August 24, 2024
By Alex Countersignal
I have a lot of thoughts and opinions about music, and I enjoy music a lot. Recently, I came to the conclusion that it’s about time I create some of my own. I know enough about it at this point to really apply myself in this realm like I never could before. To extract the concepts from the recesses of my mind, separate them and direct them into a concrete form.
As follows is some information and insight I had during the creation of Acedia. I feel that this nature of transparency about the artistic process is something that the world could use more of, something that’s lacking in this age of faceless, impersonal, easily accessible entertainment. maybe it will even help you along in your own creative endeavors.
The word Acedia is of Latin origin, and is defined as a state of listlessness or apathy. The album is loosely about overcoming this feeling. A feeling I fight whenever I make art or do really anything substantive. The word has an air of sophistication, but not so much as to be pretentious. I had a very specific aesthetic in mind while making this. Ethereal, technological, futuristic, refined (more so than my previous releases) but not overproduced. Energetic, engaging. At times, sentimental, nostalgic, but for the 2000s, not the 1980s. There were many things I specifically did not want Acedia to be. Nothing trying to be quirky or cute, nothing weird, vulgar, violent, or offensive to the sensibilities. Nothing “self-aware”, no irony poisoning. Genuine and authentic. Nothing 1980s. I’m so over this retro, chiptune, synthwave, action movie arcade thing. To quote Yung Inspectah, “Ten years ago that shit was novel. Now it’s overplayed, banal and awful”. Don’t get me wrong, I like some of it, but electronic music can be so much more than rehashing something from forty years ago over and over.
I like the album form. I like listening to albums. Acedia is meant to be listened to all the way through, and the tracks originally transitioned seamlessly together, though I ultimately decided to remove that because it doesn’t quite work with tracks of varying tempos. Some of them I will maybe release as singles with instrumentals or alternate mixes later. I considered releasing a few EPs consecutively instead, but it’s cleaner and more satisfying to have it all in a single piece that I can direct someone to, that has a similar theme or narrative and defines my style at that particular point in time. Releasing an album containing several different subgenres all at once in current year is not the most profitable model as opposed to slowly drip-feeding singles. Knowing this only encouraged me further to release an album. Nothing about this is optimized for engagement or profit, I’ll be happy with it even if I never make a single cent or accrue a single follower. I will never compromise, sanitize or blunt the content or presentation for financial gain or mass appeal, that would be completely antithetical to my goal with this. Yes, it is inefficient, it is more effort. That’s by design.
People act like it’s hard to create art, or that it’s too much work. I disagree. Making art is easy. It takes time, sure, but it isn’t difficult. What’s difficult is not creating art. Going day after day just consuming anything and everything, never even trying to create something of your own. I don’t know how people do that their whole lives. I was like that for a long time, it was miserable. Every day that I wake up and work towards creating something, I feel great. Exhausted, but satisfied. I would always get bored of video games or things of that sort, switching from one to the next every few months. It’s not to say that things like that are bad, but they’re ultimately unfulfilling and shouldn’t be overindulged in. I never get bored of creating art, no matter the medium, because there’s infinite possibilities. The only limit is time and mental fortitude. I feel tired at the end of the day, even if all I’m doing physically is sitting at a computer, since my brain is exercised in ways it rarely ever is otherwise.
One of the most frustrating things as an artist is having a vision but not knowing how to execute it properly. Being unable to express something in the particular way that only you could. I felt like that about my art until maybe a year ago, perhaps a few years before that for my writing. I feel now that I have the skill and patience, the mental flexibility to learn to use the tools at my disposal and to gradually, carefully bend the raw ideas into a cohesive whole. To incisively and decisively enact my will upon the world, to be able to point at something and say that it was created entirely from my mind, that it’s just like I imagined. I only got to this point by failing to get here repeatedly, through years of trial and error. I’m still learning, of course, but it’s one of the most satisfying things to be able to do that.
