Pieces Of Me In Magnetic Form

Background:

I have had a cassette deck for about a year now but only recently managed to get my hands on actual cassette tapes. A few days of tinkering with tape saturation went by with nothing really to show for it - though I did send a few videos of awful bass-saturated tracks to a couple friends.

On 30 Aug 2024 I was using the connected amplifier to peruse the FM/AM radiowaves. I decided to sample the static and turned on my PC, which immediately sent the signal spiralling into absolute chaos. Perfect.

Let me state my Agenda explicitly:

I am concerned that I, as NNWHEN, will fall into a cycle of caring more about nurturing a mystique than the act of freely creating music and art. This blog-post is about what proactive steps I take to make sure that never happens. And why I think it's important for you to find your own methods too.

The Why:

My previous week had been devoid of any real creative or even mundane action. It was becoming easy to just let things happen at me. Though it must be acknowledged that I was quite fatigued and disheartened. I had taken care of myself well, but the next step was making sure I didn't remain stagnant once the extended rest was no longer needed.

And so: Beyond me wanting to remain authentic and avoid the allure of a perfect facade, this was a great way to practice not only making an Album/EP but starting, finishing and uploading one too. I have quite literally made dozens of Albums that have not yet seen the light of day. My problem is: Sticking to my decision to make something and committing to putting my creations out into the world.

The What:

'20240830-PiecesOfMeInMagneticForm' was an intentional choice to engage in an intuitive and somewhat manic act of music creation. The goal being: To create a 'completed' piece of art within a day, pushing past perfectionism, and having full faith in the process. I was to hit record on the cassette deck and tune through the frequencies on my radio. Then to record from my PC as I dug up and played media and found-footage of myself and friends. Everything had to be on my disk already, or from the radio: Easy, Accessible, Ready.

The How:

I was much too scared to twist the knobs and dials on my receiver as well as randomly open video and audio files on my PC at first; it was a non-scripted performance and anything could have happened. I was scared of making a mistake, being 'cringe'. I kept this in mind. I made sure I intentionally usurped that fear. I must be afraid and do it anyway.

Instead of letting the dislike of the early stages of garbled static, distorted voices and contextless media stop me, I held my judgement and kept experimenting. I listened back to my recordings with a different ear. Before I was preoccupied with pushing through the anxiety, now I could listen to what I recorded. It wasn't long until the arrangement became something I couldn't help but find fascinating. I am still genuinely surprised at the coherent and beautiful story it became.

Credits and Contexts:

I wrote this blog-post to credit the things that were not recordings of my friends or ephemeral radio recordings. And more importantly: Point you toward other media that didn't make it in or I was reminded of.

Neptune Frost

Neptune Frost was what made up the backbone of the last track. I remember watching this with a friend of mine. I really enjoyed it, they adored it.

Doddodo live @ Grrrnd Zero

This didn't actually make it into the EP despite me having sampled it on my PiecesOfMeInMagneticForm tape. Doddodo has been great inspiration with regards to making messy and fun music. I first found her '口の運動 / exciesise of mouth' track, which remains my absolute favourite.

As it turns out, most of this EP was random static and my friends chatting shit. Hope you enjoyed it!