Edited by Clark Fannin
I'm Clark Fannin, from Hauskatze Magazine. I'm pleased to be joined again by the wonderful, talented Lipsticism. Thank you so much for meeting with us again and talking about your music.
- Yeah. For sure.
So last time we talked, you were in the process of getting wrapped up for your upcoming album. And, also mentioned you were recording some music with your other band, Immaterialize. You want to talk about what you've been up to in the last few months?
- Well, the album with Immaterialize, we finished that last summer. The last few months, I've been working on the next Lipsticism album. The process of that has been fun. I didn't really know I was going to end up with another album, but it just sort of happened.
I know last time we got a chance to talk about some of your influences, just in general. This time around, what were some new influences as you were writing?
- Well, it was the end of summer, and early fall. And so, that's a time I listen to a lot of Broadcast, Cocteau Twins, Strawberry Switchblade. Those are some bands that come to mind.
Aside from bands, I know we talked last time about experiences or places, just inspiration coming from other things. And I know you mentioned in your interview in the Substack mailer with Phantom Limb a bit about dance floor nights, summer nights—experiences that have influenced or inspired some of your songs. Specifically there, you're talking about how this album comes a lot more from dancey music, or just has more of those elements. What do you think about that?
- Yeah. Well, when I was writing those answers for Phantom Limb, it was the first time I put it together— “Oh, I think I'm way more to make dance music when I'm doing that, when I'm having more experiences going out dancing.” And, yeah, something about the summer. I think I have more physical energy with there being more daylight and it's just so interesting how every part of your experience as a human comes out in what you're making. And I am not always aware of it at the time. But I am when I look back.
That's interesting for you to say that that was the first time you'd put that together about yourself. I think that's something a lot of people that make art would resonate with, is that idea of all of your experiences coming together to form what you're creating. I mean, it can be hard to separate who you are and what you've experienced, I think, from what you're creating. Like, you can do it, but…
- I don't want to do that, though. And that's another thing. Sometimes I'm tempted to be more, I guess, intentional about the boundaries of a project. Like, okay, I want the album to sound really cohesive, but in practice I never want to do that. Yeah. I don't want to filter any inspiration, anything I'm feeling. And that might mean that the album has a mix of genres or it's just a bit less cohesive in a certain way. And I struggle with that sometimes: “Oh no, should it be more cohesive?” But ultimately I think, speaking for myself, I should just do whatever I want. And not worry about those things.
I feel a lot of times that inspiration for me can come from a specific genre or scene or, you know, there's something specific with a set of conventions. And when I'm feeling that inspiration from a particular thing, a lot of the time I start out from that place. But as I go on, I don't want to be limiting myself and trying to just create something inside that box, as much as I feel inclined to do that sometimes, in order to feel good about what I'm making. I feel like sometimes I create something and maybe it's outside the box, but if it's not anything I've ever heard, sometimes I get self-conscious about that.
- Yeah, it can go either way, right? Sometimes I'm like, “This isn't like anything I've heard. Awesome. And then other times I'm like, “Oh, that's scary. What is- What is this? Where does it fit?”
But I guess that's where innovation happens. That's where exciting ideas come from. So, yeah. I don't know. I saw you're going on tour with Devin Shaffer soon. That's really exciting. Have you guys been hanging out a lot as of recent?
- She lives in New York, so not as much as I would like, but I met Devin in high school. She's my best friend and has been for a really long time. So we're talking every day, throughout the day, but I don't get to see her as much, so it'll be really nice to spend a lot of time in the car together.
Have you guys made before, hanging out?
- No, we talk about it, but she might come on stage and perform a few of my songs with me—sing them with me.
Do you know any of her songs?
- I could sing some with her, or add a keyboard part or something. That's an idea. I hadn't thought of that. I'll run that by her.
Have you traveled at all since we last got to talk?
- Travel- just in my life? Or... Wait, I think- Did I tell you that- last time we talked, a few days before that, I was-
You were coming back from- was it the Netherlands?
