11.28.17
Benefits of stepping away. Climbing some mountains. Spending time alone in the middle of sand dunes and summits. Perspectives shift. Values adjust. Taking stock under stars. Grabbing camping gear off ebay and browsing whatever info on the next movement I can. Nothing makes sense in the city. Or at least it's often so disconnected from anything resembling reality. Everything's by proxy. Everything's a copy. A generated idea based on another idea that might be just as faulty as the next. When I head into nature I get the feeling that things make sense in their own way. I don't own it...I can't begin to frame it with any sort of special wording. I can't ascribe anything to it that it doesn't already have. It's utter indifference is the allure I suppose. Beneath lies a sort of quiet meandering patience. Time moves differently. Sands blow. Water falls. Wind carves. Leaves fall. Snow melts. These processes just happen over millions of years.
I walk around with a camera. A pair of sturdy boots. Trail mix. Water. A backpack I've had since I bumbled around Europe over a decade ago.
I've always considered nature to be my primary source of inspiration for music. I don't have the heart or patience to compose topical things about the endless drama of human interactions. The miscommunications. The apathy. The beds we all know we all make. Television has had that whole bit covered for ages.
Life most certainly is dramatic on the one hand. We're sensual, territorial, competitive, sensitive and all that. It makes for great opera.
But...
I just wasn't raised like that. The crass...the cynical...those things don't inspire me and they become irrelevant as soon as I enter the studio.
Most books I read had a central figure. A hero who overcame some physical limitation through sheer willpower. Or someone who just went out, observed, and reported. Edward Abbey perhaps. Thor Heyerdahl. Lewis and Clark. Anyone. I just wanted to move. To roam. To observe and report.
And this is what I still tend to do albeit with a Nikon.
I bring journals on trains. Sunsets are more than enough entertainment most of the time. Getting to a summit in the middle of a windstorm or rainstorm or snowstorm or no storm at all. The blood coursing through my chest. Just the feeling of being alive.
I'm not the kind of person to take up squirrel-suiting or base-jumping but I have jumped out of planes. I have done activities of endurance just to do them. For the sake of being in the midst of an experience and not knowing what exactly, if anything comes next.
I suppose I only took up music because it too was physical in a sense. I started drumming at school when I was twelve and later toured and recording with different bands before getting tired of rock n roll altogether. Same old story. Tired of being surrounded by egos and attitudes and 'problems'. At a certain level it was very little about making music and having a rock persona or indie ethos felt redundant and aggravating after awhile.
So...I dropped out and began building my own studio. Came up with my own ideas and wrote my own music. The end. That's Colorchaser. It's a means to an end also. It's movement as an investment in more movement I suppose. Obviously one gets to plumb the depths where the imagination is concerned...but sometimes it's just too emotional. Editing can become tedious...and the mountains are always calling. It's both ways inspiring and a total mind-fuck and the best of it will never leave my head either way.
I'm not entirely positive the world needs more music to be honest and I'm not sure music is an panacea or antidote either. I only know what it feels like to me and what I like to listen to. It'd be arrogant to try and convince anyone that it goes any further than that. If it stops working I'll give it up tomorrow. If I have something to write or compose I'll record it.
I'm honestly more excited about the 4-season tent in my living room waiting to be winter-tested right now. These breaks are needed. I've been writing and editing and mixing etc nonstop for 4 years now. the last batch I released was so-so. I definitely like some of the tunes...but it marks the end of a learning curve as well. The end of a part of my life and a way of thinking and feeling about certain things. That's how these things go.
I walk around with a camera. A pair of sturdy boots. Trail mix. Water. A backpack I've had since I bumbled around Europe over a decade ago.
I've always considered nature to be my primary source of inspiration for music. I don't have the heart or patience to compose topical things about the endless drama of human interactions. The miscommunications. The apathy. The beds we all know we all make. Television has had that whole bit covered for ages.
Life most certainly is dramatic on the one hand. We're sensual, territorial, competitive, sensitive and all that. It makes for great opera.
But...
I just wasn't raised like that. The crass...the cynical...those things don't inspire me and they become irrelevant as soon as I enter the studio.
Most books I read had a central figure. A hero who overcame some physical limitation through sheer willpower. Or someone who just went out, observed, and reported. Edward Abbey perhaps. Thor Heyerdahl. Lewis and Clark. Anyone. I just wanted to move. To roam. To observe and report.
And this is what I still tend to do albeit with a Nikon.
I bring journals on trains. Sunsets are more than enough entertainment most of the time. Getting to a summit in the middle of a windstorm or rainstorm or snowstorm or no storm at all. The blood coursing through my chest. Just the feeling of being alive.
I'm not the kind of person to take up squirrel-suiting or base-jumping but I have jumped out of planes. I have done activities of endurance just to do them. For the sake of being in the midst of an experience and not knowing what exactly, if anything comes next.
I suppose I only took up music because it too was physical in a sense. I started drumming at school when I was twelve and later toured and recording with different bands before getting tired of rock n roll altogether. Same old story. Tired of being surrounded by egos and attitudes and 'problems'. At a certain level it was very little about making music and having a rock persona or indie ethos felt redundant and aggravating after awhile.
So...I dropped out and began building my own studio. Came up with my own ideas and wrote my own music. The end. That's Colorchaser. It's a means to an end also. It's movement as an investment in more movement I suppose. Obviously one gets to plumb the depths where the imagination is concerned...but sometimes it's just too emotional. Editing can become tedious...and the mountains are always calling. It's both ways inspiring and a total mind-fuck and the best of it will never leave my head either way.
I'm not entirely positive the world needs more music to be honest and I'm not sure music is an panacea or antidote either. I only know what it feels like to me and what I like to listen to. It'd be arrogant to try and convince anyone that it goes any further than that. If it stops working I'll give it up tomorrow. If I have something to write or compose I'll record it.
I'm honestly more excited about the 4-season tent in my living room waiting to be winter-tested right now. These breaks are needed. I've been writing and editing and mixing etc nonstop for 4 years now. the last batch I released was so-so. I definitely like some of the tunes...but it marks the end of a learning curve as well. The end of a part of my life and a way of thinking and feeling about certain things. That's how these things go.
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