New Inspiration

My plan was to spend the first two weeks in my new flat, writing, playing music, composing, and doing other interesting things like that. The sort of things I spend a long time thinking about doing, but never really get around to actually doing.

I've spent most of my time here rehearsing acoustic material and developing some new songs, reading about photography, and wondering why I haven't really got round to doing the things I was planning on doing. I did also make a brief start on a proposal for a sound installation but decided that, considering the proposal wouldn't be delivered until September, it wasn't worth spending too much time on. Plus I don't want to lose energy midway through this particular project as I feel it will be a real killer.

I have nearly finished reading a book about David Bowie in Berlin. It is absolutely fantastic. It talks about the making of both 'Low' and 'Heroes', as well as the making of Iggy Pop records, 'The Idiot' and 'Lust For Life'. What is most interesting about this time was the importance placed on working methods, collaborations and mindset when they were producing this material. Both Bowie and those he worked with were desperate to put their old selves, their old ways of working, behind them and create something fresh. They didn't tie themselves to schedules of preconceived formats of how things would be done. The sessions were organic and free and, perhaps because of this, the actual bulk of the work was completed fairly quickly.

I've spoken before about the need, as an artist, to force yourself into new directions, to attempt to work in different ways and to seek out new ideas and inspirations. This can be as simple as visiting a random gig, buying a new CD by a different artist, or as radical as it was for Bowie, moving to a different part of the world to work with different people. But if you want to keep being excited by your own musical or artistic journey, these steps are absolutely necessary.

I have spent the last few days working on new electronic music. Although the results aren't quite ready to be heard yet I am getting really excited about where some of the sounds are heading. Over the last few months I have had a bit of a sonic breakthrough with my electronic music which I am really pleased about. So to celebrate, I will be posting some old, new music on my musical sketchpad.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have just gone through the process of registering and licensing my copy of Cubase LE4 so that I can bounce some MP3s to upload. I have now discovered that Cubase LE4 does not seem to offer MP3 bounces. If it does - I can't find them.

I will post again when this is resolved and my music is online.