Thursday 25 February 2010

Plans for the (near?) future

I thought I'd need a long break from music after the particularly draining task of finishing Of How a World Is Built, but I can't help it: when the creative drive grabs you, there's no way to stop it (without driving yourself crazy, that is).

Thing is, there were actually two projects in my queue as I finished that album. To one side, there was a totally abstract and electronic project I wanted to start, based on ideas I had been collecting while working on the album. It would sort of mash-up the styles of electronic music that I have been listening, while crossing it over with other stuff, such as my fascination with TV and radio vignettes. At the other side, though, was the extremely tempting idea to remake, from scratch, one of my older albums.

Right now, I'm about halfway into the latter project. I'm honestly surprised: I see a lot of potential in this work, and I'm eager to get it done. Basically, I took the songs from Musics for Highways, which consisted originally of MIDI songs recorded straight from the Windows General MIDI FM synthesizer, and rebuilt them entirely using the technologies and software I've employed on my two previous albums. I am not treating this as a "remake", as a "new edition" of the album: I'm treating this as the "actual make", as if the previous recording was a mere early draft, a prototype, a rough sketch. What I like about those songs are the naïvety, the lack of pretension, the directness of ideas, and how well they matched the concept of highways and roadtrips. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get one or two tracks recorded soon and published for a preview. For now, just wait anxiously for the release of Oversteps, by Autechre.

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