LOVE (Liner Notes) pt.1

Art, like any meditation, is an exercise in moving out of your own way.

If the reality that surrounds is pure consciousness, which by virtue of it’s translation in your own, is. Then it is also true that any idea, concept or aspiration within that consciousness can develop its own ego.

Things, by virtue of our ascription of labels and meaning beyond the inherent, do.

It is then, in our moving away from concepts-beyond-the-essential that we recognise the true nature of things.

To objectify the material and see it not for it’s projected meaning. To see people, not for the self they market. And to experience, not through your concept but through primal emotion.

That is a higher motivation.

We are born into a web of traditions. Though, my highest version of self, the driving force through which, a self would motivate I — exists outside of that preordained prescription.

We are born at a singular point in history, on the forward facing edge of time, at the sum total of all preceding moments, at the sum total of physics, all decisions, actions and reactions between particles, waves, people and orbits.

We then, perhaps if born notionless, accrue convention — through education, tradition and norm — a self, who in situation x does y, and in y does z. We build and we build upon the previous, ideas upon ideas, self upon former self. A wall of concepts that pertain to ‘I am’ but — are not. For, there is an accruer, preceding the accrued and a spectator preceding the accruer.

That spectator, who, in thoughtless moments is, perhaps recklessness when the cliff edge leaps in that moment, increasingly behind you and the sea is decreasingly before. Who, in those dreams, shared across distance — unspoken realities are forged, tying between two distinct selves despite temporal and geographic divide. That, when in the space between sound, does speak — who, when in silence, is not. When, you cease, Is.

And, a year ago, when I ceased, LOVE was.

A culmination of my times, moments and on, the forward facing edge of me. The lower case I, not as marketer, calculating: ‘how should I be perceived?’ but the UPPER CASE I professing what it is to have perceived.

And, into the well of recklessness, and the abandon of ‘I believe’ flooded: there is none beyond what you choose, and you have chosen this.

And then LOVE was. And since has been. Existing since that moment in a phone, then, through a midi piano and vocal — as I listened over and over to: ‘what am I saying amongst the bird song?’ and ‘did I use that chord or that chord?’ because, in the absence of a studio in the woods that day, collecting those initial moments for prosperity in a phone sufficed, not as a release but as a template.

Change nothing and savour the soul — and listen I did, for I have learned and continue to learn, more about myself from these songs I did not write then ever I did from those I toiled over for weeks, months — a thesis of words.

So, with that in heart, I began reinterpreting with as few changes as possible. No melody out of place. No chord changed. Honour the moment. The gift. Present, if you cannot the ember, a story of its light so inmisconstrueable.

And, with the mantra ‘these are not the songs, but a representation of them’ did I — settle into a momentum.

And, here is where I justify, my initial tangent about the inanimate accruing an ego. For, in that idea, assembled, on the notions I’d first placed, subsequent ideas. Like a wall. Stacked. Selves that mask the self that in the woods was. And, have, from the morning of November 11th (when I first listened to the day priors excursion) til today, September 9th, traversed almost a year with these songs. Burning up a pocket in my soul.

A while ago, when an October release date seemed so distant to as not even warrant a thought, I settled in my heart that notion. A small parcel of baggage. The arbitrary concept of 2018. The arbitrary concept of October. The arbitrary concept of ‘finished’, ‘by’ and ‘then.’ And though I can rationalise this — I find my reconciling with a wholly 2019 release — an obstacle I cannot surmount.

Call it intuition.

And I am trying to move out of my own way — so, anything that presents itself with something so real as a feeling, must be honoured. And thus do I this October release: LOVE. A version that, at one point was the entirety of it, but now, may have been relegated to ‘demo’. Or perhaps; a representation to which there is an alternate.

Because, in the same way that not-dealing-with-shit is for our parents generation then so to is releasing-one-version-of-an-album SO ‘yesterday’.

And though I lose myself in momentums, sometimes for weeks, and though I feel enormous trepidation at the concept of ‘only one chance’ and ‘blowing it.’ I do — also recognise — that satan speaks in fear and satan speaks in doubt and satan — no, not that I believe in a red horned dude — but he, as an archetype for, everything below one’s highest ambition — is, as real as any idea we collectively share.

For now, this is LOVE. The essence, the essential nature of it. The crux, the vitality, the central force, the unadorned, unconvoluted, undressed, unmarketed, ego-less representation and perhaps, true self.

Chord, melody and vocal.

This was given to me but is a gift I have no right to dress in any way beyond it’s most direct. It is as much yours, as it is mine. For I am merely the divining rod, which by a momentum that planted me in the woods on a day when the world was looking to move through something that could speak out, was listening with so little expectation of what I should hear, truly could.

And, is that not LOVE?

In it’s most truest sense I would offer:

that LOVE is freedom. To express ones soul. LOVE does not hamper or restrict. LOVE does not impose expectation or prerequisite. LOVE does not give condition or boundaries. LOVE says, I want to see your soul. In its truest expression. I offer you freedom, who are you? I love who that is. If I offer you wilderness, where do you run? I love how you run. If I offer you the World, what do you make of it? I’ll love you anyway.

And thus — I would offer — that this life itself, is LOVE.

For we all are, totally, entirely, absolutely free.

Always have been.

We all are, by virtue of being on the forward facing edge of the sum total of our decisions in a self imposed web of beliefs, but, the physical manifestation of our choices is only that — and it is NOW when life begins. And it is THIS with which we have to explore our souls. And THIS is entirely YOU.