I should preface this by saying, I’ve been finishing up a nine-song solo album that I’ve been working on for a few months now. There are a few loose ends to tie up, but for the most part, it’s done. Or it was.
Oxygen Masks was ready to go
Last night completely by chance I saw Jean-Luc Godard’s 1987 film, King Lear. I had no clue what was in store for me. I won’t really try to describe the experience, partly because I can’t yet. But it was just one of those unexpected experiences with art that completely caught me off-guard.
About halfway through the film, which was just as much a pleasure to listen to as it was to watch, this album I’ve been working on sprang to mind and I thought, I need to deconstruct my process for making music and start this entire project over. And so I have.
To me, this is the function of great art. Great art can be subjective, as well—for me, it’s a Godard film, but for someone else it could be a Picasso painting or a Bad Religion song. Whatever it is, something about it rewires the way you think about things, about yourself, about the world. It makes you approach life differently.
Watching this film, I realized I’d been approaching music—in what I play, how I play it, how I write and record it—everything—in a way that I don’t really identify with anymore. It’s comfortable and unfamiliar at the same time. I haven’t been pushing myself, and the results are generally good enough—and what I realized last night, sitting in this theater, was that good enough is actually not that at all.
So I am starting from square one, unsure of how to move forward or what I’ll end up producing, but I know it just can’t be what I was going for. I hope it will be weird.
