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The following is the blog post turned script for episode 3 of Mind Overrun.

To start, as I alluded to in the first episode, I have a sort of fear of public speaking, good old fashion stage fright. This podcast is an exercise at confronting that fear.

Second, I am to be a father next year. With my wife and I expecting our first. I find myself in an introspective space. A place of vulnerability and potential. And I ask myself the questions I’m sure most first time fathers ask themselves. What will I teach our child? Will I succeed in being a parent and raise an intelligent and thoughtful individual? Will I be a cool Dad? 

So with these audio recordings I think about our child growing up and the probability of them becoming curious about what I “do” or what the possibilities are and in a realistic sense if I were to be struck down tomorrow or fifty years from now, at least there’s a small remnant of me left behind. In a way these episodes are for the kid, like lore notes or journal entries in a post apocalyptic video game. Because I know one thing for sure, all of our time is limited on this planet and you never know when your number might be up. There is no such thing as time to waste, nor time to throw away. And these words and the words I share with friends are here for posterity’s sake. For as long as there is a way to store and retrieve it. For the sake of always being able to hear my voice or read my words and feel the love. For however long that may last. Impermanence rules all but the chain of life runs forever.

I hope to continue creating after the initial months of our beloved newborn noob. I know I will lack sleep and have very little free time but as time passes I’m sure I’ll find new ways and adopt a newly evolved process. 

Time is the most valuable thing and love is the most precious. And with those two things you can find peace. Whatever I may find myself doing I will do so with the same love and attention. So, sure, not everything ever goes as planned but everything happens anyway and time ticks and our hearts beat the countdown to our final exhale. And as we ride the spiral we still share and relate. We still bond and create. We can still give meaning to everything close to us.

My process is one of play and exploration. One of mining the depths of improvisation and synchronicity in an attempt to capture or at least imitate the magic that is found. Iterations often follow, as a brief change in perspective can open other doors. So try things in different ways. Play but pay attention. And always hold sincere intentions.

To create is to wield the power of the divine. Harness the universal expansion to bring novelty and meaning into existence where there was nothing before. When I paint, or produce music, I feel as if I am part conduit and part conductor. A receiver of consciousness that translates into movement, the coding of life, of experience. Conjuring islands to sprout in the sea of impermanence.

Now that our greatest collaboration is on its way, I can’t help but feel that I now have more confidence in my choices, in my identity, in my power of will. Doubt and mistakes will never go away but my relationship to them has changed. My perspective has been altered. And with it, so too will my creative process adapt and survey new lands.

Check out Mind Overrun on Anchor.fm and Spotify. You can also find it through the Google Podcasts app and in a couple other places. Still working on getting it as wide a release as possible. On the podcast I talk with friends and people I know about interesting topics concerning inspiration, motivation and the occasional weird or funny things that float into our minds. It’s all a work in progress and I hope it finds its audience.

-L

To do creative work one must not wait for inspiration or motivation, one must do the work. To do the work is to appease the Muses. They cater to the devotion of the attempt, to the ritual of respect. For example, sitting your butt in the chair with fingers at attention upon the keys and wading through whatever viscosity your imagination may be at the time, just getting it OUT of your head and INTO this world is the first step.

Sandstone walls and oily sludge ideas will move you forward or hinder you, stuff that cannot hold will crumble or burn away. From this crumbling, this immolation, this failure, persistence will reveal ores, gems and artifacts. But most of the time these precious ideas are raw or fragile. They need to be refined after being mined. That takes care and deliberate function. Trust the process.

With a pandemic on our collective and hopefully frequently washed hands, a statewide stay at home order still in effect, and my place of employment basically shutdown since three weeks ago till about the end of April means I’m in the middle of a surprise vacation that’s been dropped in my lap. All this new found time to catch up, spring clean, raise chickens and reflect. A lot of artists are using social media to provide escape for themselves and others and it really makes me realize how underutilized this site has been. It’s honestly no surprise as even the social media spectrum is underutilized but here I have a unique domain name, a haven for my music and a blog for words to convey thoughts and yet very little engagement from myself outside of album release time.

So here I sit writing this new blog post. A post I must’ve written and rewritten over a dozen times, over the span of several months for periods of maybe an hour at a time. Each draft always a little different from the last. Unpublished because either it ended up not being good enough, or I never finished it because I hit a wall then took a break and then my whole mood and perspective had undergone change in comparison to what was written. Each version with it’s own incubation period between being conceived and being updated to a new paradigm only to be saved-as-draft until the next full moon. Rinse, repeat. This is actually very reflective of the creation of the music at times as well. Anyway, I feel the need to switch up that habit and be more punctual creatively, so here I am. Again.

Now, as we joke about the end of the world and this startling start to the new Roaring Twenties, we cope with the fragility of it all and the inequality that perpetuates breakdowns within that which stands as the doctrine of being human. This won’t end us all. Life will go on. But so will business. And so will politics. Remember then, those who were there for you and how you were treated when things looked dire. Remember received bailouts and who received no help. Remember which jobs were essential and which were not and remember that we all deserve to eat, to be healthy and to spend time with family and friends and ourselves. To live life to our fullest in liberty and pursuit of happiness. Normal is flux but we should always try to make it better.

