On “honest,” experimental indie artist and producer Blue Capricorn and Dallas-based Cuban-American artist and producer LOREN KOLE explore the place between holding on and letting go, between the love we wanted and the reality we are finally learning to accept. Ethereal synths, delicate keys, atmospheric guitars, and restrained percussion give the track a dreamlike intimacy, creating a sonic world where vulnerability feels less like a confession and more like an act of release.

The collaboration is the latest glimpse into Blue Capricorn’s forthcoming second EP, when you come back, transcend me, arriving October 15, 2026. Written and developed over the course of a year and a half, “honest” underwent a remarkable evolution from its earliest, largely improvisational beginnings into something far more emotionally revealing. What started with spontaneous chords, a cappella vocals, and late-night studio sessions gradually became a deeply personal meditation on failed love, attachment, and the complicated process of moving forward. For Blue Capricorn, the passage of time ultimately became part of the songwriting itself, allowing the track to grow alongside the lives and experiences of the artists creating it.

At the heart of the song is a meeting of two distinct but naturally complementary artistic worlds. Blue Capricorn’s cinematic, genre-fluid approach finds a striking counterpart in LOREN KOLE’s dark, dreamy sensibility, with the two artists building “honest” from the ground up while sharing conversations about relationships, creativity, identity, and the things that remain difficult to say out loud. The result is a song that doesn’t attempt to tie heartbreak into a neat conclusion. Instead, it inhabits the uncertainty that follows, the grief of what could have been, the attachment that refuses to disappear overnight, and the fragile hope that can emerge from what has been lost.

With “honest” serving as the emotional heart of when you come back, transcend me, Blue Capricorn’s forthcoming seven-track project expands on themes of longing, nostalgia, self-discovery, and healing. In this conversation, Blue Capricorn and LOREN KOLE open up about the making of “honest,” the intimacy of creating together, the unexpected places the song took them, and the personal experiences that ultimately shaped its emotional core.

“honest” evolved significantly over the year and a half you worked on it. What did the earliest version of the song sound and feel like, and what were some of the biggest changes it went through before arriving at the version we hear today?

When LOREN and I first began working together, we would meet inside a rehearsal space and first try to lay the foundation of the song down first. I remember taking my keyboard and just playing random chords while she did some acapella. It was purely improvisational at first, and mainly a matter of trying to find something that stuck. After that first session, we would then shift to LOREN’s studio and then try to record the root notes, kicks, snares, etc. I think really getting to know each other as people rather than musicians was what also helped us bond musically. What we came up with then vs what you hear now is entirely different. The earlier version was far more stripped down and less established as to what kind of song it wanted to be. The current version is the opposite. The biggest change it went through was simply time. The reason it took a year and a half to make was simply because life had happened, which I believe was what helped shape this song. I think sitting on it was the best decision we made.

You describe “honest” as a song about vulnerability and accepting failed love. Was there a particular moment during the writing or recording process when you realized that was ultimately what the song was about?

I realized that ‘honest’ was a song about vulnerability and failed love long after we had initially started writing it. LOREN and I really never had discussed what the song was actually about while recording it, but as we worked on it and attended sessions together, I was able to start picking up on the themes of the song based on the lyrics that LOREN had written and I then got to a point where I thought “oh… is this song about what I think it’s about?”. Getting to know LOREN too also helped me realize that ‘honest’ may not have been coming from a place of fantasy, but real life.

You had wanted to work with LOREN KOLE for several years before “honest” came together. What was it about her music and creative perspective that made you feel she would be the right person for this particular song?

LOREN KOLE is an extraordinary artist. When I first listened to her music, it felt like I was listening to someone who was deeply influenced by the more cinematic qualities of music with a strong resemblance to Banks and Lykke Li, who I love. I’m interested in artists that share similarities with me; not just genre-wise, but I also think about how we can successfully coexist in one shared musical landscape, and from the get-go, I felt comfortable feeling that LOREN could fit into my universe. I resonate with music that is atmospheric, intellectual, and dark, and LOREN KOLE checked all those boxes. With LOREN, it just clicked, and it didn’t take much for me to say, “yep, she should be on my next record”. It was her voice, her vision, and her meticulous attention to detail that I admired. I remember meeting her for the first time at an awards show in Dallas and I remember saying, “I thought about you for this song I want to work on!”, because before LOREN came into the picture, I had another artist in mind to tap, but then when I met LOREN it all seemed to just fall into place. I think that first impression told me everything I needed to know.

There’s a beautiful tension in “honest” between intimacy and distance. How did you approach creating that feeling sonically through the synths, keys, guitars, and restrained percussion?