- It was Norway. But I was in Iceland for two days, right before.
Was that the last big trip you were on?
- Yeah.
What did you take from that trip?
- Oh, that I want to do it again. That the Northern Lights really are, as cool as everyone says they are.
While you were there, what headspace were you in for that trip? Was that a break from music and from life, or were you there getting inspiration? You know, what were you looking for—were you looking for anything?
- I wasn't looking for that specifically, inspiration. But, you know, I think I for sure found it. I keep a note on my phone of inspiration, whether it's lyrical or sounds I want to incorporate, So, yeah, I think some of the experiences I had on that trip found their way into songs. But there was a lot of driving, and listening to music while driving, looking at the scenery was just so fun and amazing, but also really inspiring.
Have you ever heard of the photographer Sasha Elage? His art or his photography is something that's been on my mind a bit lately. And, looking at some of your artwork that you've put out, whether it's for album covers or just for promo, I see some similarities. One quote, I think I read from your, again from your Phantom Limb interview, was, something about finding beauty in bleakness. I think in my head, parts of Iceland embody that a bit. It makes me think, too, of Sasha's photography. The horses are a parallel. I don't know. Are you familiar with their work or with their photography?
- Yeah. I love their photography. You talking about bleakness made me have a lot of thoughts. I feel there's different kinds of bleakness, of course, there's sort of that Arctic bleakness, and then there's bleakness found in nature, but then there's bleakness in spaces where nature has been really destroyed, like a lot of the Midwest. But that's interesting, I hadn't drawn that connection, but I feel the Midwest can feel so bleak because of the winters, much like the Arctic, maybe there- Yeah, there is something bleak about really cold climates. Things aren't growing. I don't know how it translates sonically. There's a musician, I think from Northern Norway, Biosphere. I love it. I just love sounds that conjure that in some way. I forget your exact question, I just went off there.
I did too....Your point about different types of bleakness brings to mind another quote from that interview, where you said something about music that is disturbing, but in a safe, or, in a beautiful way. I'm curious about that. Do you ever connect with music for its quality of being, maybe, disturbing or harsh, but without that beautiful quality?
- I was just wondering about that myself before you asked that question.
And if you need examples, I'll tell you what I'm thinking of.
- I am curious what you're thinking, yeah.
I guess this just plays into the conversation at large about time and place for music, and how experiences play into it all. But when I think of what I'm listening to in the middle of January, it's nine degrees, I'm walking to work early morning to the train and, sometimes, that's just harsh noise music or just something that's purely textural. I don't know, sometimes it feels like music like that touches on something that I think little else can? And maybe taps into a feeling or I feel it resonates with me in a way that other things don't.
- I'm going to need some recommendations.
Sure. I'm thinking Merzbow, which is just pure noise. Sometimes that's a tough to listen to. There's a band from Dublin, Gilla Band. They’ve got some really interesting music. Really noisy rock. I think sometimes just the wall of sound, something that taps into something a little more, I guess, paranoid, for lack of a better word.
- Wait, what's paranoid? I want to know more about that, how that feels, it taps into paranoia.
As a person who can just be naturally really internally anxious and feel, you know, really big feelings along those lines, I think sometimes music can just feel like it's digging it out or digging into—I don't know, it's just a big feeling sometimes.
- No, I know what you mean. It's so hard to put into words when music feels resonant. And it reminds you of experiences you have internally.
I think maybe this is a good segue into the point that we talked a lot about last time, about things that are beautiful, familiar, but also something’s not quite right there. Something's a little off. While I was thinking about that point a lot more, something that kept coming to mind for me was vaporwave. Do you have experience with that?
- I loved, past tense, and I currently do, too, but I drifted away a little bit, not intentionally.
I don't know if you do, but I associate liminal spaces with vaporwave a lot, and I didn't really think about why, but I got to thinking more about that, and, I mean, they do share that quality of that off-putting familiarity. Something's off. So many of the liminal space photographs that were floating around on the internet are places that so many people have been. The mall, or, you know, a kids' play place or something. But, just to have it framed in a different context changes the way people connect with it. Reframes it as art. So—my first thought: have you heard- I know Oneohtrix Point Never is on your playlist. Have you heard his project Chuck Person's Eccojams?
