New Website, New Music
I’ve lately been reading or listening to various things about the mind, consciousness, what neuroscience makes of it all and the ways that all feeds into identity and senses of self. Now I’m here, with that as a backdrop in my own mind, trying to write down something relatively engaging as a first post on my new website which, coincidentally, isn’t too difficult to see as a digital, online shrine or monument to the self - to myself. It’s a slightly uncomfortable situation to realise I’m indulging in the ultimate in navel-gazing, looking over what I’ve done or created and trying to recount it in a way that you, as a visitor, might be interested in while at the same time trying not to sound like a dick about it.
Obviously, I believe there’s enough merit in what I’m creating to put up a website to tell you about it so false modesty would be pointless and counterproductive but that doesn’t make it comfortable to be saying “look, you should devote your valuable time and attention to me.” I don’t really know why that is. A cultural thing maybe, or just the fear that you will look and react unfavourably with hostility, disinterest or amusement? It’s like trying to get a job and having to somehow say how marvellous you are while at the same time trying not to overdo it so you don’t come across as completely in love with yourself. It’s certainly not a very constructive or convenient emotional response for a person trying to communicate and connect with an audience through recording and performing music! It may be that it’s a bit rawer here when I’m communicating so directly and if it comes across naffly or badly there’s nobody else to blame. The music’s always open to interpretation but this is less so.
I didn’t really mean to begin this with a meta examination of the very fact that I’m writing a website and its function as a proxy online identity or pseudo monument to my own ego but ‘we are where we are.’ It remains to be seen if it’ll be a good thing that I’ll have a forum for writing about whatever comes into my head whenever I feel like it. Right now, you’re getting an unscheduled insight into creative self-doubt about self-promotion.
It’s been a little while since I last released any music but there’s been plenty of activity in the studio on various different projects I’ve been firing ideas at excitedly but not finalising or finishing. I keep picking things up and deciding they’re done except for some final polishing and tedious admin then moving onto something else and progressing that but forgetting about the nearly finished thing, then coming back to that and deciding to try this or that new thing or completely different mix or edit and on it goes. I don’t say any of this to complain, it’s only down to me to get organised to spend the time doing this stuff, although like everyone else I’m often frustrated by other life commitments. It just means in practice that nobody’s heard anything much from me for a bit. But I have an album of new music finished so I’m doing the tedious admin of putting it out in the world so that’s the news to go along with the philosophical nonsense in this post. The music’s mixed and mastered but I never decided on a title or artwork so I’m thinking about that and hoping to share some extracts and explanations of tracks in the near future with the album available as soon as I can get it together….
All the other projects will remain in the background for now but I’m concentrating on what’s nearly finished first so that there should be more to follow this new, as yet untitled album. In the meantime, me and Safetynett are jamming with music machines trying to get them to talk to each other and get along so that we can do a live set of electronic music at ‘Fine Times’ at Spin Records in Aberdeen at the beginning of May, so that’ll be a perfect distraction from doing the tedious bits of finishing and releasing all this music I’m promising. Come along and tell me how you were enthralled by / passionately hated my blog posts, I’m going to take it as ‘engagement’ either way.