Swiss Cheese Creative

I forget. 

I’m not forgetful. 

I enjoy my ability to spin around the multiple axis points of my special interests and dig into all the nerdy knowledge around them. I can recall places I’ve only ever visited once with great ease: streets, room layouts, even smells. There is a sharpness to my mind that I never take for granted. 

But I forget. 

A major player in my older life would often say that I had emotional amnesia. Things I hated yesterday, I would suddenly be in love with. The opposite of that statement is also true. I’m changeable. Annoyingly so. It doesn’t take much for that switch to flip. 

I get caught in loops of thought and action all too often. It can feel frustrating. It can feel rewarding. 

From a creative perspective, I find this really difficult. I have this desire to “make stuff” that I can never shake. For most of my life, it’s been music. A long stretch of years required other people for that because I couldn’t play anything. When I had no-one to play with, I bought a guitar. But I felt restricted. So I started learning how to use Ableton. 

That’s been a real journey for me because you can’t simply click a few buttons and expect to become a music legend. 

I am very much a music nerd. I think about it all the time. I talk about it whenever I can. Fuck, I have a radio show for that very purpose. I know what I like to hear but it’s hard to describe. Let’s say: it’s a wide, complex web of timbre, rhythm, emotion - I could go on. 

Having a program that, in theory, allows me to make the kind of music I like is amazing. Overwhelming? Sure. I’ve sat through countless hours of tutorials to understand HOW music works. The relationship of frequencies in a mix, how an EQ works, how compression works. The WHY of how this all works. The WHAT of how the music I like sounds the way it does. 

I am, by no means, an expert but I have released a handful of records that I feel proud of whenever I listen to them. I often find myself having to do that to remind myself that I can do it. Because I forget. 

I’ve spent a lot of time being creative this year. More than any other year. I’ve posted a few hundred images online over 2023. Made around 60 videos with moving images and music that I’ve created from scratch. 

That second project really burned me out, mind. A few months of only thinking in 30 second blocks made me feel that I was incapable of making anything longform. Generating that many musical ideas in a short space of time had my brain telling me that I was going to run out of ideas and that would be it. That’s a door I didn’t want to close. So I stopped. Besides, I felt kinda dirty for feeding our content overlords so readily. 

There’s a short, quick hit in pumping out that type of content. It’s bottomless. The likes and comments on each post only fuel the next one. I found myself constantly battling to stay ahead. It felt like a pretty shitty job sometimes. 

In between these visual projects, I battled through some periods of “trying to make a record” but it always ended in frustration. I have a vague process with making music, one that is born from the need to finish what I start. It doesn’t always work but, slowly, by creating habitually, tracks get through my self-imposed filters. But for most of this year, that wasn’t happening. 

I am very critical of the music I make. The final filter (and there are a few!) is one where I need to feel really connected to a piece. Where I can listen to it as a finished work and feel that it means something to me. 

I found myself so tied up in making music for visuals that I had forgotten how it feels to make something that, over multiple minutes, feels meaningful to me. That’s not to say  the videos I’ve made are meaningless. It’s been amazing to explore my skills in that way and I feel really proud of them, especially as I found myself creating in a very stream-of-consciousness way. 

After a few weeks of zoning out a little with some deep gaming. My mind began to wander again. Daydreaming of using Ableton, learning new ways to create, honing some of my own processes and most importantly, a desire to fuck around and see what could happen. 

Quite successfully over the past year, I’ve found with visual art, that if I chisel away each day and see what happens, it happens. I allow myself to be my only  audience and if I make something that moves me, I share it. Simple and effective. 

I connected that with making music and began to play with ideas each day. Organising them so that I didn’t lose track of anything. Writing myself notes. Keeping a spreadsheet. Slowly, surely, sounds began to emerge. 

I’ve listened to a lot of ambient music this year. Slow, churning music that feels monumentally glacial. Music made with drones and tape loops. Music that feels like it’s being transmitted from another dimension. Off-kilter, experimental. You know, the kind of music that makes someone say, “That’s not even music!”

I’ve delved into how that music is made. Picking the right tools to craft it. Allowing myself the space and compassion for creative play with no other intent than to feel emotionally connected to the sounds I’m creating. 

It worked. I am still in that process now. I mentioned last week about a record I have ready called, “Dreams Of Other”. I’m holding back from releasing it until the new year because I have some visual threads that I’m following but having something finished feels so amazing. I had forgotten how that feels. It feels like I’m unblocked. In the same way that writing here over the past couple of weeks has felt. 

It’s hard not to question how I’ve dealt with things over this year. Maybe by allowing myself to be so quiet made it more difficult. Or, as I’m trying to think, that by dealing with events and emotions in a slower, quieter way led me to this point. 

I can only rely on myself. This much I know. I have to submit to the way my brain works. Try not to question or fight it too much. I have to keep faith that by following my creative urges, I am travelling somewhere. Destination unknown. 

I am attempting to keep myself very busy between now and the end of the year. I don’t like this time of year. Too many bad memories and ghastly anniversaries from my old life. I acknowledge them. I feel them. But I know that, with each passing year, the distance between now and then is increasingly greater. 

“Dreams Of Other” is a way of dealing with that but I’ll save all that closer to its release. 

Now? 

I’m gonna put my headphones on, load up Ableton, and see what happens. 

Lots of love,

Jon xxx