- Yes, I love.
I remember the first time listening to that, It was like it broke the fourth wall or something for me. The opening song is playing off Africa by Toto. And that's a song I had heard so many times and hearing it in such a polished context over and over again, and then to hear it as if it's coming through a malfunctioning tape recorder or something, that additional medium or whatever, that blew my mind a bit.
- Well, I feel it gets so close to the experience of memory. And I think that's what's really cool about it.
That's a great way to put it.
- In memory, things aren't as vivid as they were when you were experiencing them at the time you were, and they can also get really, yeah, distorted, and you can question your memory a lot, and so, it's so cool for there to be a musical or sonic, representation of that, or something that just feels, whoa, this really feels an internal experience I have with memory. Yeah. I think you talking about spaces that we all collectively have been to, and know of, especially the mall, which was, so, for me, growing up, at least, so central, it was so booming. Yeah. It was, so amazing. And then, times changed and it's a lot of them are, decaying, and, I don't know, there can be sonic qualities that just make you think about that, too. Yeah. the warped-ness of a lot of vaporwave. Yeah.
I think it's so interesting, too, how sometimes those changes are so subtle. I remember hearing, again, when I heard vaporwave for the first time—that album specifically—I remember not being that blown away by (musically), because to me, the composition wasn't all that different. And I think it took time for me to understand that what was being conveyed there was being conveyed by more than composition. You know, it's subtle things: a bit of reverb on it, or a lot of reverb, a lot of compression, but those come together to present it in an entirely new light.
- I think I had a similar experience, “Wait, this isn't… This is just someone else's song.” But then, yeah, just the feeling of hearing it different, or hearing a song and, maybe you see the idea of, "Oh, I think this would sound really cool slowed down." I don't know. One of the best experiences I've had with music recently was just Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness ultra-slowed down, and it was—it's a totally different feeling than listening to the original.
How slowed down?
- Very much.
Like Justin Bieber 800 times slowed down? That ambient project?
- He reposted that to his story the other day. I love that so much. No, you could still hear the lyrics, but it being that slowed down made them so much sadder. There's a lyric in Summertime Sadness that's like, "Think I'll miss you forever." And that just so slow was so much more tragic than in her original song. And I think that's what I was trying to say. Like when you alter a composition that already exists, you can influence the emotion, you can put a magnifying glass on the emotion or change it a little.
I really like that lens—no pun intended—of the magnifying glass, because, how I had thought about it was not taking away from the original intent but reframing it. But I like the idea of zooming in on it and amplifying it, via something. I think that's cool if you feel you can do that, look at someone's work and go, “I can make this more impactful.” Haha.
- Or just different impact. My friend, Angel, Fire-Toolz, she has a whole project where she does that. She slows down songs, and I love it.
What do you see in the future of music In general? That's a broad question. Feel free to answer however.
- Now I'm looking into the camera for this serious question. The future of music. It's so easy to not have hope about a lot of things, music included. I think because, you know, I don't know a bunch about how it was to be a band in the 90s or, '80s, or, pre- streaming, but I hear a bunch of people, you know, talk about how it's really financially difficult to put a lot of time and energy into music, even if it's getting a lot of attention sometimes. I don't know. I think a hopeful part of me wants to say that we find a different way, we find a way to make it more possible. We were talking about this, before starting the camera, but the sort of difficulty with vulnerability right now because of, just, the widespread discomfort with it or how quick people are to call things cringe. I could see that shifting. I could see people just being, "I'm so sick of this."
I mean, I agree with that- I feel maybe it's naive for me to say, but I don't know, I feel it's coming to a head. I feel like everything just seems wrapped up in one right now. Doomscrolling, just where people are at mentally right now. Everyone's exhausted. I hear everything talked about as a recession indicator. You know, it just feels we're getting to a point where, I don't know, maybe there will be a reset for certain things. How we're viewing or talking about things or- I don't know, I guess all you can be is hopeful.
