CONCEPT & PROCESS

Some of the tracks on A New Nothing go back to 2021, before I'd even released the album before it. On my first two albums I kind of rushed myself to crank them out before the year was out both times, in 2020 and 2021. I meant to do that with A New Nothing too, but I decided that was bullshit, and I wasn't going to force myself to finish it in 2022. Instead, I took an extra 8 months or so on the process of writing and mixing the tracks, to get them to sound more how I wanted and make everything feel a little more put together and less rushed.

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So what is a new nothing?

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To me, a new nothing is the undefined gray space that you feel when something in your life ends and then you enter a new era of emptiness where you're not sure what else will replace it, or if anything will. There's this kind of liminal period for a bit there before the new "something" begins, the time before the next turning point, that feels to me like "a new nothing." A time where you're reflecting a lot and thinking about what you'll do next. For me, a new nothing was how I thought of 2022 when it first began, but it could really be any time. Although it sounds kind of negative, I actually find the idea kind of comforting in a weird way, like returning home after a long trip, and the song A New Nothing at the end of the album reflects that feeling.

The advantage of taking more time on this one is that it gave me more time to mull over writing and mixing decisions, as well as to learn some more about writing, arranging, and mixing in general. Musically, there's nothing really crazy or groundbreaking going on, but I was really just trying to hone my writing and recording skills while having fun with some ideas I'd recorded starting with little 8 bar loops or rough phone recordings. So even though it's nothing crazy, I feel like my music recordings are gradually sounding tighter and more put together as I go. Excited to see where it all goes from here...might shake it up a little more! But as time goes on I'm learning not to rush it. All in good time.

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-Mad, 8/10/2023

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