Post 21
It's been a very strange month, beginning from the point of being wholeheartedly contented to the reminder of what dispair and heatbreak feels like (or should I just say "angst"?) to things beginning to level themselves out again.
My installation, DifFusion is nearly ready. It's utterly beautiful, I love it! I'm usually so pedantic about my own work, but I love it! Peter Beicht (the photographer who has so kindly let me dive into his portfolio and steal whatever I want for my own use for this portfolio) loves it too. When I recently showed it to Simon Zagorski-Thomas (the moderator / lecturer for this mordule), he had a lot of interesting points to make about the piece that I hadn't even thought of yet. Judith smiled and told me it was incredible.
So I'm pretty fucking excited about presenting this next Wednesday. I'm disapointed we're just going to be stuck in a room on a WEEK DAY during WORK HOURS (rather than in a degree show in some fancy venue in Brick Lane like last year) and resources are tight... but if anyone comes along, I think it'll work. Oh yes.
All this has, of course, halted my songwriting for a while. But I'm beginning to think that perhaps this isn't a bad thing. I'll get this over and done with, but if you haven't guessed it by now, I'm a Nine Inch Nails loving FREAK!! Okay, over the past 3-4 years or so, I have come to learn there is a lot of other music out there, but I cannot deny the band that made me want to write music in the first place. I was very secretly disapointed with their last effort With Teeth, not because it's a bad album, but because there was very little relivance to it all. I didn't know quite what I was hoping for, and while I enjoyed it when it came out, I stopped listening to it not long after, rarely returning.
So this last month working on DifFusion, their new album Year Zero has been pretty much my only soundtrack. I think it's incredible. Not the most groundbreaking album Reznor's ever done, but very enjoyable and definitely something to get me going to work and back for the past few weeks. Even with the advent of Bjork's new album, Volta (I have also been a Bjork lover for many many years) didn't save me. I was extreamly disapointed with her recent effort, but perhaps I need more time to 'get into it'. But I know if I was writing songs in the last five weeks, it would just be NIN inspired and the entire point of this project is to get away from that, to write and produce something that's ME... sure this album will have NIN-influences, but I know I'd slip into my sound-alike tendencies.
I met up with Richard Liggins at TVU the other day to discuss this album project. Richard has known me since I started there and even interviewed me for the damn place. He marked 'A Place Called Nowhere' on my BA and gave me some very good critical points.
It was great to briefly be able to forget what's going on in my life and talk about MUSIC again. The music I've been listening to, the music I want to create. I told him how last summer I lost my love for writing music and wanted to pack it all in. I told him how I was ready to become a Young Professional and work up the career ladder in SEGA. SEGA? FUCK THAT!!
I told him how it took a trip to Brazil for three weeks to re-discover my love for music. To see my friend and what music meant to HER. How it can really touch people and how I longed to be touched by music in such a way again. I've heard a lot of great music lately, especially Regina Spektor, I've been listening to her NON-STOP these past couple of months (well, in-between NIN listening, anyway) and I now have a burning NEED to record a new album. It has to be something special because I WANT it to be special.
God there's a lot of capital letters in this post.
Richard was very helpful in putting my ideas into perspective. For instance, he appreciated that I wanted to make music that people would actually listen to out of their own accord, but he assured me the first step to this was to record something because I'm making the music I want to hear. Firstly for myself.
Second, I have been advised to work on only eight songs rather than 12. While I don't think it's impossible to finish a 12-track album by September, he said "I'd rather hear an incredible 8-track CD than a midiocre 12-track" and I think he has a very good point. I've played some of my demos to friends and their responses are kind of "they're pretty good" - which is not good enough in my eyes. So it's time to knuckle down on the BEST songs and only the best. Anything else is simply a bonus.
I'm not sure where this is all heading... I feel somewhat hypocritical for posting more about "wanting to write" than actually doing it, but my goood am I motivated right now. Only a couple of weeks to go and it all begins.