- Yes. I agree.
I'd love to talk a little about digital art in general. Is that something that you spend a good amount of time on? And I bring it up because, just browsing around your page, I saw that you'd made some art for Immaterialize, for one of your projects. I’m just curious how and when you got into it. How much do you do it? Where does inspiration for that come from?
- I was more into it or got into it, maybe, when I first started getting into music. But I've never gotten a bunch of skills in that area or spent that much time doing it. I love photographic art. I feel a lot of my, not all of my album covers, but a lot of them are just photographs. And I love going through Flickr and finding some things that are cool or evocative in some way. So I love art.
I am curious about your photos. Do you, do you direct the photography for your album covers or for the photo art that you produce?
- Yeah, yeah. The last one, my album, “Wanted to Show You,” I just talked with my friend Jordan about the idea, and, actually, we just drove around 4th of July last year, looking for spots in the suburbs, and we found this, corporate space that had been, I don't know if it was abandoned, but not in use for a really long time. And there's a bunch of, like, cracks in the concrete and things growing out of it. And, yeah, felt very liminal. So that was sort of a co-direction with Jordan, but he's great. He's somebody who you can just communicate your—or I was able to communicate my vision with. And he was like, "Say no more, let's go, I got this."
That's a satisfying thing. Again, I feel I've connected a lot with the photographic artwork that you've put out, and I think it embodies the vibe or the aesthetic of your music so well.
- Thank you. I really appreciate that. I feel like I’m talking about the music a lot, but not about the visual part that much. So. Yeah, just, thank you. That's cool to know that you see it. Or, I don't know if you're saying that it feels like it gels.
It does. I think that's a hard thing to get right. As someone who's tried to put together some music and then tried to throw some artwork together for it, you know, it's an underrated part of the process.
- I'm sure it was cool as hell.
What era of the Internet did you grow up in? Did you grow up pretty online?
- Yeah. I was just talking to Jordan about this. I mean, do you feel that way, or?
For myself? I was entirely online, yeah.
- The moment that a computer was available to me, I was just like, “Hell yeah.” I don't think I got off it. It was a problem. Yeah, it was a problem for me as a kid. I was like, don't want to go to school, don't want to go anywhere, really. I love this.
What were some of your favorite websites or games or what were you doing on the computer?
- I had a Neopets era. I had a Habbo Hotel. I had a Sims. Yeah. For some reason, I was drawn to… What are they called when there's not really an objective, but you're just living life? I don’t know the name for it. But yeah. And then, loved chatting with my friends. Just being in constant- I still feel this way- constantly texting, or being on AIM, and then there was Myspace, so. Yeah. What about you?
I guess my era was different, but it was Club Penguin, Webkinz. But, earlier than that, before there was any sort of goal, I just remember my dad showing me the computer at 2 or 3 and just showing me Google, look, you can give it a question and it'll give you what you want. And once that clicked in my head and once I was able to sit down and type out whatever, that just blew my mind. It was, yeah, it was just from then on, the computer was such a- I don't know if that's a good thing, but the computer was front and center in my mind for a lot of my childhood.
- Is it still in your life?
Yeah. I spend a lot of time in front of a computer. By choice. So I don’t know. I wouldn't have traded growing up on the Internet for anything. I think it's made me a lot of who I am. But I think it's good now that I also value experiences outside of that and understand that they can be good for each other.
- A lot of people say you don't have anything to write about if you don't go have real experiences. I sort of agree. I think you can always mine from somewhere. I don't think you really need experiences, but if the well is running dry, so to speak… Having experiences, traveling or with people or at shows or, you know, just in any way in the real world can really help you have something to say and feel inspired.
Do you ever feel you get to a point with your creative process, or just life, where you just have to go take a purposeful break and try to regroup or, I don't know, get back to a point where you feel inspiration might come naturally?
