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DIGGING DEEPER RUNNNER
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COOKING AND KITCHENS
I think of making music like cooking a lot of the time. It could be why there’s so much food imagery in my lyrics, though this example mostly applies to recording and production. I used to struggle with feeling like there was a right way to make records, but that I couldn’t seem to make what I wanted.
I remember watching a cooking show one night and someone said “a good dish is a dish you like,” and I thought, “yea!” Simple, almost completely obvious, but still very resonant. Some cooks like the kitchen - the faster pace, the wide array of available ingredients, the high-quality equipment, and that seems to be what many consider as the professional way to make food, but I think I liked the slower pace of just tossing something together with what I had at home, and I learned to see the value in that.
I had been sort of sketching out demos in my garage thinking I would adapt them into final versions in the studio, but now I was wondering “why can’t the ‘demo’ be the song?” This shift in mindset really helped me come into my own as a songwriter/ producer. I wasn’t the most skilled engineer or a crazy virtuoso, but I felt decent enough and I was finally making recordings I liked
Take my first two singles from this year: “Awash” & “Urgent Care.” They both mix stock Ableton drum samples with some (pretty poorly played) isolated snare (big thanks to quantization). Then there’s bass, piano, synth, & banjo: all instruments I would not consider myself especially skilled at - but it didn’t matter. I could play a simple part I liked and that worked well with the song. They’re also both mixed by me using almost exclusively stock plug-ins. I really don’t have a lot of experience mixing, but I wanted to lean into myself here. To trust my ear and know that I could still make something I liked even if it wasn’t done the ‘right way.’
They might be more of a rustic chop than a fine julienne, but it’s how I like it.
"Always Repeating" is a