Knuckle-deep now, let’s talk music. Haven’t touched a DAW with intent to create a new album or anything like that but I have revisited a few things that were shelved years ago. One of which I am happy to have polished up and finalized in conjunction with this blog post. This is another Nobou Uematsu Final Fantasy cover/remix/midi-hack that I started sometime after uploading the other 3 to Soundcloud (song located below or click HERE to listen to all four). The FF7 Remake just dropped so it’s the perfect time to get this out there. These are like exercises to me, a type of practice that includes countless hours of the artists mantra, “Is it finished or am I?”. Hope it is enjoyed as much as the others. Moving on.

Next, in art news. Lots of new sights to behold. Much of which has or is coming to social media and this site soon. In tandem, much of which has led to the study of Patreon and how it works and whether or not it’s something people (you reading this) would be interested in let alone if I could pull it of logistically. My outlets for creativity and content vary so much sometimes that I have a hard time choosing which project I should follow through with. I also run out of motivation due to creative blocks or bouts of indecision so I’ll start something new or work on a back-burner. Maybe I’m just overthinking and underestimating my own abilities at this point. It is something I tend to do. The mind trying to catch itself, to hold down a moment to make the best possible “next move”. And I think something like Patreon could help me become more consistent with time management and with the help of a community that wishes to be part of the journey I can see there being options to curb the indecisiveness while allowing outside input and perspective.

Indecisiveness for the sake of perfect hinders the flow and burdens the conscious. Contemplating the perfect piece or the perfect detail stops any of it from truly becoming what it could be. I used to think that I had to wait for the creative inspiration to come like a gust of wind to invigorate my senses. Which does indeed happen from time to time but that’s not enough nor is it the only way. There also exists a dance of warmup, jump in, get discouraged, jump in again, maybe get discouraged again and if so jump in again, find the flow, follow it, eventually you don’t want to stop but you gotta sleep. Save, quit, sleep. Repeat.

Also if you are taking the time to read this, thank you. I’ve always wanted to add writing to my creative outlets but its one I feel maybe I’m weakest at probably because of lack of practice. It’s got less to do with a lack of vocabulary or grammar or those kinds of literary tool-sets (It goes without saying I’m sure I’ve got a lot to learn in those ares too) and more to do with arrangement or composition best befitted for comprehension. With this blog I want to be honest but maybe cryptic at times, reflective and maybe with some humorous pseudo-intellectual philosophical poetic pretentiousness without being too hard to follow. Life is absurd, so am I. When it comes to stories I’m a science fiction and cosmic horror fan so that’s the kind of flavor I want to imbued my writing with. I like to make shit up, obviously. So once and when I get these queries and ideas off notepads and into form I’ll have another blog post outlining the Patreon Plan, what to expect and how you can help. Along with all the other dreams of course, time and attention is all it takes. Thank you for yours.

Sincerely, a creator with a lump of ideas in a temporary slump.

oih 008

As is tradition, the beats of life rhythmically provide waves of disorder and wrench throwing. As much as one may try to stave off any unwanted obstacles, ultimately it seems it’s up to the infinite myriad of interconnected points of reality and the cosmos to kick sand into plans. In the occurrence of such an inevitable consequence of life the traveler of time must endure and adapt. Perseverance in the face of doubt fetches experience useful for simplifying the data into manageable chunks. Problems are all around us but so are the solutions.

As we calibrate centers to the ever changing tomorrow-now celebrate the steps of yester-now alongside artists entombed by their work. Reality bends to the will. Absurdity walks hand-in-hand with life.

-L

 

 

Here it is. Finally. Like a weight off the shoulders. Press play and turn it up!

The album came about as they all do over the course of a few years. I would return to this place of wonderment and exploration called the creative process. With ND it can be anywhere from brief moments of a single phrase to long excruciating scenarios where there is a constant struggle of possibilities and loss of sleep. The process is different and so is the product.

A couple songs had debuts in independent film and internet radio compilations. Others were created for this release with correspondence and collaboration with Matt happening when his schedule would allow. The idea behind the tunes was really all the same; to bring the style into unfamiliar territory, as with my first film soundtrack attempt and the final product, while trying to solidify a concept of some sort around what will be. It coalesced beautifully as the full picture came into view. The Map and The Territory.

The idea for the special variants came as one of those epiphany moments. I love and collect colored vinyl of movie soundtracks and would have loved to get this pressed on vinyl but I couldn’t afford to so the idea to create different tangible, artsy packages came to be as something I could accomplish myself with all I had available. I think they came out beautifully, much like the music.

Now for some of the pseudo-intellectual philosophy behind the name…

The Map is a symbol and The Territory is what is and it’s what The Map stands for. But they are not equal. One is flawed. One is absolute. Our human experience, to anyone that has stopped to ponder, is more than what we can see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. Our perceived reality leaves out a majority of what is actually there. Our brains can’t comprehend what’s actually there, what we’re wading through. If the doors of perception were cleansed we would see everything as it is, infinite. Which means our reality would melt and there would be no point of reference, our minds lost but maybe not forgotten.

