I have had it in mind for quite a while to create a follow-up to 2018’s “Alone”.

When I wrote and performed that record, I had just moved to Chicago amidst incredible personal turmoil. I really did not have a support structure or friend-group in the city to speak of, barring a few folks who remain dear to me now. I was working a job that I didn’t really feel that comfortable in; I did not feel like it was really working the way that I wanted it to. Finding creative foils was the hardest of all.

In the time since, I’ve turned that job around into the Marquette Park Music Program (which was only halted in its progress by a global pandemic) I have a solid group of people who I really love, and I’ve gotten to be a part of some of my favorite things happening in the city. What a good personal moment to re-attack the solo works format and re-update myself on my own state of being.

Many of these pieces I wrote over the past 2 years, and some I wrote during the current coronavirus crisis. All represent some of my favorite concepts to explore on the instruments, and some represent my most physical work on record so far.

A word on the current moment:

If the COVID-19 pandemic is your first time being or feeling alone, I understand. For me, though, it's incredibly familiar. From growing up an only child with few friends to being shut out of music school for 3 years to receiving a rare disease diagnosis which has a culture I really don't identify at all with, I have spent a lot of years without a community to welcome me. Becoming used to an understanding public is not a feeling everyone gets to develop.

This return to solitude is something I am quite prepared to handle, and I believe you will learn how to weather it yourself in your own way. Your resilience is in you, and your survival is imminent. Reach out if you need a hand; you will find one.

Enjoy “Alone Again”.

--Matt Riggen, 2020