- Yeah. I have some times I'm really frustrated. I will really try to open up my DAW and make something happen. And when it doesn't happen, it can be really, really sad. But so far it's always come back. So I feel like I'm trying to work on patience and telling myself, “Okay, go live. It'll come back.” I think that's the fear, though, that it won't and that I'm done and I'm not going to feel that intuitive feeling of creating, which I think that's it. It feels it's writing itself. And I think things feel so different in that moment when you're creating, if they are coming, if they're just flowing versus when you're frustrated and trying to make it happen. But what's cool sometimes though, is I'll come back to a project that I thought I didn't, and then I will see it in a different light, or I'll send it to somebody for collaboration and they see something in it. And so, it's not lost time or lost effort.
I think any time you're working you're moving forward. You know, I think nothing you do is a waste of time. There's something to be gained.
- But I have that voice. I don't know where it comes from or what it is, but like, when I’m on TikTok, wasting time, I don't know. Yeah. It's tough.
I think that's something that everyone feels sometimes. When you're in the process of writing, are you someone who shares what you're working on with friends or family?
- I used to, yeah. And then, I don't know where I saw this, I think it was an account that was Psychology Tricks, but it was like, ‘If you share something before it's done, you're less motivated to finish it.”
Wow, I feel that.
- Do you feel that? So, yeah, I think that is the case for me. So I'm not going to, I'm going to wait till I have an album. And then also, I love getting feedback from people. I find it so helpful. But I was feeling really confused showing a lot of people, because a lot of people had ideas about the composition, about the mixing, and I feel I was losing the ability to access my thoughts or my voice. So it scares me that I didn't really show many people, especially my next thing, because I'm like, “What if it's bad? What if these people could have helped me make it not bad?” Yeah, but I wanted to try. I was asking myself the question, "What would happen if I didn't ask anybody, and I just trusted myself?" I think there's a lot of value in that.
You're making me want to try that. I totally feel that after sending something to someone. I always send a big, big disclaimer—bigger than I need to—"Oh, it's not finished. There are so many parts that-"
- I'm so disclaimer-y too.
But then I sometimes feel an element of —maybe finality isn’t the right word—but it feels once I've exported it in that state, I get used to listening to it in that state, you know? Listening back, I think sometimes it's just a lot harder for me to come up with anything to add. I might get positive feedback, but then, where do I go from here? What do I
- You mean after you show someone, or?
Yeah, I have a couple friends that sometimes I'll run something by, and they might have a couple notes on what to add. Sometimes if those notes aren't clicking with me, then I really don't know where to go from there. Yeah. So I don’t know, I can see value in just holding all that to yourself and trusting yourself with those decisions.
- And then if you do that, if you just endeavor to make a full project and then show people, then at least you have the first draft. You have something. The past few years, I've been trying to get out of my way. I've been trying to just finish something and—what do they say? "Write first, edit later?" That's been helpful for me.
With this album, do you feel that there's something that ties all the songs together? Is there a cohesive idea behind this project?
- Sort of. The album title, "Wanted to Show You"— A friend of mine passed away, and it was last summer. And, well, he was somebody I loved showing my music to. Such an encouraging, supportive person. And I wrote most of those songs prior to his passing. But there's one song that I wrote about just wanting to show him. I still find myself feeling that way, when I'm writing something, really wanting to show him. And then also, I like how the title doubles as just that feeling of wanting to share something with people. Wanting to maybe say things you don't feel you can say, or, I don't know, just your inner world. I feel it's just nice to feel like that's shown to people. Sometimes it can be hard to—I feel this is sort of cliche—but to feel like words really do it, you know, communicate your inner experience. But, yeah, I just love him—my friend—and I feel like he was there from when I was… We went to high school together. So, I don't know if I would even have continued to make music as steadily as I have. He was just so encouraging and, yeah, it's just for him. It's certainly because of him. So, yeah.
