every day i work on a bit of music. i don’t always get to the studio at the exact same time. i don’t always work for the same amount of time. but me, going there — to that space, is a non-negotiable. the act of making something is intrinsically rewarding. i am satisfied with…

my new song ‘cuz of you’ with cyn is out and you’ll never guess what inspired the lyrics. releasing music is somewhat of a complicated endeavour these days for my brain. part of me is proud the music is out, getting it to…

been doing felix cartal for 17 years now. which is wild. someone asked me how long i’d been doing it, and i was equally as shocked to hear it as he was once i worked out the math. some days i feel like i’ve learned a lot, and sometimes i feel like i’ve learned nothing at all. shit’s funny like that. one thing i’ve learned…

today is the first day i’m not really sure what to write since i started doing this weekly in may of 2023. i guess that’s a pretty good run. i’m still here though. i’m still writing. what am i going to do… say nothing at all? sometimes there’s something to be found in the nothingness. i made a deal with myself with music that i’d try to get to the studio 5 days a week, even on the days that i don’t feel it. looking back i guess i don’t really remember the days where i ‘didn’t feel it.’ i’m sure some of those…

i’m working through a lot of songs for the umpteenth time here. a big focus on just arranging things. arrangement can be really frustrating. i don’t know for sure if everything is right. i don’t know if there even is a right?  i did have a breakthrough with a song temporarily titled stay with a breakdown that feels like the whole track dives under water. so i’m happy about that. it’s hard to…

this next batch of songs is slowly coming together, but i’m almost afraid to go through all the demos i’ve written. i know “a day of organization” is necessary at this point, but every time i get to the studio i am tempted with “just one more demo today before I do that.” maybe i’m afraid there isn’t a real star in the mix yet, i’m not quite sure, but i can’t bring myself to…

“This isn’t live?” a comment in the chat read during the youtube premiere of my skytrain pop-up. It was probably innocuous, but it highlights the fact that you can’t satisfy everyone when doing things. Even free things. Here we are, throwing a free party, and then putting the entire thing on youtube for free to watch, and still someone can be disappointed it’s not live. In these cases I’ve learned…

I’m sitting in Ottawa, enjoying an iced americano with a view of parliament in the background. How Canadian! I played last night at University of Ottawa for a couple thousand kids, and then played an impromptu afterparty at a club downtown afterwards. I was chatting with the promoter last night about how I sort of feel like i’m on chapter 3 of my musical career.  When I first started making music (chapter 1), I was motivated largely by…

Sometimes creating things starts with a question —Why do I like this thing that I like? And I’m not saying in a passive way, “oh i like this song because it’s catchy.” But really dig deep… what specifically makes it speak to you? I think this is a great place to start if you’re stuck on creating. And I love a fucking trick to get me started on a day where dragging my ass to the studio is the last thing I want to do. There’s no trick to it, it’s just a simple trick. I’m a massive Simpsons…

I’m sitting here listening to Kid A for about the 500th time in my life and I still love it. Like, I really fucking love it. The album somehow still surprises me at times, and other times it feels like it’s from the future. That’s a quality I love in music, when something sounds fresh many years later. I love music because it’s puzzling and infinite. It’s this weird mix of something thats calculate but also spontaneously emotional. I don’t know, it’s hard to put into words, but I love it for so many reasons. I guess music would be the perfect…

What are the ripple effects of the pandemic in my world as a creative? I think the boom of Zoom culture is one of the them. I can say with utmost confidence (and zero research) that there has definitely been a spike of Zoom meetings to exactly 10,000%. I think we all feel it. It feels eerily similar to how me and my peers feel about social media. Is it a necessary evil? Something we all take part in, even though we…

The album is out. Thank you to everyone who has listened and shared it. Especially if you've listened to it front to back, no interruptions. (My favourite way to consume music*.) I’m quite happy with how cohesive the record is as a whole. I won’t say too much about it, because I do find it a bit laborious to talk about music. As the maxim says, “talking about music, is like dancing about architecture.” I find that to be very true. Sometimes I’m asked to write a quote about my latest song and my visceral reaction is to think…

(…but I probably did.)

I escaped the city for 4 nights to the Sunshine Coast. It’s just far enough that it feels like you’re away, but not so far that it’s a pain to get to. I like the calmness of the world outside of the city. You don’t realize how crowded it is in a city until you come back to it. I guess I would describe myself as a ‘city person’ and because of that, I have a ‘city mind.’ (A term I came up with just now.) I feel like my mind is like the city that I live in. Crowded and unorganized, but also…

The other day I was thinking about why it’s so hard to start something new. What makes a fresh page scary? What makes a blank canvas daunting? I think the way we're marketed creativity is the same thing that makes us stuck. “Endless Possibilities.” This sounds enticing but…