In the loop
Dec. 21st, 2005 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusAt the end of next week I fly to Osaka, where I'll spend two months in Hisae's family home at Tennoji. I must say this is tremendously morale-boosting, as I haven't been to Japan in almost a year. I'll continue recording my new album in Osaka before heading off to New York for my three month stint at the Whitney Biennial.
I need morale-boosting because it's been quite a stressful month. Hisae got thrown out of Germany last month after accidentally overstaying her visa by two days. She's been making a film with friends in London, but is now back in Japan. Rusty Santos has returned to New York, and I'm continuing with recording my album on my own. And, to be honest, it's sending me up and down like a yoyo or a bride's nightie.
Records have a will of their own, whatever plans you make for them. Far from the avant Tropicalia I planned, defying the Dogme-like rules I'd made, my album has veered in the direction of "experimental torch". Some days I think what I've done so far is utterly wonderful, other days I think it's rubbish. The usual pattern is for me to be completely in love with a track when I've just finished it, then, next day, to hang it beside something off David Sylvian's "Blemish" or Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois", and think how utterly crappy, trite, small and weak my work sounds. So I work on it some more, taking it somewhere more interesting, more strange, more otherworldly. Then I start a new song, determined to make the most wonderful piece of music ever, and the cycle starts all over again. Joy and despair in an endless loop.
I need morale-boosting because it's been quite a stressful month. Hisae got thrown out of Germany last month after accidentally overstaying her visa by two days. She's been making a film with friends in London, but is now back in Japan. Rusty Santos has returned to New York, and I'm continuing with recording my album on my own. And, to be honest, it's sending me up and down like a yoyo or a bride's nightie.
Records have a will of their own, whatever plans you make for them. Far from the avant Tropicalia I planned, defying the Dogme-like rules I'd made, my album has veered in the direction of "experimental torch". Some days I think what I've done so far is utterly wonderful, other days I think it's rubbish. The usual pattern is for me to be completely in love with a track when I've just finished it, then, next day, to hang it beside something off David Sylvian's "Blemish" or Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois", and think how utterly crappy, trite, small and weak my work sounds. So I work on it some more, taking it somewhere more interesting, more strange, more otherworldly. Then I start a new song, determined to make the most wonderful piece of music ever, and the cycle starts all over again. Joy and despair in an endless loop.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:03 pm (UTC)You know, I just sort of became aware of your works only last year sometime, and I'm wondering if there is anywhere online that I could just buy the whole lot of your records?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:16 pm (UTC)Well-- with thems, there's that element of P*A*S*S*I*O*N, which is hard to summon when one is freighted with all this framing, this design and concept busines. But you can't want to be Sufjan. I've seen his show. There's this ineffable feeling of wrongness that comes off him, like he doesn't quite exist in the same world as the rest of us. Faith, I guess.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:35 pm (UTC)Gilles
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 01:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 02:41 pm (UTC)You are a genius. Why must the world reflect this 'Enfer ou Paradis'?
I think I must suffer from depression of some form and IT IS a constant state of heaven and hell.
But I tell myself it is not that I am puritan but it is because we are all just animals in the end.
We construct arguments to justify the needs of our bodies. We forget being human is a point of view that obscures everything.
Osaka
Date: 2005-12-21 03:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 03:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 03:46 pm (UTC)Have you ever been the flea market at Shitennouji temple on 21st?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 03:59 pm (UTC)"Some days I think what I've done so far is utterly wonderful, other days I think it's rubbish."
That's how you know you're on the right track. Trite, but true.
Safe journey, Nick.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 04:04 pm (UTC)Cheeks and sleeves
Date: 2005-12-21 04:51 pm (UTC)I am sure it will work out, nothing good comes easy, good luck
Richard
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 05:42 pm (UTC)Hmmm, a torch revival?.... Hmmm..... Hmmmm.... NAAAAAAH!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 06:22 pm (UTC)It's the shits, isn't it?
I'm trying to think of the exact quote from, I think Yeats. Something like - My life has been filled with a deep abbiding sadness interupted by temporary bouts of joy. ( Can anyone help me out with the exact quote and author?)
Anyway it doesn't sound like your in that boat. Just that normal life yoyo stuff. Although Hisae getting thrown out of Germany sounds bad but she is still alive and apparently well and you'll see her soon.
Take it from someone whose life more resembles the Yeats(?) "quote" - Everything will work out fine. Maybe.
Can't wait to hear the new record and read your book. Get to work.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 06:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 07:16 pm (UTC)On rock, on skulls.
Hipster, pass by!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 07:24 pm (UTC)Well, I did in the entry: what David Sylvian did on "Blemish" is something I'd call experimental torch. I don't include Antony and the Johnsons, because I don't think he's doing very much experimental with sound, though Antony is certainly torch.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 07:37 pm (UTC)I have not heard any of his music, but he looks torch hot!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 07:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 07:44 pm (UTC)Now, isn't David Sylvian more close to ambient than actual torch?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:33 pm (UTC)"Secrets" is okay. I've never heard an album he did where he didn't do something I liked and then right after it something I felt embarrassed for. Which, blame that on whatever. But I haven't heard much of his new stuff, either.
Microgenres! Pshaw! Haven't we evolved past that yet*?
*rhetorical question
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 09:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 09:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-21 09:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 12:40 am (UTC)What do you think of the new Nine Horses album?
Looking forward to hearing advances (hopefully) of the new tracks.
Patrick
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 02:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 03:47 am (UTC)I hope not to hate your stuff, I really like your writing and want to come back.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 05:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 08:33 am (UTC)hang it beside something off David Sylvian's "Blemish"
Date: 2005-12-22 10:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 11:22 am (UTC)Joseph
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-22 11:26 am (UTC)About composing
Date: 2005-12-22 01:58 pm (UTC)