Music is not just an addition for me. It permeates everything, and I often return to it.
Through days, through weeks, through phases. Sometimes loud, sometimes deep. But always present.
At the end of a day, or especially an evening, I often gravitate towards music. Not consciously, not planned. I start searching. Techno, deep house, or something very slow and dark if that's where my mind is. I listen briefly. I download via channels. Usually Traxsource or Beatport for MP3s.
I prepare a number of tracks in Traktor Pro 4.
Once I've created a stem (separated tracks) on my simple two-channel mixer on my iMac, I begin. Without a plan. Without direction. I dive in blindly. Just me, behind my Mac.
I don't mix to create something finished. I mix to immerse myself in it, and the beat, but also to tell a story if I feel there is one, because hey, who says I think it's there. To feel what happens when a beat lingers, when a voice breaks free, when something grates or suddenly fits, or when cool voices in the other beat, that's why stems are so great to separate a track. Sometimes I hit something I can't quite explain, but it must be there, and wow, it's so great to do this with a two-track mixer and ONTHEGO.
I upload those mixes to Mixcloud.
Not as a release. But for me, because they're not pure and sometimes rough,
More as a place where they can continue to exist.
In my earbuds, at Happy Bodies, during workouts, especially the techno versions. Music to move in, to disappear into, to not have to talk, and techno is great, man. Those mixes are part of how I use my body, how I release tension (wtf this sounds really intense though), how I create space in my head, even when there is no space left sometimes.
Some mixes are better than others. I know that too, no pre-listening and such, no DJ stuff, so sometimes weird and unexpected. But that's not the point. I do it for me, so #endoor peet.
The point is that music is sometimes the only form where things make sense.
Where feelings don't need to be explained and you can take them into the night, because this happened so many years ago.
Where tempo, repetition, and depth are enough, but I will never give in to it #endoor darlings!
This is not a project.
This is something that has been going on for a long time.
And know that with every mix, while I'm at it, I try to create a midjourney image, because yes hey, it can #endoor