So we wander through this symbol pretending we have it figured out. That we have the complexities of what is simplified to its simplest terms and documented in triplicate to the tenth power. According to the map we’ve only gone about five inches in the last second of the last hour. We should re-calibrate.

-L

It brings me great pleasure to finally announce the release date for “The Map is Not the Territory”. March 2nd, 2018 will see the sixth album digitally and physically distributed by CDBaby and their many streaming affiliates. It is to be accompanied by a severely limited physical CD release with unique packaging options available only through our Bandcamp. More details to come as the date draws near, so stay aware.

Since December, DJ Mac’s Post-Alternative Visions: Volume 4 has been available featuring many returning contributors. It’s the current home of ND’s debut “Make Lemonade”, a somewhat optimistic punk-rock tune dedicated to the young entrepreneurs who keep getting shafted by The Man.

Lastly, as one can see the site has been streamlined and updated. The playlist is now always up top and will continue to play while the site is being navigated. The menu itself has also been simplified and dead links removed.

After a series of DIY vehicle tune-ups, Halloween celebrations, multiple overtime weeks at work, an art exhibition, and just recently a cabin getaway with the love of my life, the energies now feel right to roll up my sleeves and finalize the album. I had envisioned a late September release but as mentioned above, life is a roller coaster and sometimes you have to relinquish control and throw your hands up to just ride the ride, embracing the twists and turns as they arrive.

With calmer happenings focus can be forged while being careful not to inspire poor posture or aggravate the carpel tunnel by clickity-clicking everything into place as the music is now 100% complete. But considering the clusterfuck holidays known as Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner I am now thinking of a New Years debut as highly probable. I am, however, still undecided on the Kickstarter project to back the album, if it seems I can squeeze the crafting of backer packages into the schedule then that’ll be great.

Alongside new ND material there is new Robot 7 material coalescing as collaborative talks and temporal sketches emerge. Coincidentally, DJ Mac’s Post-Alternative Visions compilation #4 is just around the corner with returning contributors and new. The ND track chosen for our submission is unique to our catalogue as an unreleased post-punk-rock inspired tune I hope will find a home among others. The compilation is due for a mid-December release.

Till next time here, into the shadows I crawl back again.

-L

 

If you go HERE or look on the bottom of this page (or any post page) you’ll see a media player with a playlist that has nearly all the drone style ambient songs. In celebration of this past decade of dreams and to actively usè this site more there may be a new playlist highlighting other songs with a new mix every month including relics, unreleased, in progress and demos.

The playlist now consists only of tracks from I Am My Own Mushroom and The Caduceus Saga. They were made in very similar styles with a nearly identical rig setup which relied heavily on Behringer’s V-amp 2 because the delay setting was such that I could tap tempo about two and a half seconds of loop time then strum a chord on the guitar volume turned to 0, then roll it up and down at various rhythms creating that swelling effect. Much improvisation made those pulsing, warm atmospheres that is the majority of IAMOM. Much of everything else was recorded while improvised with minor editing. Layering each run through and adjusting pan and volume levels made sculpting those sonic scapes possible. The availability of free software such as Goldwave and Audacity also made the mere idea of creating truly independent music a reality.

IAMOM was born from a dream and was shaped by haphazard trial and error in a very playful and experimental “I-don’t-have-a-clue-what-I’m-doing” kind of way. The Caduceus Saga on the other hand was more planned out and built upon things learned from the albums before it. Many of it’s ambient songs had the same setup but the execution was far better and audibly clearer. As experience lengthened, knowledge grew, and the style solidified, of course.

This about concludes the serotinal update. Stay tuned for the next post come autumn as it will probably be info about the crowdfunding plans and ideas for the upcoming release.

Like dots on a CRT so are the dreams of of our lives.

-L


Our domain expired back in August.
There’s really no need to renew it just yet.
Nothing to share.
Only slowly realized plans briefly hinted in previous posts.
Alas, forward we march as a drought seats itself.
Leaves drop to conserve energy.
Cracks form along the ground.
It’ll spring back to life sooner or later.
Nourished and eager.
For now,
Dream well
Everyone

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Since last post we’ve entered a new year, a new season, a change of clothing. Certain files are still incubating in the digital bath that will act as the foundation of what comes next. But, when will time be available to form the rushing water into the cymatic visions? New job opportunities, domestic goals, and higher education are fighting for their right to party in our worlds and we will not deny them for the sake of our art. However, we will not completely deny our art for the 9-5. It will always be with us and we’ll find a way to incorporate it into whatever reality we find ourselves traversing.

Now, flashback, in August 2014, in association with Toy Soldiers Unite, I released what can be considered an EP of short songs with a cyberpunk flavor. Dubbed “Future Utopia Now” by “Lucas Usagi and The Robot Seven”, it has been well received among the toy soldier community and more releases are planned. You can hear the previews at the PSIOPS soundcloud, or by visiting their newly launched TSU digital radio mechanism and, lastly, if you like what you hear or read while visiting TSU, make a purchase from their Amory and help support server costs of this wonderful group. Well, that’s all for now. Till next time, spiral out.

-L
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