HOLY and the coyotes of Los Angeles

I have always felt a very strong connection with animals that are demonized by western culture. The reason why I love creatures like vultures, coyotes and snakes is because they represent a force of nature that mankind can not control. They were here before us, and they will be here when we are gone. They also adapt easily to landscapes that are modified by humans, which I think is one of the main reasons that they are so hated, especially in America, but that’s one of the main reasons I like them. Our structures do not limit them.

I remember seeing a coyote for the first time while I was having a month-long break from working on All These Worlds Are Yours to help out on another project. We spent a month in this amazing studio up on the Hollywood Hills. That day it was the hottest day Los Angeles had in like a 100 years, so there were a lot of forest fires burning around the hills. There was a massive cloud of red and grey rising behind the Hollywood sign, and ash was falling like snow all over.

We were driving down the road in the producer’s car, which was one of those really silent Tesla cars, and nobody talked since everybody was tired from recording or whatever. So everything was completely silent. And then we saw this dirty, dark, strange creature. It was standing in front of some typical Hollywood hills house with a perfectly cut lawn. We stopped the car and looked at it and it just stared back at us, everything silent, ash falling from the sky, smoke clouds still rising behind the American dream.

The producer started telling stories about how they eat peoples’ pets and how they can howl for hours in the middle of the night. I had heard other stories like that before during my stay in LA. People there see coyotes as vermin, like rats but only bigger. It’s ironic because we are the ones that came to their desert and fundamentally changed the whole landscape by illegally bringing massive amounts of water there. This is also what I love most about Los Angeles, that it is actually synthetic city. A tropic created by man. The whole city feels like someone else’s strange dream.

As the coyote calmly walked on by in the overwhelming heat, the apocalyptic feeling that had been haunting me the whole day somehow was joined by inner peace. I thought if this is the way the world ends, it’s fine by me. Later on I’ve realized that that’s the way I want All These Worlds Are Yours to feel like, destruction and harmony peacefully joined together.