Ebb & Flow

Ever moving, the ebb and flow of the sea serves to calm. The predictable entropy, every wave different, yet the same. I search for reason or purpose but come up short, and yet am not disheartened. Perhaps the point is not to achieve any one specific thing, but just to face each new challenge calmly, confident that it will work out, because, one way or another, it always has.
Half a life ago I was so sure I had everything figured out and knew where I was heading, and to what end. But there is no end, save the inevitable ultimate end, when I become one with the universe again. Failure has been the greatest teacher I have had. Not so much the personal failure, which more and more I realise is actually success at continuing, but the failure of plans to come to fruition; the failure of society to realise that if everyone is cared for, everyone is better off for it.

So what now? Never has the future seemed more uncertain, or more daunting. I have a feeling, as though it is my destiny to be presented with answers that seem too easy, and almost always are. Yet for every opportunity that has crumbled to dust, I have forged the foundation of a different possibility. Success is not unobtainable, simply finite. You don’t achieve your goal, and then simply rest for the remainder of your days, each mile marker of success contributes a chapter to your story. Success is not one thing, but a series of small victories, and the failures don’t negate them. Even when balance seems to be in favour of the disappointments, it is invariably just a matter of perspective. Wins and losses are temporary - they are the end of a story, but not the end of the story.
There is a temptation to view things in an absolute, binary manner - particularly in the settling dust of a skirmish that has left you momentarily defeated. And yet, even in the face of this seemingly insurmountable obstacle, as one person falls short of your expectations or hopes, another rises above them. Victory from defeat.

P4810 - 50s Sci-Fi, 80s Mixtape

So here it is. I've been working on this for the past few months, with no clear objective in mind, other than I wanted to finish an album of original material, with the tools I had available to me. 

Everything was recorded in GarageBand, on iPhone 4S and iPhone 6, with some of the synths and beats being played in iKaossilator, which is a really good kaos pad app by Korg. All the guitars are real ones, recorded using an iRig plugged straight into the phone. Most of the guitars are done in one take, and for the most part improvised, which inevitably means there is the odd mistake here and there, but I wanted to capture the essence of the improvisational way that I play, rather than restrict myself to clearly defined parts, which I have a tendency to mess up anyway. 

The vocals were recorded (with varying success) using the mouthpiece on a set of standard iPhone headphones, and then mixed in GarageBand. The overall mix was also done in GarageBand, using the same headphones as monitors. As such, the mix may be a bit odd if you listen on speakers, but if you listen on headphones you'll probably get a better understanding of what I was going for. 

I chose not to restrict myself to any genre, and instead just recorded whatever I felt like doing at the time. Some of the electronica was driven by the fact that I find it the easiest style to do on my phone, and it's also an increasingly large percentage of what I listen to when I'm out and about, so its influence trickles inevitably in. 

I'm constantly learning with GarageBand, so I'm regularly finding new ways to do things, and new things to play with, which often influences the direction a tune will take. I think in terms of "what can I do with what I have?", rather than setting out to make something specific. So I'll start by choosing a tempo, a key, and a set of chords, and then after I've put down a basic beat as a guide, I'll play around within the parameters I've set. Once the first instrument is down, I think about what will work well with it, and will often record several completely different parts and then choose one that works better than the others. The spare tracks are then muted, and sometimes chopped down and re-used elsewhere. 

It's not a professionally produced, expertly mixed album, it's a collection of thoughts and feelings captured over time and assembled in a way that makes sense to me. I hope some of it makes you smile. 

P4