Autonomy with compositional tools, systems, environments is something I've been pursuing largely
subconsciously for over a year now, when the objective shifted from making a killer record to building
a killer temple for multiple killer records to emerge. At the start of 2023, I was just getting into
computers and the aesthetics were inspiring me to incorporate hints of it in the sonics; I listened to
a good deal of Electronic Body Music at the time and sampling technology was the apple of my eye
during that period. 2023 would see me eventually leverage the tech (hardware samplers) and apply it
whereas before I could only document ideas I had about how (the first 30 or so pages in the journals
are nonstop Sampler babble), but after it didn't miracle the lacking foundation it was being optimistically
shaken upon, the journals stopped. A few things contributed to the loss of momentum creatively, productively
and so on - emotional factors, technical impasses and a realization that no momentum could be sustained
with the immense journey remaining. I began to develop some low self esteem brought about by the
whiplash of being so motivated for it to suddenly deccelerate, which lasted for a long time and may
still be present - I'm not blaming anything new on Trey, but the dynamic, the directionality changing
yet again toward reunification with him and this effort of rebuttal, of proving myself went limp. I'm
not passive aggressive enough to stay envigorated for as long as it would've taken. So with the drive
gone, the tune became one of slow and steady expansion, and experiences, new skills and such have
cropped up in the void left by bitterness. But there are times where the train halts, like it has
effectively for some time. This has always happened, even before undertaking the mantle of hardware
constriction, but the barrier was a mental one before (energy/confidence). This internal bandwidth
scarcity is still a problem, but I've realized that with something as structured and formulaic as music,
conditions can be ergonomized greatly to bring down the cost of activation. This manufacturing principle
has become the core of my spending and labors, and I'll continue to work toward a future in which I'll
have a system for creativity. I'm particularly fond of creatives with a formulaic sound - examples include
an Instagram jungle/jazz video curator (actually this is not necessarily a good example, but I'm keeping
it as I want to mention him somewhere in writing for the purpose of documenting current valence), Mortician,
Swans, etc. - and a large part of what creates this seemingly formula-based sound is the presence of drum
machines. Recordings of bands with organic drums, 100% virgin without augmentation of any kind are
oftentimes really unnappealing to me; my ear has developed a taste for the nuance of sampled percussion.
Of course there are exceptions to this, but generally it earns a recording and by extension an artist
a lot of 'points' with me when I can discern the utilization of static samples. It runs a little deeper
than sonics - like I'd mentioned in an earlier thinkpiece, the drum machine represents a musicians',
especially guitarists', autonomy. When your arms are taken up with a guitar or bass, and you don't have
the resource of another person possessing a drum kit or the skill to man it proficiently, you must rely
on a virtualization. The Alesis SR-16 was my introduction to hardware drum machines in 2019 and, while
I didn't appreciate it at the time, it was a monumental tool to possess. I thought (at the time) that
the modern equivalents were superior so I really only had use for the Alesis when I attended a band
practice at someone else's house, or when I wanted to do something ridiculous like program a wash of
indistinguishable hits (which the trick there was to program sixteenth note blastbeats at a low tempo and
then jack it up to the unit's maximum play speed, thus making it more of a thick abraisive frequency)
for a noise project. And as is an established theme with me, a) I possess affinities/interests in things
that I don't particularly enjoy doing/making (gorenoise, programming drum machines, etc.), and b) I
lag behind considerably in making discoveries and reaping from an architecture or setting advantageous
values. What I mean by the second observation is that ..., and as a result I've lost trust in my ability
to live in the present. I've attempted in the past to be more spontaneous, more intuitive and efficient,
but it has resulted time and again in regrettable oversights and fixations. The remedy to this is
moving the studio into the bubble. Inside the 'bubble', I can stew on things indefinitely, and I've
programmed (ha) myself to be satisfied in being externally unremarkable. I did have yearnings for
notoriety when my surroundings were happening ("becoming" - what a crater Ben has left in my conscience),
but the march of time has alleviated the once present cravings through exposing the elusiveness of
such an attainment. I now am able to understand that musicmaking is something from which I derive
enjoyment, even out of view from "others". I may have a dependency upon the cohort of fellow musicians
I'm near the center of, but that is sustainable. These people's degrees of involvement are controllable
and the atmosphere is always breathable (there have been times where this wasn't true, but with a
span of detachment both myself and the others have been able to rediscover appreciation and comfort
in the affiliation). So with a move on the horizon, I'm eager to begin anew. I intend to consolidate
studio pics that I'll have been able to locate in the data archives I'll have curated and create a
webpage exhibiting and weighing the pros and cons of each based on memory and the contents of the photos.
A goal with the rebuild is to eliminate the need for backing the racks a few feet from the wall as I've
done for accessibility reasons in the past; with recent discoveries and investments into them already
made, the enclosures will be entirely manageable from the front; this will afford me more space,
heightened degrees of organization and arbitration and inch me another tiny bit closer to the destination
of fullstack music production/manufacturing capacities combined with recipes and process sheets that
I've dreamed of. And I suppose its the manufacturing point that, after which, will open the door to
comfortability in release. Exploration of physical formats will accustom me to the permanence of
signing off on projects - while I understand well this principle, I am not - as I've said here -
adept in the areas of making good decisions late-stage. Collaboratively I have succumbed to pressures
and I don't intend to repeat history by expecting a different result the second time around. I know
myself intimately enough to know that the requirement for improvement is to game my own idiosyncracies.
With more space, I can begin reclaiming comfort as well as option; I've been constricted to my own
body in the environment and not much else for some time - to have the ability to fit an e-kit and also
have room for myself and potentially another person will enable creative developments previously blocked.
And with comfort comes an enthusiasm to be in the room, to work toward goals and refine the processes,
the work bodies, everything. I am in the swing of hardcore consolidationism for my own infrastructures.
On the list of areas to probe in greater depth are surround sound mixing, acoustic percussion recording
technique and on-body audio recording, storage and environmental video documentation. The more ambitious
fringes of my desires is to implement an external managment/analysis center (where patch configurations
can be recorded and uploaded to a server for dynamic resource rotations among many other things - playing
guitar in the living room with only a signal injection point (Scott Burns / Morrisound recording footage
showing a roller cart that the instruments were connected to) and processing/routing being done in a
bedroom.) This setup prioritizes centralization with accomodations for satellite administration, which
would, depending on the integrations achieved, could be full access-ed windows into the production
environment with the perks of physical separation - such as space, comfort, convenience, using a bathroom-
situated terminal to continue writing from the shitter, everything.