back to
Run For Cover Records
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Always In Motion

by Mini Trees

supported by
AJ
AJ thumbnail
AJ Excellent album. ncredibly underrated. Favorite track: Carrying On.
myfuturepast
myfuturepast thumbnail
myfuturepast I had an experience playing this album while sitting with someone I didn't know very well, not speaking, both of us just reading and coming down off a tense week. It was perfect. Favorite track: Doomsday.
Teagan Felerski
Teagan Felerski thumbnail
Teagan Felerski I feel like I'm in the waves with this track Favorite track: Underwater.
punksu
punksu thumbnail
punksu Incredible songwriting meets insanely eargasmic production and instrumentation. I'll be spinning this record for a while. Favorite track: Cracks in the Pavement.
Brandon George
Brandon George thumbnail
Brandon George Mini Trees is so effective at hypnotizing the listener into a state of shared wistfulness that the moments when the composition splinters off from the band’s established sound hit with the unexpected emotional gravity of a secret shouted in a quiet room.

Read the full review here:
legendsoftomorrowm.wixsite.com/music/post/mini-trees-and-the-hope-and-fear-of-becoming-someone-new-always-in-motion-review Favorite track: Doomsday.
spinjennies
spinjennies thumbnail
spinjennies Lexi is an amazing talent. Saw Mini Trees on tour with Toad the Wet Sprocket and was immediately hooked. Great chill vibes all around. Favorite track: Moments in Between.
more...
/
  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited to 500 Copies, released by Run For Cover Records.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Always In Motion via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    1 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $24 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD  or more

     

  • CD
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Released by Run For Cover Records.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Always In Motion via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
Color shades of glass Faded with the tide Calls me back Drifting further toward Nothing I have known before Brighter in the morning Feel it start to calm  You’re taking my hand and you’re pulling me on Leave the ground beneath me, light ethereal scene Can you tell me what more are we waiting for? How long are all the moments in between it? Dreaming again But I know that it’s all in my head  Dreaming again Running, hopping fence Carrying the thought Is it all a myth? Reaching further forward Never wanted something more Brighter in the morning Feel it start to calm You’re taking my hand and you’re pulling me on Leave the ground beneath me, light ethereal scene Can you tell me what more are we waiting for? How long til you’re taking me there? I’m growing wearier here But I know it’s all the moments in between it
2.
Doomsday 03:29
Nervous wreck, I play with the thread in my pocket Avoiding the dread  If we’re honest, everyone’s nervous these days Who will be left when we get to the end Terrified I pretend it’s some doomsday myth Cough in your sleeve Assure us it’s fine but it’s hard to believe We’ve lost our patience for sympathy How’d we ever get this far? Close the curtains, hide in the darkness It’s better than being out in nothing It turns my insides white just thinking Best forget all that you’re missing 
3.
Underwater 03:45
Underwater, carried away from shore  Float off my feet, whipping back and forth Forever adrift Felt it stinging, washed up against me  Tide turns quickly, slipping back a mile I’m losing the fight Will a wave sink me to the bottom, dazed and unstable When I wind up giving in to the current, lost and labored  Never learned to stay tethered in place Cause I don’t know how to take it Always in motion  Away from feeling something  Afraid of exposing myself to be someone else
4.
I start kicking a rock down the sidewalk It helps, avoiding your eye contact I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I’m alone with you  You won’t admit the way that you’re talking With a lit cigarette, it’s making you sick But it feels nice to laugh For a moment see my breath as a mist Lead me down your path A strange mystery hanging over me I’m losing myself in it But nothing is ever as it seems I count the cracks in the pavement to throw a wrench in it Distracting my brain wave Is it alright to joke, humor the thought that we’re real? But nothing is ever as it seems, until you’re there lying next to me Lead me down your path A strange mystery hanging over me I’m losing myself in it To dream of you lying next to me But I know we’d be lying through our teeth Cutting corners, making believe If only anything was ever as it seemed
5.
Youth 04:08
Walk it off outside, caught me leaving I tried a thousand times but still it all ran dry The thought of someone calling out to me I wish it was something I could believe  Called me on my bluff, always fuckin up  Just want to feel some rush before it comes undone  If I’m honest with myself it’s what I’d choose But I lost my sense of wonder in my youth StilI I can’t let it go It’s a lump in my throat What was then, let it die Carry on, cut your ties Even then I was dreamin It was a warmth you knew I needed Try my best to forget You’re the part of me I miss Shake my pride to confess that I‘m not the one who left
6.
Spring 03:10
Cold under my bare feet I was standing above the sink, thinking out loud  And I’ve been wishing you were here with me  Never knowing you’re everything I needed right now So tell me when you fall asleep are you still next to me? I know you told me then I couldn’t lose you  When colors slowly turn to spring my thoughts are echoing  Another moment passing, well can we slow it down  Before you find me out Curled up in the back seat I can read you like scenery As if I know you still  So we’ll just float with what the tide brings Can’t stop myself from wondering if you feel it as well So tell me when you fall asleep are you still next to me? Another season change we see it from a distance now We’re never finding out I hate entertaining the voice lingering in my brain  It was never the same In a state of complaining, but I’ll love you til the last spring  And let it wash away with the rain Til it’s all but drowned 
7.
Carrying On 02:57
Sorry I’ll keep it calm  When shadows scale the wall and I see it coming down When I lay here out on the floor Fill the cracks in the boards, hear it clawing at the door Patterns change in place Colors paint my mistakes, it’s more than I can take Now I’m hiding my face in the sheets Hovering somewhere between, at least it brings a sense of peace Is it over like that? Was it all a wash? “Don’t focus on the past” Are we just fooling ourselves? It’s a momentary lapse, someday when we look back But it haunts me that I can’t seem to be carrying on Oh how many times I replay in my mind the same old dialogue I try to convince myself we’ll see it through But it won’t come easy Is it over like that? Was it all a wash? “Don’t focus on the past” Are we just fooling ourselves? It’s a momentary lapse, someday when we look back But it haunts me that I can’t seem to be carrying on
8.
Differently 03:15
Tell me you need me Instead of just bottling up Though I never could be Someone you wanted to trust  And I wish it all went differently Cause it feels like losing half of me Taking me to when We were just kids in the back of a station wagon  And sometimes I see it A glimmer of what we could have been  But I guess I left my memory back then  Trying to hide something I’m scared to admit Kept at an arm's length Covering your face in your best disguise Still you left me in suspense You were just trying your best to get by And I wish it all went differently Lines I never learned to read between And I can’t help wondering, you’re afraid to come clean When it feels like losing half of me
9.
Numb 03:41
Looking out through the glass, my head reeling Caught a glimpse of the past, it feels surreal  We’re laughing off the drag, it gets easy To never have to look back again Follow the crease in your hand, it seems endless Was it part of the plan to be this near We’re laughing off the drag, it gets easy To never have to look back again Don’t think about anyone Telling yourself it’s safe to be numb A drop of sand in the hourglass   Whatever makes the time pass We re-erase our memory of young mistakes We rearrange our time and place to make amends  Long to be something  Always running away to point blame  But it’s best to leave it that way Don’t think about anyone Telling yourself it’s safe to be numb Keeping your fingers crossed Selling your soul but it won’t be enough
10.
Otherwise 05:45
Find you out along the curb edge, I’ll stay a little while Fumbling to get the words out when I try to make you smile If the truth is nothing makes sense, it feels cruel otherwise  A drunken daze out on the pavement, trying anything to cover up the quiet  Driving late along the freeway, it didn’t feel right to leave you there But I can check in once a week and offer nothing to make it fair  If it’s true that nothing matters, wondering what was it all for? But some things just don’t have their answers  So I don’t ask those kind of questions anymore Is it true that we have meaning? I’ll spend my lifetime chasing it A reason for our inexistence, but there’s no certainty til we reach the end

