State To State (Dx)

I made a cassette along with this album and I thought about mixing it together with these tracks but I decided against after listening back to the cassette.  I must have excluded 7 tracks from that tape as well.  This was a fun project to make on the basis that in the beginning of it I finally caved and bought a sampler.  The SP404MK2 is an amazing machine and you'll hear a bunch of the effects of it on different parts of this album.  A lot of frustration goes along with this because it is an impulse release.  I could definitely mix a lot of these tracks better if I had better equipment or a better relationship with a studio or engineer.  Ironically, I went to school for that stuff but it was all PRO TOOLS based which is something I don't have access to, just Ableton.  As much as I love Ableton for Composing, I haven't gotten totally into the mixing/mastering side of things very professionally.  

Anyway, I love to rant on these because over a decade of releasing music on this platform and still not being in any niche of music industry that could help me directly has soured my blood and restricted blood flow to my heart.   I'm not going to give up on my dream of being a career musician and I'm hoping to actually make meaningful connections with other Artists instead of have this overwhelming longing and resentment with EVERYONE I HAVE WORKED WITH MUSICALLY.   At this point in the game, I would not feel like a sellout at all to join some Label that had a decent enough heart to let me earn as much I earn at my job I have now but even that is asking a lot because it seems a lot of music artists are just paying to be social media entertainers.  I don't want to do that.  I don't want to be a dancing monkey to the masses.  I want to do the thing I love doing and be able to make a career out of it.  Whether I get up everyday and work on music of mine or others for 8 hours a day, Five Days a week or I just do what I do now.

This project is awesome because I have been making it a habit to wake up, make a weird beat/song and then go about the rest of the day.  Nothing exists before composition.  I love that kind of motive and I wish I put that at the beginning of my career when I started making computer music when I was 17.  Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll needs to be revised because that wave of early 2010s EDM probably made junkies out of a lot of us music seekers.  I remember my Music Teacher in Highschool making a point to mention the effects of MDMA and I did not listen to that at all and I really should have.  When I was in the moment with the music, it was so much more pure.  When I was high, I was intensely excited for a short burst and then miss a bunch to focus on not dying and attempt to hydrate myself.  I don't blame MDMA, I blame myself for not educating myself further before using it so much.  

So yeah again, I like to rant on these releases which I didn't do as much for "BLOOD BARRIERS".  "A TURN FOR THE BEST" is a play on the expression "a turn for the worst".  I've been sober off of alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine for the past 2 years and it's a real high point for me because it seems that since I was 18, this has been the longest time I've been sober.  A lot of people like to mention and give homage to drugs as being the driving factor to their creativity which is a bullshit crutch.  Drugs are not glamourous, they FUCKING KILL THE PEOPLE THAT YOU LOVE (PERIOD).  I used to make music with this one dude who was extremely talented, shot up what he thought was coke (it was FENTYNAL) and died.  

That brings me to a new point.  If any of you ever feel way too low, please reach out for help.  Hotlines are a great thing and no problem is worth hurting yourself over because this life is really fantastic if you give yourself some honesty and see where things are going right and going wrong.

Favorite Tracks: Share the Heartbeat, Beauty Machine, Swamp Trek.

1. KNOW HOW IT FEELS (74 BPM)

CHARCOAL

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