This is “Happy to be Here Diane”.

We’re an indie duo from Brazil writing little songs. This is our newsletter, in which we’re going to each write little thoughts about everything and anything.

This is our second EP, “The Guest Room Floor”, available today pretty much everywhere. It is cool.

I honestly feel like The Guest Room Floor is the EP we owed ourselves back when we were doing The Shoes in 2008. I think the expectations we had back then (or at least the ones I had) with Ballads for the Lonely finally came together on The Guest Room Floor. And honestly, I think that’s exactly how it needed to happen. I don’t think we’ve ever had a recording process as smooth and efficient as this one. It’s like we didn’t know where we were going, but at the same time we totally did.

I mean, I had this whole idea and a list of references (which I ended up ignoring anyway) for the aesthetic and musical direction of this second record. But that’s the thing — I had a compass, and still ended up following something completely different. That’s why I think, deep down, we already knew what we wanted to say with this EP.

While The Basement Tapes was kind of a celebration of this long songwriting history between me and JP — connecting past and present — The Guestroom Floor is present and future. And nothing makes me prouder.

I’m really proud of this EP. I think it has some of our best songs, and it gets me excited about what might come next.

During my worst years of depression, I used to sometimes lie down in the dark, on the floor of my guest room, inside my little apartment.

In that nothingness, feeling the limited cold of the wood, the little imperfections in leveling, the sounds of the city, I tried to find my calm. A sense of nothingness, and through it, a sense of being everything. Of belonging. Existing or, if that’s not possible, not existing anymore.

Our promise to ourselves was to record one EP every year. To make up for lost time. And we didn’t really have a cohesive idea for anything, we just sat and recorded a couple of songs.

But from them, something came into existence. Synths and pianos. A more somber, slower tone. Something to look inside. Something very much to my liking.

The Guest Room Floor was born in the recording room. It was born out of nothing. It felt like when I used to write so many songs, making something out of everything. Anything.

My anxieties are much more in control right now, but I still feel the floor on my back occasionally. I still feel myself stuck in dark rooms sometimes, little cubes, little boxes. I’ll probably feel like that for all my life. But it’s from inside these dark boxes that I found some things I find beautiful. Because they are everywhere. Even there.

I really hope you listen to our little EP, and I really hope you enjoy it.

In the next newsletters, going online every Wednesday, we’re going to indulgently talk about each individual song of the EP. We’ll see you there.

The guest room floor is for the sleepless nights.
It is for guitars and reverb.
It is for serious pianos and silly synths.
It is for being who you are.
It is for sing-alongs to bullshit songs.
It is for daydreams of what could have been.
It is for the night lilies. It is for the morning dew.
It is for sleeping in grief.
It is for you.

The guest room floor is for lying down.
And if so...