about

For better or for worse, life keeps moving forward. It’s this fundamental truth that Lexi Vega, the creative force behind Mini Trees, confronts throughout her debut album Always In Motion. But coming to terms with this inevitability has been a life-long struggle.

The daughter of a Cuban-born father and Japanese-American mother, the uniqueness of her identity has been an ever-present tension in Lexi’s life. She never quite fit in growing up within predominantly white communities in suburban southern California, with few who around her outside of her family to understand the generational scars caused by both exile and internment. When she was only 5 years old, Vega’s father, a professional drummer himself, took his own life. These traumas set in motion an ongoing questioning of Vega’s own self identity - and Mini Trees has provided the palette for Vega to process, to persevere, and to grow.

After playing drums in various projects for years, Vega began writing and recording her own music under the moniker Mini Trees in 2018. She recorded her first solo track in the Summer of 2018 with producer Jon Joseph and was immediately hooked on the feeling of creating something that spoke directly to her as an artist, fully in control of her own vision. Mini Trees debut EP, Steady Me, dropped in 2019 and Vega followed it with 2020’s EP, Slip Away. 

Following the release of these two EPs and with ample time to work on music during 2020, Vega both found herself ready to progress creatively and challenging many of her long-held beliefs and notions about her own identity. Originally envisioned to be yet another EP, Vega instead began working on what would become her debut full length, Always In Motion, a collection of relatable indie-pop songs that acknowledge our collective anxiety about life’s improbability.

“Moments In Between,” Always In Motion’s ethereal opening number, was written early on in the process, kick-starting Vega into songwriting mode and reflecting the anxiety and dread she was grappling with as the world shut down around her. That sense of uncertainty pervades the album, although it’s more universal than circumstantial as Vega uses the lyrics to consider how we move through life with a constant sense of unknowing. “Moments In Between” wonders whether spiritual belief can help us accept all types of challenges, although the introspective track doesn’t necessarily find a conclusion.


“When you’re in the midst of something painful you long to get to the other side of it,” Vega explains. “You want to be free from that. Faith can mean that even though life is long and painful, there is hope at the end of it all. I like the idea of there being something better than this on the other side. That possibility acknowledges that while people go through periods of intense anxiety and dread, they make it through.”

“Carrying On,” a pulsating, layered track, was written during a trip to the desert, where Vega struggled to reconcile her sense of the world with actual reality, especially during a time when everything felt so unbelievable and surreal. The lush “Cracks in the Pavement” reflects on identity, with Vega acknowledging and embracing who she is and recognizing that change has to come from within. 

Those themes extend into “Spring” as Lexi explores long-term relationships, wondering whether they can withstand one partner’s internal evolution. “It explores that fear of when you care about something so much that you don’t want to lose it,” she notes.

The closing track, “Otherwise,” confirms that there is no easy answer for these queries, but maybe that’s okay. Life, as usual, moves forward.

“I liked the idea of ending on an unresolved note,” Lexi says. “It emphasizes that there’s no certainty until we reach the end. That’s the only truth that seems reliable. You can’t ever know what’s going to happen until you get there. And that doesn’t have to conjure up feelings of dread. Over the course of the album I teeter-totter between having questions and wanting answers, but the resolution is to be okay with not knowing. I think I do find some acceptance along the way, but the album purposefully concludes with no real resolution.”

credits

released September 17, 2021

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Mini Trees Los Angeles, California

*✧living room pop✧*

shows

contact / help

Contact Mini Trees

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Mini Trees, you may also like: