Courtesy of Alex Ammons
Audio By Carbonatix
Alex Ammons isn’t afraid to die.
As a professional death-doula, end-of-life care is her career, and she’s been applying the practice, particularly the act of “dying well,” in her personal and creative life, too.
“Ultimately, for me, the only thing I really know about my life is that it’s going to end at some point,” Ammons shares. “I don’t know when. I don’t know how, but I don’t want to be scared when I die. I don’t want to be fighting my death. I don’t want to be kicking and screaming. I want to go out with a lot of peace and love in my heart.”
The queer Denver singer-songwriter channeled that spirit into her debut solo album, Done in Love, which she released independently on August 29. She’s hosting a pair of release shows on Friday, September 19, and Saturday, September 20, at Leon Art Gallery. Colorado Springs musician Patchwork Jack is opening the first night, while Denver singer-songwriter Evan McCandless is part of Saturday’s sold-out festivities. Ammons’s backing band includes Fox Linnea Drickey, Cassidy Bacon and Laura Goldhamer; all of them contributed to Done in Love.
The record initially was manifested after Ammons went through an unexpected relationship metamorphosis late last year, when she found herself writing about that transition and how the couple’s love ultimately endured. But the overarching theme, she muses, is about approaching the end with grace and gratitude.
“I feel like every ending until that moment is an opportunity to practice dying well, and feeling like I did the very best that I could,” Ammons explains. “That is actually what I feel like this whole album is about, trying to leave an ending with a lot of love and a lot of care and peace in my heart.”
As a member of the local queer femme trio King Bee, she naturally turned to music to process it all, including joining writing groups in an effort to pull out the lyrics and melodies that she’d mold into the ten tracks on Done in Love. There was a lot of sorrow at first, Ammons admits, but the final product is a lot more uplifting than one might expect.
“I feel like maybe that was a subconscious way of tempering. This fall and winter felt so unbearably heavy to me, and I feel like maybe that was subliminally a way of coping with the heaviness,” she says. “Writing about this content that was really pretty painful, but really some of those songs ended up coming out cheerful-as-fuck-sounding melodically.”
Through her acoustic Americana and breezy folk style, Ammons turns otherwise sad subjects into optimistic offerings. “Just Be Sad (Cantinas Are For Cryin’)” is a jaunty tune about allowing yourself to just feel your emotions sometimes, even the not-so-great ones. Listening to it, no one would guess that it was inspired by a “total brush with death” after she nearly escaped being trapped under a falling scaffolding.
“I looked up and saw the platform coming down, and in those couple seconds I thought I was living the final moments of my life,” she shares. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is how it ends,’ with sort of a detached sense of curiosity. By some miracle, the platform was caught by a cinder block, and it didn’t crush me. It could have killed me, it could have paralyzed me, but I was literally physically unscathed.”
On a lighter note, “Venus Told Me Her Name” is a love song to her dog, while closer “Crone” is an homage to her late grandmother. Then there’s “Marianne,” a unique perspective on Leonard Cohen told from the vantage point of his muse and partner.
“The song is a response to Leonard Cohen’s melancholy,” Ammons explains. “I just imagined what it would be like to be this guy’s partner trying to pull him out of his hole where he got so much art. Darkness was one of his muses, pain and heartbreak, but I was so sick of pain and heartbreak that I needed to write a response to that in a slightly different way, like, ‘Leonard, I need a break from the sadness.’”
That’s what Done in Love serves as, too — a reprieve from the gloomier side of life. And for the record, Ammons isn’t done with love. Quite the opposite, actually.
“Heartbreak has been a huge teacher for me, and I think I’m better because of it. It’s definitely not my favorite thing,” she concludes. “But there’s wisdom in all of it and we’re going to die anyway, so might as well make it beautiful.”
Alex Ammons, with Patchwork Jack, 7 p.m Friday, September 19, Leon Art Gallery, 1112 East 17th Ave. Tickets are $17.
