From the Aether It Comes... 6/25/2009

The ancient-minded, druidic superstition in me is afraid to think it, verbalize it, and especially blog it. I don't want to jinx it, but there it is...

The new record is coming along at an unparalleled (or rarely, at least) clip. I'm plugged in. The juices are flowing. It feels very, very good. The instincts and habits are delivering, as trust and sense-of-rightness banish that small, second-guessing voice that's distracted and delayed me in the past. My muse's stars are aligned for a change (or I'm properly receptive for a change), and the music seems to make itself. All I have to do is show up and pay attention. I am trusting the process more than ever before, as it proves itself worthy again and again. I am forced to acknowledge that I've been my own worst enemy far too often in the past (in many more areas than the musical, but that's a story for another time).

How else to explain it? A few months ago I was blank. I had put so much into the first RAO CD. It should have been released long before it was. There were many factors that slowed me down, but my first real solo birth was a difficult one, when all is said and done. The idea of starting the next one was more than a little daunting, given the complexity of feelings and the associations of a years-long creative process. I was suffering from blank page syndrome coupled with something bordering on a sort of artistic post-traumatic stress disorder. I couldn't really get my head around needing to make another RAO disc*.

My solution to the digital tabula rasa? Bail. From the stress of creation, anyhow. Literally not deal. Or rather, to deal in the same way so many others have dealt over the years - by busting out the sketchbook. Make. Start, work an idea (bass line, lick, melody, beat, whatever), drop it or develop it. Rinse. Repeat. Just make, without burdening the process (which should be fun, no?, or what's the point?) with lots of heavy ideas and pressures about the bigger picture of my musical output (which is pretty minuscule given the number of hours I've spent making music of my own, or in concert with others).

[That last parenthetical bit is the small, derailing, destructive voice nibbling away at the periphery of even writing about the new embryonic CD - the ego worrying about quantity/quality of output. Who fucking cares? I'm not Wagner.]

The busy mind digresses...back to the point. Some of these sketches have snowballed rather quickly into some pieces I really like the direction of. Some of it is new territory, some is familiar, but it all feels vital and exciting. Over a few months, a period filled with lots of time commitments and personal challenges, I've managed to get rather a lot done, musically. (Semi-paradoxically, mixes for clients and Outspan activity have only helped the process along, it seems). I've gone from the blank page to having a good 1/4 to 1/3rd of the thing pretty far along in the trajectory toward done-ness (that elusive spot where the piece looks up and says "we're done now - I'm complete. Mix 39c is as far as we need to go - print it").

Don't know how I've gotten this far this fast, and indeed there may be a massive boulder around the next blind curve, but things are really flowing for now. I remember details of certain moments along the way, but it's generally a blur. I feel a bit like an Alzheimer's patient who looks in their closets and says "Those are not my shoes", and the shoes are quality. The plate was empty, I blinked, and it's now about a quarter full of good eats. It's not Beethoven's 9th, or Eno's 'Ambient 4: On Land'. But so far it seems very good, and really me. The voice, the language, is distinctly my own (a sort of personal/aesthetic DNA is the source).

It's come from The Aether, like a beloved surprise guest. How else to explain the mystery of its appearance?

"Jah will provide". Indeed (s)he has and does and will. I've just got to keep those rabbit ears on and well-tuned.

Amidst death (Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both passed today) there is rebirth.

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*(Of course this "need" is personal, as it sure isn't commercial).