That's really beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. I do love the idea behind the project, as you were saying, the idea of sharing or wanting to share something inside yourself, feeling words can't do it. I think that’s such a vulnerable thing to show the parts of yourself that… I don't know. I feel it just ties into what we've been talking about, about the internal part of your creative process.
- I don't know, there's such a push and pull. There's such a desire to want to show parts of myself, and then, a huge desire to hide, you know? And so, maybe it's about that tension. I don't know. It's always fun to look back at songs and think, what does this mean? Or, I don't know, I feel I've heard a few artists say that about their work—that the meaning reveals itself to them over time.
Yeah, that's a really interesting point. Do you look back at any of your work and feel it's taken on a new meaning for you? Maybe different from what you originally conceived it as, or just an additional, new meaning that you've drawn?
- I remember having that thought. I can't remember about what. Sorry, but it's an interesting question. Do you?
No, not yet. I think that's really interesting, though, looking back at what you've made and reevaluating it. Do you feel your experiences between then and now are what play a big part in that, or do you think it's just a factor of time?
- I think it definitely could be experiences. I think it also can be just the insight you get about yourself. How it just becomes different to look back on an old version of yourself- the version that made the thing. I think if you get deepened insight on that version of yourself, then you get, deepened insight on the thing you made at that time. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I think that's a good insight. I think sometimes when I look back at things that I've made in the past, sometimes I have a hard time connecting to it now, you know, it was a product of where I was, but other times, I sometimes I listen back to something I didn't put out, but was working on, and I hear something new in that, like, "Maybe I wasn't losing my mind when I made this." That's always a good feeling. And I feel like sometimes it's really fun to explore a product of your past self, like it's almost like experiencing art from another person, but different. Reminding yourself, “Oh yeah, wow, I made this,” or there's something here, maybe, that I didn't hear before. I don't know.
- I think it's healthy to- it can be hard, though, thinking, “Oh, this was me. I wouldn't have made these compositional or mixing choices. But it's associated with my name.” That can be really hard, but I'm trying to be less neurotic about that. Yeah, it can be embarrassing. But of course you're influenced by different things at different times. Or you just gain skill or, of course, you change. But it can be hard. There can be an embarrassment sometimes of, "Oh, that's not what I would do now." But yeah, I'm trying to chill.
I think that's really natural to come with growth is, just, looking back at where you grew from and wincing a bit. Yeah. I don't know. That's tough.
- I think that's so natural. Whether it's you or whether it's music or behavior, a personality, any choices that you made in the past. But music's a record. Not like a physical (vinyl) record. But on Spotify, there's a record of it. And I guess I could take old stuff down, but then I don't want to. I don't want to let that part of me that's really embarrassed win.
I understand that. I think about a lot of the time. As someone who, again, is really self-conscious a lot of the time about things I've put out, I think about if I were to, down the road, delete some songs. From my own perspective as a listener, for other artists, I wouldn't feel any sort of way about it, but I'm just thinking about how it would look if one of my favorite artists, or anyone who I listen to, just went back and felt self-conscious and deleted all their old stuff. You know, not saying people listen to my stuff, but it's an interesting thought. I think that is probably something so many artists think about.
- Right. I agree. I admire people who, not that they don't think that, but who let parts of themselves be seen. Some people perform and you're, wow, you're really moving in a wild way. It's all hard. It's hard to be perceived. Classic struggle.
I do also admire people who are empowered to express themselves, without reservation or without embarrassment.
- Or in spite of it.
Or in spite of it. That's a great point. I think that's an aspiration of mine is to get to a point where I have ideas and nothing gets in between having the idea and expressing the idea.
- But I also have so much anxiety in my life and so I wonder, do some people not? I think it's different for everybody.
How good is your art if you have no anxiety?
Huh. Interesting question. I don't know. Did I say this last time? This is not a direct quote. I don't remember, but on Bjork's podcast, she, I think she said that playing shows has sort of felt like boot camp—I don't think she used that term, but just, I think she's she identified as an introvert and she was like, it's just so hard for people who maybe are more introverted, anxious or something. But that's also made me want to be so much kinder to everybody who puts themselves—not that I've been mean—but, yeah, I just want to recognize everybody who performs, who gets on a stage or who puts out music, that's hard. I don't know. I've been thinking about that.
