Erica Dawn Lyle - On Fire LP

I began working with On Fire in summer 2023. Hidden inside Van Halen’s classic, I felt, was a trans girl anthem, right on time for The Moment: We’re hot, everyone’s talking about us, and they want to burn us at the stake! On the day I began, I woke up and the sky was black over the Northeast due to wildfire smoke in Canada. I improvised the song live for six months and then composed a final arrangement, singing the song to myself til dawn all night under the full moon in Virgo in early 2024. The next afternoon, I woke to news of Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation. I recorded the song a month later in a studio in LA. A couple months later, that studio burned down. Now as I finish this record, LA has just burned again. During breaks while tracking in a new studio a mile from Altadena, Vice tells me about shoveling ash out of the yard for weeks. On Fire is dedicated to all the Angelenos who self-organized so beautifully to take care of each other after the fires, to the red hot trans girls who are taking the lead in efforts of mutual aid and resistance everywhere, and to Los Angeles, the USA’s anti-fascist city.