sometimes it’s like a siren call. it keeps me awake at night, feverish. thoughts racing, with no clear output. i toss and turn possessed by an urge to make something out of nothing.
between the ages of 9 and 16, i used to make stop-motion videos as a hobby. i realized if i took my mother’s dv cam, hit record for just a split second, shifted something in frame, then hit record again very quickly, inanimate objects seem to move by themselves. i felt like a magician.
no one ever told me to make those videos, but i felt compelled to. i stayed up countless school nights moving pieces of clay, hitting stop and record over and over until my eyelids wouldn’t allow it. i made music back then too, with a copy of Sony Acid Pro that happened to be installed on my dad’s old PC. i recorded my vocals with a Playstation2 USB microphone, sometimes recording percussion with that same mic - knocking on my computer desk with different parts of my fist. i would occasionally burn the music i made to CDs and strictly lend them to my closest friends, like some kind of secret.
sometimes i yearn for the art i make to feel like a secret again. this is a dilemma for me because i also want to make a living as an artist, but i can’t deny how different the process of creation felt when it was simply for the sake of doing it.
i try my best to approach my music-making with a childlike mindset. i rarely go in with a plan, and almost always end up with something different than when i started. the creative flow that pushes me forward is the kind that takes me on sonic tangents, pulling from various threads of influence. my favorite creations come from that place, but it is unpredictable. i’ll feel a burst of inspiration while lying awake at night, my body too tired to act. i’ll sit in the studio for hours, waiting for something to come and nothing. this may happen for weeks, months, years.
but the compulsion always returns, and when it does - it’s like a mudslide, reshaping everything in its wake. my last album ONDAS was essentially written and completed in two months, but it took me years of moving pieces of clay, hitting record/stop, over and over. i started to hear the siren call again in 2024 after some stagnancy, and its only gotten louder since. i can’t stop making things, the ideas won’t stop flowing. i find myself overwhelmed by all the ways i might be able to create magic.
somehow this has become a new block for me. i am paralyzed by options. i’m at a fork in the road, but this fork seems to have a hundred prongs. what thread do i pull now? which way shall i unravel next? will i have enough time to do all these things before this urge to create once again dissipates, as it always seems to?
and that’s just where i’m at right now. chipping away at an overflow of ideas, catastrophizing about the ways in which i may lose this renewed motivation, hiding away in my studio conjuring up new secrets to hopefully give away.
all this to say, i’ve been working on new music. and some new really sick merch. and further building out my label (.WAVCAVE). and dreaming up ideas for my club tools + event series (JOINT FUNCTION). and going crazy lying awake at night wondering what the hell is next for me.
