In the face of tragedy so much of one’s energy is focused on getting through, on persevering. Not much is talked about how to rebuild in the wake of it when routine is ravaged. How to proceed when life has been altered, whether the expectation is to go back to whatever normal was or to craft something new. It would seem to me, the demise of old routine would be its own unique kind of grief.
Last year, Trevor Dering, the man behind Fiji Blue, fast tracked his debut album Glide in the face of his wife’s cancer diagnosis. His new EP, Hug, explores what it is to rebuild a life in the wake of following a stark confrontation with mortality. The four track extended release serves as a map on how to settle back into life when the immediacy of quietus vanishes from the table.
The titular and initial track “Hug” itself, is aptly titled as it sounds like it would feel, a warm embrace and the healing nature of the physical presence of support. Where words tend to fail, a hug from someone you love could often be the only thing putting you back or keeping you together.
The follow up is “Baby Blue,” a song so earned after a hardship like the one Dering and his wife endured. On this, Dering gets down to brass tax about how intensely his love rings. In the world of this song, there is no hardship, there is no cancer, there is no fleetingness of life, there is just the goal of loving and being with his wife forever and reliving the feeling of falling love over and over again, something that for a long moment in time felt an impossibility.
The third track of the album, “Running Wild,” is where we really get to see Dering’s songwriting shine. “Suddenly life changes/And all of your plans start shifting into different places/Sometimes you fall down/And the light in you erases/But when life feels like a battle/I hope you get back on/the saddle.” Not to say that art needs to be relatable or accessible to the general public but this track does an excellent job of extrapolating such a specific type of grief onto a more universal experience: seeing the person you love lose their “spark,” for whatever the reason may be.
The EP ends on “Caterpillar,” a finale that felt in the larger scheme of things like a long time coming. I can’t imagine what it would be like to retain optimism in the face of a cancer diagnosis but I have to assume it’s not a simple task and also not a linear pathway. Caterpillar is the persuasive speech Dering aspires to. At his best he is reminding his wife the darkness did not last forever and everything will be okay.
Hug, at its core, is a care package of love and support for the subject of Dering’s affection. It is also the prototype for the simplest of human needs when faced with uncertainty and the overwhelmingness of a blank slate: affection and reassurance. No matter what obstacles the vastness of this new life brings, you will have enough love for an eternity to get you through.
Hug is out now.
Words by Ilana Rubin for Staged Haze
0 comments on “Fiji Blue’s New EP ‘Hug’ Explores Life, Hardship, and Fear of the Unknown”