Well...it was a nervous time over the past few weeks. I had the audacity to think that I could release an album on my own. I've been on many albums in the past under various names, but this time it was different. This time it was going to be totally solo with no support from anyone else...period. And then I thought "how will anyone even know the album exists?" Well panic turned to action in the form of some shameless self-promotion. But....what if people hate it? Oh no! What have I done? Well you never know, do you? Not until people start saying "Hey, I like it!" or "Hey, it's a steaming pile of $hit!". Well now all my nervousness has been turned on it's head because the album just got a over-the-top fantastic review from Matthew Forss who writes for Inside World Music (an excerpt can be found here: http://www.echomensa.com/press). Oh no! Now what do I do? Now I have a responsibility to the album that I didn't have before! I know this must sound strange, but every artist goes through the same thing. When you're working on the project, it's great. When you step back at the end, you swear it's the best thing ever created. A week later, you think it's a piece of crap. That's just the way it is. Then, if people actually like it, you start to question it even more and start the process of a weird sort of disconnection because the transition has begun from it being totally yours to being something that now has a life of its own and that people will put their own interpretation on. I hadn't really thought about any of this until I got the first review. Well, now I need more reviews to temper the first review and put it into perspective. But, I know it will never really be in perspective. Not anymore. I wasn't ready for that. But I'm more ready today than I was yesterday. Hopefully it's the start of a trend. :-)