Pieces Of Me In Magnetic Form

Background:

I have had a cassette deck for about a year now, but only recently managed to get my hands on actual cassette tapes. A few days of tinkering with tape saturation went by with nothing really to show for it — though I did send a few videos of awful bass-saturated tracks to a couple friends.

On 30 Aug 2024 I was using the connected amplifier to peruse the FM/AM radio waves. I decided to sample the static and turned on my PC, which immediately sent the signal spiralling into absolute chaos. Perfect.

Let me state my Agenda explicitly:

I am concerned that I, as nnwhen, will fall into a cycle of caring more about nurturing a mystique than the act of freely creating music and art. This blog-post is about what proactive steps I take to make sure that never happens. And why I think it's important for you to find your own methods too.

The Why:

My previous week had been devoid of any real creative or even mundane action. It was becoming easy to just let things happen at me. Though it must be acknowledged that I was quite fatigued and disheartened. I had taken care of myself well, but the next step was making sure I didn't remain stagnant once the extended rest was no longer needed.

And so: Beyond me wanting to remain authentic and avoid the allure of a perfect facade, this was a great way to practice not only making an Album/EP but starting, finishing and uploading one too. I have quite literally made dozens of Albums that have not yet seen the light of day. My problem is: Sticking to my decision to make something and committing to putting my creations out into the world.

The What:

'20240830-PiecesOfMeInMagneticForm' was an intentional choice to engage in an intuitive and somewhat manic act of music creation. The goal being: To create a 'completed' piece of art within a day, pushing past perfectionism, and having full faith in the process. I was to hit record on the cassette deck and tune through the frequencies on my radio. Then to record from my PC as I dug up and played media and found-footage of myself and friends. Everything had to be on my disk already, or from the radio: Easy, Accessible, Ready.

The How:

I was much too scared to twist the knobs and dials on my receiver, as well as randomly opening video and audio files on my PC at first; it was a non-scripted performance and anything could have happened. I was scared of making a mistake, being 'cringe'. I kept this in mind. I made sure I intentionally usurped that fear. I must be afraid and do it anyway.

Instead of letting the dislike of the early stages of garbled static, distorted voices and contextless media stop me, I held my judgement and kept experimenting. I listened back to my recordings with a different ear. Before I was preoccupied with pushing through the anxiety, now I could listen to what I recorded. It wasn't long until the arrangement became something I couldn't help but find fascinating. I am still genuinely surprised at the coherent and beautiful story it became.

Credits and Contexts:

I wrote this blog-post to credit the things that were not recordings of my friends or ephemeral radio recordings. And more importantly: Point you toward other media that didn't make it in, or I was reminded of.

Neptune Frost

Neptune Frost was what made up the backbone of the last track. I remember watching this with a friend of mine. I really enjoyed it, they adored it.

Doddodo live @ Grrrnd Zero

This didn't actually make it into the EP, despite me having sampled it on my PiecesOfMeInMagneticForm tape. Doddodo has been a great inspiration with regard to making messy and fun music. I first found her '口の運動 / exciesise of mouth' track, which remains my absolute favourite.

As it turns out, most of this EP was random static and my friends chatting shit. Hope you enjoyed it!