written in retrospective looking back at the events with new eyes.

1/ ON MY WAY
Departure without fear. Imagining a new life, a new beginning - blissfully unaware of the feelings of homesickness that will later arise. A “Here I come my love!” serenade sung from the fastest of airplanes in the highest of skies.
 

2/ INITIATION
Crossing the threshold. Arriving in a new country. A wedding in November. Of ritual and mystery. Entering the deep state of liminality. In the witnessing eyes of family an initiation takes place. 

3/ BELONG 

Unexpected feelings of homesickness, sadness and guilt over having left. It feels like drifting and floating in a no man's land between and betwixt languages, customs, names and identities. Easy to get lost in. Will this place ever feel like home?

4/ PARKEN
Life is a strange mix of feeling euphoric at the beauty and the many new experiences - and feelings of loneliness and emptiness. Daily walks in the park reflecting on the place, the others and all our strangeness. Still an outsider of communities. But easy to ride on a rush of happiness, the beauty, the colors, the sunshine and the adventure. This tune called for reminiscence of Scandinavian fiddle music.

5/ CIKADERNE
As a newcomer one has status as an immigrant and no work permit. It is a struggle to maintain identity. Sleepless, endless nights. Only the sound of the crickets. Follow them through the warm night all the way to the ones you miss. Realizing gratitude, knowing love brought me here. Insisting that there is a meaning to it all. 

6/ DUST DEVIL 

The hot summer burns and blinds. Let’s take a drive through the desert. A dust devil is a phenomenon you soon will become familiar with. Be careful to whom and what you are drawn towards. It takes time to integrate. Be patient.

7/ UNLEARNED 

Learning things from scratch sometimes leads to frustration. But realizing one must behave in the new world with great patience, humility and a positive outlook. Actually enjoying the role as "the newcomer". Meeting the new world as a child with curiosity and without prejudice. Your new community holds you.

8/ HEAR YOUR HEART
In certain parts of the year the mocking bird gets an inescapable drive to sing all through the night. He sings his heart out. So do I. I gather my creative vein is intact and was never compromised. I might belong to a "floating place” and this is partly in music. This is my true home.

9/ DREAM TOWN
The big, wild, dirty, scary city. And all its deadly freeways. There is a dreamlike and ungraspable tinge on reality here. Reflecting on own choices, the other “Angelinos” and "city destinies". It is not easy to put your roots down if you are asked too big a compromise and to sacrifice your own values.

10/ KEEPING THE WOLVES AT BAY
The first job and a noticeable shift in identity. Taking part in community. Getting closer to and entangled in other peoples mind sets. Going below the surface. Looking with astonishment, fear and fascination on different ways of living..

11/ HOME AND THE SEA
Here is the paradox: that it has been difficult, and yet easy to feel at home anywhere. Home can be “liquid”, in motion, states of happiness, recurring memories, the important relationships (new and old, they are all helping to create us) music and creation - sometimes a lonely, but indestructible home. And home is with my love.
A month later we leave the city.