back to square one.

I had to convince myself that love wasn't real.

I convinced myself that love wasn't real.

Love isn't real.

But The September Project is.

Happy September 1st.

"I've made a terrible mistake."

There are approximately 17 steps from the entrance of my apartment to the front of my door. This is the amount of time it takes to walk up those 17 steps, in a manner that would become a metaphor in a Camus novel, maybe. It's a pointless drawl, with little to no intention. By the third time around, I am out of breath. I can't control my airstream. It sounds like shit and I'm not happy with it. It's probably the worst thing I've ever published. But I only had 20 minutes to write about 17 steps, 20 minutes before the 18 bus leaves me at the stop. As stubborn as I am, I won't re-record the mistakes. This is it. The first take. The truth. The ugly, naked, honest truth. That I am erred, that everything I write sounds the same, that I don't venture from my comfortable compositional techniques, though I know what I am capable of doing and creating. It is a genuine disrobed falsity. It is me without the mask I'm about to put on before acting the part necessary to survive in this world. It is my artistry with no meaning.

But it is a real feeling, and everything imperfect about it is what makes me human.

I am sorry.

Download:
A Walk Up The Stairs

Procrastination...

I recorded this exactly two years ago, on an upright Young Chang . It's titled "September 8," though its working title was "No Substance World." I don't know why I never finish songs unless prompted. Perhaps I'll finish this one... winter's coming. I miss having a piano. I swear my creativity soars when one's around.

Download:

Interrupted

Also, sidenote: notating music on Finale Notepad is excruciating. I swear to never use this notation software again... back to the pencil and paper.

Also, another sidenote: graphic scores are the shit. They're probably my favorite way to notate music. When people say they can "read music," it pretty much means they can look at a piece of paper and execute the intended results, usually with other people. But what if those intended results aren't really... intended? The New York Miniaturist Ensemble has some really interesting shit to say about that. And they have a fairly decent, part humorous collection of graphic scores on their site.. check them out.

And in the crush of the dark...

I could not, for the life of me, get this song out of my head at work today. Minor flashbacks of pole dancing on Halsted. Ow. I also blame Nikalas and Samantha for having the same exact music tastes. It came to my attention that I don't really listen to chick singers. I don't think it's on purpose. I guess I just relate to male front men more in the same way that Nik relates to Alanis Morisette. Haha. This one's for you, buddy.

Instruments: Ukulele / trumpet / my mouth / pill bottle filled with rice

Download:

Psychobabble all upon your lips

Currently listening to: Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People EP (2010) (just came out omg) (so good)

In conjunction with: The National - Boxer (2007)

You should maybe listen to: La Roux - s/t (2009)

Night Diving

I've been on some creative block for some time now. I don't know, I guess part of it is finding a reason to do.. anything. The motivation. It's kind of like the formation of a wave. I mean all these natural forces in the world create the actual wave. Without the external, it would just be existing there as water. Does it give less meaning to the physical and tangible liquid that it is? No boundaries in a world where waves exist, almost in spite of the meaning we give or don't give. Little things happen and exist for that specific moment. When the waves come barreling down the rocks by the museum campus on the southern side of downtown Chicago, the ictus between them being and them not being is: the crash. Once it crashes, it no longer is. Parts of it splash onto the sidewalk- if lucky, onto the same people that determine their meaning. Most of it falls back into the water. Is there pleasure in the height of a wave? Or do people just think too much and make metaphors about dumb shit that nobody else gives a fuck about? I'm back to "I don't know." But. I guess it's better than "I don't care." So, I had a record button, 5 notes, and these instruments at my immediate disposal. AKA in reach of my chair, so I wouldn't have to get up. None of these instruments are mine, by the way. Andrea's ukulele and Jamie's trumpet with Phil's harmon mute An ocarina shaped like a little bird A canister of loose change Just ride the waves, like moving incidences, crashing into one another. I guess it's what makes life have momentum. Listen with earphones, I recommend it most: