Dream Deficit Zone #7
Why am I writing now and what do I have to say that I didn’t already cast aside in the last 6 months?
Short answer, not much. Here are some updates, anyway.
My interest with streaming performances did not last too long; as you will have seen. I quickly grew uncomfortable with the idea of performing out of my bedroom while also having a life audience watch. This was only exacerbated by also having to work out of my room during the day. We humans are extremely context-dependent, and this unseemly collision of environments did not sit well with me. It began affecting the headspace that I would normally be in while playing by myself and that is something I do not want to loose.
I’ve been playing tetris with the different aspects of my life tenuously connected to music. The lockdown and the long tail of ambiguous post-pandemic quarantining has given me plenty of time to contemplate how I want to make music and how much of that is influenced by the tools I surround myself with. It resulted in this blog post chronicling all the equipment I’ve owned, acquired or discarded in the last decade or so.
In September, Matthew and I travelled to Shokan, NY, where we setup our instruments and recorded a lot of ideas. We also attempted covers of my music and those that we like. It resulted in this video of Supply Chain. We enjoyed playing it and hope you like it. Speaking of like, I must also add that you can subscribe to my channel; thereby hinting to the algorithm that my videos deserve more eyes on them.
Supply Chain is a track from my last album. A year after its release, it has turned out to be one of those tracks resonating with the people in a way I did not see coming. It’s gotten more fun to play and will definitely do the rounds when shows materialize back into existence, and I play at them.
Everything is slow. But, the leaves have turned red around this latitude, and the winds have picked up. The sun briefly set at normal hours before going rogue again. There are demos happening with the hope of turning into proper tracks. It’s all very nebulous, though I’m very clear about some of the things I hope to achieve — to collaborate as much as it’s feasible, and write direct honest music without too much to unpack. The directness seems easy until you get carried away with arrangement fantasies and tie yourself into a knot, which is what happened with Instructions Unclear. There might be a way to cut through that. Let’s see if it works.