Despite the difficult morning it's been a productive day. The way I work to create is to learn and push, creating as I learn, so each new album (each new painting, each new film, book, or anything else) should hopefully be better and different. Burn of God and The Dusty Mirror already feel like creative tutorials and future work should see progressive improvements in vocal and guitar work.
The Myth of Sisyphus is themed around isolation and working in the wilderness. The original idea was to unify a few older, unheard but worthwhile, songs: The Invisible Man and Light Blue Evening, but also I think this is a contemporary resonant feeling, particularly in the social media era. Musically the album will rank along side my recent complex productions; prog-rock, art-rock, surrealist-rock.
But I have a bit of a problem in that I also have a new remix of the Plastic Superman song, and a re-recording of the Burnout Theme, both ready for some sort of future release. I've also got several sketches for similar catchy electro-pop songs, tracks in a similar mould to my (our) old Gunstorm music. The music is fun, but is very different from my other work, which is more like avant-garde rock now. Can you imagine if Pink Floyd, after releasing The Dark Side of the Moon, then released Barbie Girl by Aqua? I'm unsure what to do with them. Not everyone likes 'serious' rock or arty music, and vice versa. Showing off eclecticism is valid, and, of course, these songs too have emotion and artistic merit - if they lack anything it is that they are pre-sequenced electronica of the 'easy' sort that I don't really appreciate myself as 'art', they lack Romanticism, - yet, these tunes can be fun, can be catchy...
Perhaps the answer is to ensure that the music, lyrically and musically, is creative enough, new enough, add more live and emotional elements, or perhaps some unifying structure, perhaps other tracks that feel more 'real' (how I hate the fake-ness of contemporary pop). Another possibility is to form a new group... perhaps with Tor, and we could re-record our existing work. A new brand, name, band, is always an uphill struggle, but the music I made with Tor feels different enough from mine that it might be beneficial, and the idea of forming a Yazoo-style band is attractive (Tor's voice is so like Alison Moyet's that we could even release a cover version).
I've written a melody for 'We Shall See' today too, a simple sketch in F. I must keep working on this Sisyphus project and get it done quickly, yet, I've decided to hold off on the vocal recordings for a week or two to ensure that they are as good as they can be. I rarely rehearse, train, or practice my instruments of voice academically but now is right the time to do more of this. No shortcuts. There are merits in spontaneity, being arty, avant-garde, different, but things must also be done correctly, masterfully and professionally, the best we can, never easily. What is difficult is good. Everything that is worthwhile must necessarily be hard work.
