Arts & Crafts and Frankensteins
Songs have a life of their own. If you're reading this blog, you probably care enough about music as to have found out for yourself. This first post in my first ever blog is precisely about the life of the songs in the compilation album Arts & Crafts and Frankensteins, released in November 2017.
The aforementioned songs are the longest living creatures in my music terrarium, the earliest one - Click my Tongue - going as far back as 2002. Some of them had a fairly quiet existence within the scope of my living room for a good many years, until I realized getting acquainted with music software and starting to record my work both needed to happen, as a life of confinement wasn't what I wanted for my songs. So I made it happen.
The first ones to get recorded were The Elephant song and You Ruin my Sadness around 2010, and the last ones were So Far So Good and Smart Guy, in early 2013, around 6 months BC ("before China", as I like calling it now). The recording sequence is unrelated to the actual age of the song, it was more about what I thought of as "market priorities" at the time (which makes me crack up now, when I think about it! I've long since given up on the idea of knowing anything about the market's obscure ways). In the space of three years those songs got pinned to a piece of cork, like rare butterflies, for everyone to see them (not to be confused with "feel them") in the exact same way, unable to change their shape again but through the long and taxing process of rerecording. They became one with their production to the extent that I don't remember what they were like before recording them, except for the ones I took and reshaped again in collaboration with other artists, like Nocturna, with Vladi Stanojevic from The Lazy Dreamers, or Getting on, with Vincent Searfoss from Sour Bounty. Those assumed a new form which now has become their "true" form, so to speak. As I said before, songs have a life of their own.
As for the narrative within the songs, well... that's a different story, ancient history, if you will. Sometimes listening to them is the closest I can get to remembering how I felt at the time about things, like a photograph of the soul, cheesy as it may sound. Most of those feelings have been obliterated by a life of constant change. That has a bit of a sour aftertaste to it but, at any rate, if the feelings are gone, at least I'm glad I still have the songs.
But if something defines this particular collection of recordings it's its DIY quality. Pretty much everything was made by myself: writing, recording, playing the instruments I had and programming the ones I didn't, mixing, mastering... and it was that way because I simply didn't have anyone to help me at the time (although I must confess I did get a lot of help on the visual side of things from photographer Ismael Tato, as well as a couple of brilliant musical ideas. The pics sprinkled about this blog are all his work. They were chosen as individual artwork when I first uploaded them on Bandcamp). These songs here are pure Hel, pardon the pun. Luckily, that way of making music is no longer the same, and I do have people around me who are willing to share their expertise when I need it. As a result, my shortcomings in the more technical aspects of recording (mixing, mastering and whatnot) have been straightened up by the almighty Vladi Stanojevic, and that has put an extra layer of luster on my beloved creatures.
They're ready for a new phase in their lives, out there together, as a representation of who I was before. I'm proud of them. It would be beautiful if you would like them too.