Media Fog

Artists of integrity are never less than honest brokers of cultural information.

Artistic communication is often shadow-play, nevertheless, yet artists direct the attention to the places where they dwell, either toward light or darkness.

This understanding is the responsibility of the audience-- but it is not always present.

What is Called

Methodologies of music represent ways of controlling sound.

Yet there are other forms, other models. Every environment is a listening environment, whether music-- or control-- is present or not.

Echoes Fade, Anticipation Forms

Listen toward the silence.

The artist as composer expects time past, remembers time future, and expresses in time present.

Force of Memory

Note the collective mentality of cultural groups who demand their biases be reinforced by art.

Control of media and the public debate leads only to more control, and consolidation of power in the hands of fewer, more totalitarian, agents of the status quo.  Imagine scenarios in which "art" must be approved by the state or (other controlling forces) because specific ideas and content are acceptable, and no others.  But it is not necessary to imagine, and one need only observe these forces at work.

Time, Place, Identity Unknown

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The listener will hear these albums in the form intended by the artists, who maintain complete creative control over every project.  Each of these albums is an artisan work, created with full attention to every artistic and production detail, made for the forward-thinking listener.

Alt / Experiment II

Not music, but a panorama of sounds, dynamic in movement and tonal qualities.

As sounds evolve in a state of dreaming, without planning and interference, so they may be understood and brought into reality through perceptivity and imagination,

These are expressions beyond the composer's ego.  Rather, they are expressions of phenomena.

Simulacrum, or State Otherwise

Popular innovations are few.

For commercial purposes, and particularly in terms of musical forms, the rule is imitation, and thus works and performances are relegated to genre.  In the arts, this is indefensible.

There is no breathing room in such narrow confines. Survival is one thing, and commercial viability is another. But to create, really innovate on an individualistic, heightened level of awareness, one must break away altogether, even if no form exists in which to function.

Such forms, which are as yet unimagined, must be made real.

Wild Cry, Left at Great Distance

It is misleading to suggest culture is in a state of decline.

Popular culture is perpetually in a state of decline, based, as it is, upon the notion of "living only for the moment".  Forward-thinking is anathema in such conditions, which are always characterized by absurd emotionalism, squandered passion, insipid vainglory, and the stale idea that some ill-defined, nebulous "we" are "all in this together".

I am interested in art produced by individuals, for individuals.  In composition, it is always my goal to expand, not limit, and elevate consciousness.

This, at all times, defines my perspective on the modern world.

Order of Progress

The way of the artist is that of the individualistic gesture.

Of course this is existential rebellion, in opposition to the common, the mundane, and the self- righteously complacent everywhere manifest in contemporary culture at all times.

Who will think, rather than be told, will reach beyond the surface of appearances.  For the artist as composer, this is the critical choice between music that now exists and sounds that must instead be brought into being.

Intent and Obscurity

One does not simply demand an audience.  That is absurd.

For the artist as composer, the listener and audience are interested in the works, and certainly not in the bleating of the self-styled public artiste, for whom the world is a stage and pretensions to a sort of special genius are the order of every day.

One would think there is little time for such nonsense, yet, in fact, the stage is always set for the hosts of competing entertainers to enter what can be generously called a contest for popularity. Here, all the financial rewards and associated glamour of "show-business" and the like take special precedence.

But this is not art, of course, and those who see art as a higher calling can only regard such attitudes with disdain and contempt.  And these are the people for whom the artist is compelled to work, that is to say, like-minded individuals.  Thus the artist understands this audience will be reached in ways that are unrelated to clamor, fanfare, and extravagance, and that further, in cultural terms, this audience is the largest, most diverse, and most supportive of all.

Clairaudience and Reason II

The truly simple is often difficult to grasp.

Similarly, complexity will not mislead perception if fundamentals are understood.

Forge and Will

The artist may be moved by an inner voice, or directed by others.

Therefore, events may determine outcomes, and outcomes may, indeed, determine events.

Reasoning Music

The aesthetic environment is by nature a "thinking" environment.

Responses to the vicissitudes of life according to the art of reason are simply superior to frenetic, emotional reactions to the ways of the world.  The art of sound is not simply meant to fill a void.

As composer, I bring sounds together as representations of the physical, aural nature of the world with the purpose of revealing both the dynamics of atmospheres and those of the imagination.

Cycles, Vibrations, Fasces

Listeners display curiosity, flexibility, self-possession, and respect for the arts and artists.

Consumers want conformity, particularly in thought and action, with little cost or consequence.

Any cursory survey of popular music immediately reveals well-defined contrasts between the genuinely creative work and the fabricated reflection of popular opinion.  There are myriad implications.  And they are not worth my time, listener, or yours.

Equanimity and Tone

Light, space, and atmosphere are conducive to evolved thinking.

Sound in the aesthetic environment enhances, but does not dominate. This is the nature of refined, or, if you prefer, critical thought, in that it is self-sufficient, highly informed, tempered by experience, and internally motivated. Thus the composer rejects bombast and predictability, holding to a vision defined by intellectual curiosity and perceptual stimulation.

Firing Line Perspective

The ebb and flow of cultural events must be viewed with a cold eye.

 Much more is happening in the creative world of individual artists than brief obsessions with absurd glamour, glorification of the banal, and the prolonged tedium of ideological power struggles indicate.

Creativity is, in itself, expansion of consciousness, and purpose either elevates or limits the gesture.

Mystery in Reality

Partly recognizable, partly outside experience altogether: this is the experience of the uncanny.

The artist can, with effort and conceptual vision, create such experiences.  For the artist as composer, the elements of sound are at play.  I say sound, not music, for the simple fact that all the elements of music are so familiar as to be without effect.  Rhythm, melody, harmony, etc., are known quantities.  The nonlinear sounds of environments in situ hold meanings within tone, shading, and movement that are not so easily recognized and perceived.

These are my interests and goals, the sounds of reality, contemplated and aesthetically stylized as listening experiences beyond the temporal and mundane.

Listening Emerges

Auditory perception evolves with variations in perspective.

The sonic environment is in a state of continual flux, and every nuance has meaning.  It is a language of tone and movement, shading and intensity and character.

Pause, consider, reflect.

One / Not One

The composer and artist, among others, is forced to view culture critically.

One cannot simply muse upon content and technique, presentation, continuity, and form, or be concerned only with aesthetic outcomes.  Social dynamics generate cultural pressures, and those coercive influences are applied toward conformity of thought and action as manifested in cultural expectations.  One must be open, yet aware, of choices that lead to subjection to societal diktat or autonomy of thought and action-- if one is to be responsible to one's work.

Distance From the Immediate

Solitude must be chosen, and sought out, as it is beyond the general state of affairs.

Clamor limits consciousness and dulls experience, contributing to all forms of decline.  To listen, and hear, is more than an aesthetic principle.  It is a survival skill, an art of being.