We always knew we wanted this song to be a direct representation of both our worlds meshed together. When it came to the instrumentation, we naturally looked for a softer, more “delicate” approach, if you will. My music can be intimate, but it’s also vastly different from LOREN’s music, so I wanted to bridge that gap where it wasn’t too Blue Capricorn coded because I really wanted to spotlight LOREN as much as possible with this song and let her showcase herself not just with her voice, but with her playing of the keys, synths, drums, etc. Given it’s a song involving themes of restraint and attachment, it made sense to translate that into our instrumentation as well. With our guitar player, Jesse Kats; he had come in and practically nailed every lick he had delivered. There were so many licks I wish we could’ve kept, but it would’ve been convoluted had we kept them all. The construction of the instrumentation was by far the most interesting, because it turned out to be just that perfect blend of Blue Capricorn and LOREN KOLE’s instrumentals, which are rooted in synths and electronics.

You’ve said that you and LOREN shared similar ideas about what music should make people feel and communicate. How did those shared sensibilities shape the collaboration, and were there places where your individual approaches pushed the song somewhere unexpected?

Back when we would record at LOREN’s studio, I remember that there were moments where we would just pause and take a moment to live in the moment. We would talk about past relationships, our current jobs, what we did or didn’t like about them, our own families, and what we hope for ourselves in the future as far as music goes. At the time when we were barely starting to meet and write, I was actually in the process of planning my wedding with my now-wife AND I was barely beginning to go to therapy sessions for the first time in my life. With ‘honest’, I’m channeling a version of myself that is going to therapy and being perfectly transparent with my thoughts, desires, and assurance, which felt cathartic to sing in Spanish because for as long as I can remember, I didn’t learn how to communicate my feelings growing up. Most of my friends that are Hispanic can relate, but psychological therapy is considered taboo and frowned upon in our culture, especially with the older generations. Growing up, I only spoke Spanish with my parents, which I still do, but there was a slight feeling of this weight being lifted off my shoulders when I wrote my lyrics in Spanish because it felt like I had “broken the cycle” by going to therapy. I had confronted my thoughts, my internal struggles, and something I had buried inside me for a long time that involved failed love. It did lead to an unexpected place with the music, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling whatsoever. In fact, it was thrilling because I mentally went to a place I had never been to with music. It sounds silly, but I don’t think ‘honest’ would’ve felt the same had I written my verses in English.

For LOREN, what was it like stepping into a song that had already existed in Blue Capricorn’s world for some time? Did you feel like you were discovering the song alongside him, or were you bringing an entirely new perspective to something that was already taking shape?

The song was actually created from scratch together through a series of writing sessions. Through the final session at my studio space, I finalized production on the track and Rodrigo brought his verse in Spanish, bridging the worlds of our sounds and Latinx backgrounds. The creation of this project was incredibly cathartic, with many talks about past relationships and the weight they would carry.

The song doesn’t treat heartbreak as a clean ending it lingers in the uncertainty, attachment, and vulnerability that come afterward. Why was it important to you to explore that less definitive emotional space?

The song encapsulates the liminal space between wanting to hold onto a relationship, but recognizing that it is more harmful to stay. It explores grief of what could’ve been and the hope that remains within the rubble of what has ultimately been lost. Many experience this feeling of wishing things could be different, but coming to the sobering reality that they have to move forward without them. The reason that it was sos important to explore this space is because many experience this exact emotion and we wanted to make those feel less alone and more seen.

Your music often sits at the intersection of ambient textures, experimental production, indie rock, and electronic music. How do you decide when a song needs more sonic space and when it needs something more immediate or emotionally direct?

I absolutely love it when an album takes you on a journey, as if you’re watching a film. When I write, I always write with the intention of writing a larger body of work since it helps me not be so repetitive with my choices in music. I believe in always trying different things with music, whether that is flirting with another genre or trying a new instrument because to me, you discover more about yourself as an artist when you dip your feet into an unfamiliar territory. It’s the reason why I still can’t quite answer the question of “what genre of music do you make”?, because I feel like all my music sounds different. With that being said, I don’t really approach my music with the intention of having everything in line in the beginning. I improvise when I write, so whenever I feel like the song is missing something, then that’s when I will try to figure out what else it could use to make it more appealing, even though it takes for me to sit on a song for a while to figure that out. Now, although I do associate myself with a more ethereal or genre-fluid sound, it doesn’t mean I’m not interested in exploring other sounds. With my new EP coming out in October, I knew that there had to be something between the songs that separated them sonically and emotionally, as opposed to one consistent concept/feeling. With my last EP, ¡AYÚDAME!, I felt like I was still figuring out what Blue Capricorn’s sound was. With this new project, I wanted to revert to music that reminded me of my older music, but with the intention of capitalizing. I’ve always loved to open a project with something slow, continue it with something a bit more challenging or accessible, and then conclude with another dreamy, slower tune. If I’m writing a stand-alone single, then the sky’s the limit. But if I’m working with a body of work in mind, then that’s when I limit myself as to how I want to present the song. Try new things! Incorporate new instruments! I surprise myself when I play because I’ll go from writing a song with a trip-hop beat to then writing something with just my voice and an organ.