Not long to go at all...
And now for our commercial:
My installation, DifFusion is nearly ready. It's utterly beautiful, I love it! I'm usually so pedantic about my own work, but I love it! Peter Beicht (the photographer who has so kindly let me dive into his portfolio and steal whatever I want for my own use for this portfolio) loves it too. When I recently showed it to Simon Zagorski-Thomas (the moderator / lecturer for this mordule), he had a lot of interesting points to make about the piece that I hadn't even thought of yet. Judith smiled and told me it was incredible.
So I'm pretty fucking excited about presenting this next Wednesday. I'm disapointed we're just going to be stuck in a room on a WEEK DAY during WORK HOURS (rather than in a degree show in some fancy venue in Brick Lane like last year) and resources are tight... but if anyone comes along, I think it'll work. Oh yes.
All this has, of course, halted my songwriting for a while. But I'm beginning to think that perhaps this isn't a bad thing. I'll get this over and done with, but if you haven't guessed it by now, I'm a Nine Inch Nails loving FREAK!! Okay, over the past 3-4 years or so, I have come to learn there is a lot of other music out there, but I cannot deny the band that made me want to write music in the first place. I was very secretly disapointed with their last effort With Teeth, not because it's a bad album, but because there was very little relivance to it all. I didn't know quite what I was hoping for, and while I enjoyed it when it came out, I stopped listening to it not long after, rarely returning.
So this last month working on DifFusion, their new album Year Zero has been pretty much my only soundtrack. I think it's incredible. Not the most groundbreaking album Reznor's ever done, but very enjoyable and definitely something to get me going to work and back for the past few weeks. Even with the advent of Bjork's new album, Volta (I have also been a Bjork lover for many many years) didn't save me. I was extreamly disapointed with her recent effort, but perhaps I need more time to 'get into it'. But I know if I was writing songs in the last five weeks, it would just be NIN inspired and the entire point of this project is to get away from that, to write and produce something that's ME... sure this album will have NIN-influences, but I know I'd slip into my sound-alike tendencies.
I met up with Richard Liggins at TVU the other day to discuss this album project. Richard has known me since I started there and even interviewed me for the damn place. He marked 'A Place Called Nowhere' on my BA and gave me some very good critical points.
It was great to briefly be able to forget what's going on in my life and talk about MUSIC again. The music I've been listening to, the music I want to create. I told him how last summer I lost my love for writing music and wanted to pack it all in. I told him how I was ready to become a Young Professional and work up the career ladder in SEGA. SEGA? FUCK THAT!!
I told him how it took a trip to Brazil for three weeks to re-discover my love for music. To see my friend and what music meant to HER. How it can really touch people and how I longed to be touched by music in such a way again. I've heard a lot of great music lately, especially Regina Spektor, I've been listening to her NON-STOP these past couple of months (well, in-between NIN listening, anyway) and I now have a burning NEED to record a new album. It has to be something special because I WANT it to be special.
God there's a lot of capital letters in this post.
Richard was very helpful in putting my ideas into perspective. For instance, he appreciated that I wanted to make music that people would actually listen to out of their own accord, but he assured me the first step to this was to record something because I'm making the music I want to hear. Firstly for myself.
Second, I have been advised to work on only eight songs rather than 12. While I don't think it's impossible to finish a 12-track album by September, he said "I'd rather hear an incredible 8-track CD than a midiocre 12-track" and I think he has a very good point. I've played some of my demos to friends and their responses are kind of "they're pretty good" - which is not good enough in my eyes. So it's time to knuckle down on the BEST songs and only the best. Anything else is simply a bonus.
I'm not sure where this is all heading... I feel somewhat hypocritical for posting more about "wanting to write" than actually doing it, but my goood am I motivated right now. Only a couple of weeks to go and it all begins.
Not long to go at all...
And now for our commercial:
posted by Angelchrome at 1:05 am
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