“the album is not just about me, or even about the songs I’ve chosen. It is about carrying forward the unfinished work of those who came before — about making space for their spirits to move through us, and for new generations to find themselves in the pulse.”
III. Guides in the Pulse: Patrick Cowley and the Creative Lineage
No one creates in isolation. Every artist stands in a lineage — sometimes visible, sometimes hidden — of those who have danced before, who have risked everything for a taste of freedom, who have left traces in the music and in the air.
For me, that lineage comes into sharpest focus through Patrick Cowley. He was not just a pioneer of electronic disco, but a spiritual guide for what I have tried to do with The Afterlife. Cowley’s music, with its shimmering synthesisers and relentless drive, pointed the way toward a future where bodies could move without shame, where desire could be celebrated, and where the search for authentic connection was always more important than the act itself.
Reading Cowley’s diaries, I was struck by how deeply he valued authentic connection. Despite living in a time and place where sex was everywhere and sustained relationships were rare, Cowley’s longing was not simply for the physical, but for something real — something that could survive the night and echo into the next day. Patrick was one of the first 400 people known to die from AIDS, and his loss, like the loss of so many others, is a wound that never fully heals. Yet his music endures, a radiant pulse that refuses to be silenced.
When I was recording his “I Wanna Take You Home,” for The Afterlife I could feel Patrick’s presence in the studio. I found myself asking, “How would Patrick approach this?”—not just technically, but spiritually. The answer was always the same: with honesty, with courage, with an open heart. In those moments, I was not working alone. I was in dialogue with a lineage of seekers—artists, lovers, outsiders—who understood that the dancefloor is sacred, that to move together is to hope together, and that every beat is a prayer for more life.
The Afterlife is dedicated to them: to Patrick, to my friend Rusty, to my boyfriend Stephen and all my other friends that died; to everyone whose voice was lost to AIDS or to silence, and to my friend Nashom who survided AIDS but succumbed to COVID. It is also dedicated to those who survived, who kept dancing, who kept loving, who kept making beauty out of brokenness. Our collective courage is woven into every note.
This is why the album is not just about me, or even about the songs I’ve chosen. It is about carrying forward the unfinished work of those who came before — about making space for their spirits to move through us, and for new generations to find themselves in the pulse. In this way, disco becomes not just a soundtrack, but a form of remembrance and a promise: that as long as we dance, especially together, no one is ever truly lost.