“honest” is the third track from when you come back, transcend me. How does this song fit into the larger emotional or narrative arc of the seven-track EP, and what does it reveal about the project that the earlier singles might not?

I would say that ‘honest’ is the heart of the EP. I also feel that way because that song is probably the most accessible song on the record and because it’s a direct representation of what my emotional state was at the time, bare bones and all. The previous songs such as “HEAR ME OUT” and “MISERICORDIA “did subtly reveal bits and pieces, but not at the level that ‘honest’ did. Although they do touch on similar themes that are related to ‘honest’, this song did mostly reveal what I had hoped to communicate with the EP in its entirety, which was my own personal journey to healing.

The EP’s title, when you come back, transcend me, immediately suggests longing, transformation, and some complicated relationship with memory. What does that title mean to you now that the project is nearing its release?

The title of the EP suggests a message from myself… to myself. I imagined a version of myself that is younger and well-nurtured saying, “when you come back, transcend me”, to the version of myself from a year ago. Throughout my 20s, I had friends that really struggled with mental health. There were some that I wouldn’t hear from for months, years even due to the pain and hardship they’d endure. This one time, I remember telling one of my friends, “hey mija, I understand you’re going through a hard time right now. Feel what you feel. Disappear for a bit if you want, but come back”. By coming back, I was hoping I’d see a better version of themselves. One that had overcome obstacles, sought help, and one that had found happiness. That’s what I wanted for myself. As I mentioned before, while I was writing this record, I was seeing a therapist for my own issues. As I finished the record, I felt like a different person because I was suddenly not as sensitive anymore. Granted, I still stall from time to time because healing is a process, but I’m proud of how far I’ve come. Maybe I’d transcend the younger version of myself that I imagined now.

You’ve collaborated with artists including Jacks Haupt, Adieu Anais, Black Taffy, and now LOREN KOLE. What do you discover about your own artistry when you step outside of working alone and invite another artist into your creative world?

I am incredibly privileged to have been able to work with artists that I admire. I feel like everyone that I’ve worked with has taught me something different about myself as a musician, and it’s that I’m more willing than I realize as long as it’s with the right people. Before inviting another artist into my creative world, it’s important to me that they simply understand the who, what, when, where, and why’s of Blue Capricorn. What is something that we share in common? Who are we outside of music? How can we benefit each other? When I first started Blue Capricorn, I was very dead set on never collaborating with any other artist because I was just far too protective of my work. Fast forward to now, I’ve learned that collaborating with other artists has actually helped me be a better writer. In a perfect world, I would love to sit in a studio with Nosaj Thing, James Blake, and Clams Casino (wink, wink). They were the only exceptions in the beginning, but I’m glad I stepped out of that comfort zone because it has only led to great friendships as well.

After spending so much time with “honest,” what do you hope listeners sit with when the song ends? Is there something about vulnerability, failed love, or letting go that you hope they recognize in their own lives?

Absolutely! I feel like ‘honest’ is a song that could definitely be up for interpretation. At the end of the day, I would like for listeners to feel like they’ve listened to something profound and for it to make them feel connected to the song one way or another.

What’s next for you two?

Blue Capricorn – I’m getting ready to release my new EP, when you come back, transcend me, which will be out everywhere on October 15. After it drops, I’ll be playing a few shows in Dallas in support of the new record where I will be performing some of the new songs from the EP. Super stoked for that. We’ll see where this project takes me. Taking it day by day!

LOREN KOLE – I’ve been really enjoying collaboration lately. Producing and writing with other artists has helped me to come back to myself and feel inspired after going through a creative dry spell. Simultaneously, I’ve been working on for a year called “The Crash Out Diaries” that chronicles my journey back to myself through a difficult time in my life. I hope to release the project at the beginning of next year.

Connect with Blue Capricorn: INSTAGRAM

Connect with LOREN KOLE: INSTAGRAM