June 2007 album update: Sephirah and Apophenia
The process of creation is a summoning, a drawing, from the deepest unknown depths of the psyche, to fill a space where once there was nothing. Sometimes it is an unconscious stream, things just welling up and spilling out, while sometimes it can be a tedious, coldly calculated system. The work becomes a reflection of yourself. You see in it all the ugly things you can't escape in yourself, and at the same time beautiful moments in your life, memories, ideas. You stand at the gaping edge of total vulnerability...all you have to do is step off.
You let everything get in your way. You let every microscopic aspect of your life become a terrible, devouring macrocosm of excuses, distractions. Anything to avoid the face-off between you and everything inside of you. It is in these moments that you grow. When you have to acknowledge and accept the things you don't like about yourself. Then you can move forward.
We have a tendency to get comfortable. We begin clutching to all the meaningless, insignificant little things in our lives. There is no growth without change, and there is no change without discomfort.
I have a tendency to write and record albums worth of songs that ultimately just get deleted.
Altogether, the album is probably about half finished. Some good, some bad. Sometimes those pretty little melodies have to be sacrificed for the greater good. This album, I know what it is supposed to be, but I'm still not sure how to get it there. It is very visceral for me, experiencial. I see this album in colors that reflect the moments and emotions the songs are written about. It is made up of the things that are the hardest to say, the feelings we don't let ourselves feel.
The things that are worth creating are the ones that are the hardest to get out.
What we seek in life is to truly feel alive. This is different for all of us. I'm not sure what life feels like, but I know I never feel it when I'm in the moment. It only comes after time and memory have fermented the moment into something truly beautiful. I'm always looking back at how amazing it used to be, how I felt so alive. And yet everything - the past, the present - it all feels so intangible. Even this time here before me now...it's like I'm watching a home movie on an old projector. I can reach out and touch it, but it feels cold, flat.
We have a transgressional nature, because we become so quickly desensitized. The world is full of words, names, definitions. We have to define everything because we fear what we don't understand. But then the world becomes drab, wonderless. Definitions have broken every beautiful feeling, image, sound, into a word. Collapsed. We can't feel alive. So we push the boundaries again. Fear and pain reminds us we are still alive, and the unknown tantalizes. We are enlightened. Until we create new words and definitions, starting the cycle over again. Otherwise we would become numb. We need pain to truly experience life.
But clarity, truly lucid experiences of living are so fleeting, so hard to hang on to. A complete mental orgasm, and gone just as quickly, pulling away the moment you feel it. It leaves you empty, abandoned, aching for more. But it just doesn't come.
We seek something divine. Something that can touch our souls and remind us we can still feel. If we can't find it, we try to create it. Maybe we can create something that will last forever this time, that won't leave us. And yet we're already letting go.
I've been plagued with so many ideas lately that I can't focus enough to conjure any one of them into this world. I have an infinite number of distractions set before me to pick from, a buffet of excuses. The things I am trying to create, they have no definition, no perfect set of words to describe them, no names. Just viscera. Aggressive, sensual, primal.
Quite balancing on the edge and just step off, just let go. Since the moment we began we've been falling. That's what we want. We need to be naked, vulnerable, falling from the edge of Eden. Falling is freedom. It's our purpose, our sangreal. Let go.
By the end of the month I'll be in Texas, and shortly thereafter en route to Las Vegas. I think a sojourne to the city of Sin will do me in.
This is exactly what I need.
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The new version of falloutfracture.com is finally up. It's just a temporary fix until I have more time to work on it, but it's functional.
When I return, Levi will begin conjuring the first video for the album. His work is beautiful, unsettling. Watch.
FALL OUT FRACTURE
myspace.com/fracture