Often times, though, I feel like a vessel, like I’m not really the one in control of what I’m creating. I’m being steered suddenly and unexpectedly in different directions by some mysterious divine force. I set out thinking this would strictly be a drum and bass album. Splinter, which at first was going to be called Beneath the Surface, had whole verses, a chorus, and a bridge that ended up not being used. It can really go in ways you never thought possible. It’s strange but fun.
I never originally intended on using vocal synths on this album, but it became necessary since I wanted softer vocals that I could not do, and I didn’t have access to a three-dimensional female vocalist. I ultimately think it adds a unique aspect, there isn’t normally much overlap between the type of music that uses vocal synths and type of music I make. Vocaloid was one of my first exposures to otaku culture so I’m glad I was able to incorporate that into Acedia and contribute to the collective egregore of the characters. Within the community, producers are regarded to have “their Miku” (or whichever character they use) and each producer’s particular characters are said to have distinct mannerisms and personalities separate from the character as originally depicted. I never thought it would happen, but I guess I’m a vocal synth producer now and I have my own Miku and my own IA. I look forward to developing my iterations of these characters further.
The thing that motivated me above all was anxiety about the unknown. It’s not at all unfamiliar to me, I’m a very paranoid and anxious person. It normally seems to manifest externally as being hyper-prepared for everything and manifests internally as a void that sucks away all my potential, crushing me under its weight, rendering me paralyzed and inert. For whatever reason, recently it was different. I guess it was an inflection point, a combination of factors that led me to determine that I needed to do this. Whether it’s because of the state of the world, something caused by myself, or events completely unexpected taking me out of the picture, I may not always be able to create something of this nature, or anything at all. So, it may be flawed, maybe I won’t do it continuously or professionally, and maybe I won’t reach any sort of notoriety or mainstream success, but regardless, I have to do it. I have to do it. Those were the words that kept echoing in my mind. I would wake up, get some coffee and some quick food, and work all day. Funny how it’s only when it seems like the world’s coming down that I finally find it within me to do this, I guess I work best under pressure.
The making of this album (this particularly shows in the lyrics to Collapse) proved to me that you can’t give into despair or frustration, but you also can’t just block it out. You really have to channel your anger or frustration into something tangible, to sort of compartmentalize and package it. It doesn’t make the feelings go away forever, but it alleviates the pain somewhat. This is why I like aggressive, high energy music. It really forms a human connection by communicating the channeled raw emotion that ambient et al. simply doesn’t have the bandwidth for. People say ambient is boring, that it’s low effort. That’s because it is. Ambient is what people make when they want to make music but don’t have anything to communicate. That’s why The Downward Spiral is the best rock album of all time, and Ghosts puts people to sleep.
There are several instances that I would attempt to turn these emotions into writing, even some times that I got pretty far with it but I would always read over it and it would come across like I’m just seething at myself/others/society etc. It’s very ugly, not artful, not helpful to anyone. It’s much better when channeled into this form. It’s easier to turn it into something that has the potential to both entertain and elevate someone’s consciousness, which I think should be one of the goals when creating art.
People often throw around the quote “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good” seemingly for the purpose of excusing lazy or otherwise poor behavior. To make good art, to truly punch above your weight class, it requires a sort of obsessive hyperfixation on perfection, regardless of if it can ever be achieved. I would sit in the DAW for hours, just tweaking tiny things, playing the track over and over, looking at it different ways. “No, that’s slightly off, is it the drumloop? No, the drumloop’s synced, it’s gotta be the synth. I’ll move it back half a beat... no that’s worse, move it forward half a beat, still off, I’ll try half a step... there we go!” If I’m too tired, sleeping on it seems to be helpful too. Going back to the same project and punching at it for days, scrapping almost every initial aspect of it sometimes. When it finally clicks together, it’s the best feeling. You have to care enough to spend that extra few minutes, over and over. It really requires putting a piece of yourself into what you create, but the end result is far better than half-assed slapping shit together from some stock website. Do it right or don’t even bother. I think people can tell when something really has heart put into it and they appreciate that. I know that I do, at least. -AC
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