My new album Codename California is set to release. It’s been a long time since my last release — a lot of water under the bridge. The path to CNC has been a deep and storied one, and I’ve lived into this album as much as any I’ve ever made.
Codename California was conceived shortly after my father passed in July 2019, three days after the release show for The Lonesome Side of Town. While preparing for his memorial, we sorted through old photos, and I was surprised when my mom handed me one, saying, “Look, here I am pregnant with you in Los Angeles.”
I was born in Houston and had no idea my mom was four months pregnant with me when the family left California in 1971. Their time there had always held a mythic quality in my imagination. Growing up, my parents and sisters would reminisce about Tommy’s Hamburgers, Dodger games, and days at the beach. Those memories came to shine brightly for me, as if they were my own. So imagine my surprise to learn I had lived there too—albeit in utero.
Some say we’re invisibly tied to where we’re conceived or born. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ve felt drawn to Los Angeles my whole life. I was born in Texas—but my journey began in California.
After the memorial, I toured the central US. One afternoon, at a BBQ in Kansas City, I was struck with the idea to create a record centered around California—or rather, resident with it. On one level, I wanted to explore the sounds, tunings, and instrumentation of the late ’60s Laurel Canyon scene, which shaped so much of the era’s music. But on a deeper, more numinous level, California became a stand-in for something I couldn’t quite name. It felt like a placeholder for Teilhard de Chardin’s “Point Omega”—that unseen attractor pulling us forward as our clumsy steps try to make sense of this life.
You see, at that point, I’d lost my way. My voice on the last record didn’t sound like mine. The songs didn’t feel like mine. Something had shifted, but I didn’t know what. All I knew was that things had been feeling more and more off—and the album starting to take shape in me seemed to be reaching for a way back—or maybe a way forward. The concept was vague, and not strictly musical. So I gave it a name—Codename California.
I stepped away from music after that tour, and soon after, COVID-19 took hold and everyone stepped away for a while. With the world in turmoil, I moved to Vancouver Island to let things settle. I figured time away from my home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, might offer some perspective.
On the way to the island, I stopped in Los Angeles. I wanted to “close the loop,” so to speak—to return to the place it all began and begin anew. I rented a small place in Laurel Canyon and found deep peace there. Though I was unsettled by the contrast I witnessed—encampments of unhoused people lining the roads on the way in, set against the extraordinary wealth of the Hollywood Hills. And then, above the bed in my Airbnb, a large barbed wire crucifix.
Amidst the tremendous peace, those elements agitated me. I felt like I had to do something with the feeling, so I began to write—and the music began to flow, as if it had been waiting there for my arrival.
When I returned from the island eight months later, I rented another place in California, one themed in the 1960s, complete with egg chairs and orange shag. I had limited recording gear with me but managed to cut the core guitars and vocals for the title track before returning to Michigan and completing my nine-month trip.
Codename California became an exercise in rediscovering my musical voice, reconnecting to authenticity, and finding my way back to the center—to the eye of the storm, the only place in this reality capable of offering us peace. The journey is lifelong, and the destination imagined, I know. But life feels lighter now, and there’s a quiet excitement in me about what might come next. It’s a marked improvement over the space I was inhabiting that afternoon in Kansas City. I’m calling it a win.
CD orders of CNC are shipping now, and the album will release digitally on October 24th! Follow this link to preorder/presave the album.
I truly hope you enjoy listening to Codename California as much as I enjoyed making it.
Thanks for listening!
Ed
Americana Singer Songwriter Ed Dupas’ lived-in melodies unwind with reflective lyrics that speak to the current state of the human condition. Soothing where possible, agitating where necessary, and calling for change where appropriate. Ed Dupas creates and shares well worn wide awake music.
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