When Sage Fisher began developing new material for Dolphin Midwives, her idea was to make clean, straightforward music. Her previous album, Orchid Milk, was, in contrast, tangled and cracked, watery and thoughtfully unbalanced. But as she became immersed in the work of Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby—two artists who also made music with the harp, Fisher’s chosen instrument—and spent time in Hawaii, where her parents live, she says she hoped to “paint this picture of this jungly, tropical feeling. A little bit of a jazzy, fluttery heart thing.”
Then the 2017 eclipse happened, and even though Fisher didn’t witness the totality, the experience had a vertiginous impact on her body. Soon after, a toxic personality re-entered her life briefly, leaving her rattled as she dealt with the reverberating echoes of past trauma. Liminal Garden—Fisher’s newest record as Dolphin Midwives—is a reflection of her dizzy, unsettled state of mind.