Hi. Hello. How are you? Yeah I’m fine. Yeah it has been a weird year hasn’t it…..
The first thing I was able to read during the first few weeks of lockdown was not the ever-growing pile of books by my bed but an article about productivity. How in catastrophic situations it feels like the most hopeful thing you can do is retain a sense of normality, to keep going until things return to the way they were. They won’t. But I get it. When you consider yourself to be creative (I personally think we are all creative but that’s another conversation) you find that this creativity defines much of your identity, both inward and outward facing. I had been feeling increasingly isolated due to my own reaction to this crisis, which was essentially to just stop and switch off. Both me and my partner kept working pretty much full time, but I was on complete automated mode, getting up, switching my brain on, putting all of my energy into doing a good enough job, and then switching back off. I feel gratitude that I was able to do this- both to keep earning, but also the luxury of not having to stay switched on for anyone other than myself - but I also felt like an empty shell. Visibly I felt that every other musician, artist and writer around me furrowed themselves into lockdown recording, live streams, creating, finishing the first draft of that novel, that poem. It is strange that such a collective experience can provoke individual processes. I’m sure there were lots of other people like me, but we weren’t so visible to each other. I wanted to feel validated, and that I would come to a place where I could make something again. A quote from that article;
“Know that you are not failing. Let go of all of the profoundly daft ideas you have about what you should be doing right now. Instead, focus intensely on your physical and psychological security.
Now more than ever, we must abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine.”
Apart from one live stream thing that James (BROADS) essentially forced me into doing (thanks though, genuinely enjoyed it!) I didn’t pick up an instrument or even listen to much music throughout the whole of spring and early summer. I avoided watching live music online, or connecting with other musicians. Part of me was grieving the live experience and community of venues and artists in Norfolk, part of me just didn’t want to feel anything. It was lonely, often anxiety ridden, but ultimately it led me to a place where I suddenly felt more ready to make music than I had done in a long time. It’s been useful to acknowledge these individual journeys in these last few months, hopefully yours has led (or is leading) you to somewhere safe and productive too.
THIS IS A REALLY LONG WINDED WAY OF SAYING I’m recording an EP, in a shed, with some friends, and minimal effort. By which I mean we are recording mostly old things I never got round to putting to rest, doing a couple of takes at most, recording it live, keeping in the trips and stumbles, layering some warmth. I think it’ll be ready in the autumn and I’ll work with James and Humm recordings to release it quietly and gently back into the river.
A visual representation of lockdown