I really admire that a lot. I think the same way, like, once you've been in that moment and felt the anxiety of just really putting yourself out there, yeah. I think I have such a greater respect for anyone who does. It's remarkable. And then to do it and make something cool. That might be the harder part.
- I’m curious, what music do you like?
My inspiration comes from all over. For the last year or two, I've been really into juke and footwork. Like really, really into it. I just bought tickets two days ago for the DJ Spinn, HiTech, Nia Archives, and Janesita show. It's Radius’s first open air show.
- Nice. It sounds like an awesome time.
But yeah, a lot of my inspiration has been coming less from the ambient side of electronic music and more from the dance but also hip-hop-infused side (editor note: yikes). Really from all over. But I think when I sit down and try to make something, it comes out as a bit of a fusion of, just, every inspiration. Ambient, juke, jungle, orchestral. Anything I can conjure. It's just sounds that I'm trying to put together. And that's where I get hung up right now a lot of the time is the sound design and sound selection. It’s such a tough piece of making music, and such an underappreciated art, I think. It's such an art to weave different sounds together. Again, so much respect for that. I'm someone who really tries to stay away from locking into the boundaries or confines of a genre, as comforting as that can be. And I think that it's really hard to make something crazy with those limits placed on yourself, so.
- Who do you feel is doing that? Making things in a contemporary way?
In the last couple of years, since I started producing, I’ve been almost exclusively on SoundCloud, just trying to find people that are doing weird, cool things. There's someone on SoundCloud I've heard recently. He goes by like four different names: Computer man, dj-c, Computer doctor. He’s making some really interesting music. One of them, there's a 16-second song called "Exercise in Free Will" that is exactly that. You know, just sound design and cool fusions of things. So things like that can sometimes be really interesting to me.
- I really want to hear that. I'm intrigued.
How do you feel about making music in the modern age? I know that's something you spoke to a bit earlier about the uncertainty of the future. And I know obviously the climate of the world at large right now, but also the music industry is just—it's at an interesting point right now.
- I think there are a lot of advantages. I'm lucky to have a laptop and I've had one for quite a while. So, yeah, I think it's so cool to have so many tools so readily available to you that I wouldn't have had if I was living in a different era. And I love that. But I struggle with this question too, I think because I don't really know how it would have been to try to make music and engage with music communities in the past. I think there's clearly a lot of difficult things right now about navigating—finding the time to make music in between having to make money and stuff like that. But I do think it's cool that we're making music at a time where people can find it maybe more easily than they could in the past. Yeah, that's something I don't think about a lot— this question. I wonder if you relate— I can't imagine ever stopping making music in my life. It's just a compulsion or something. And sometimes I just don't care what it's for. You know what I mean? It's just for a process thing sometimes, it's just for the continued experience of trying to make something you like or find beautiful. But I do worry if I ever have kids, which—I don't know—I just worry about life becoming more demanding and then feeling I have less time and ability to make music. So, that wasn't an answer about the state of the world, but yeah.
That's great. For me right now, I agree with that. Music feels like an inevitability. Yeah, specifically making music is, I feel like, inevitable. I'm always going to have a moment where I'm going to pull out my laptop again and just make it for the sake of making something, I don't have a project I'm putting together. So right now that's the only place I'm coming from. But I think that's really interesting to think about. Would there be a point where, through factors of time or just responsibilities, I couldn't do it when I wanted, or I couldn't convey what I wanted to because I didn't have the energy.
- I know, that’s another thing, physical energy.
I saw an Instagram post, two weeks ago. It was really simple. It was just a picture of the founder of Chipotle standing in front of the first ever Chipotle. Yeah. In, 1990-whatever-it-was. And it gave me a feeling, and I think that's been on my mind in a bigger way lately. Just the idea of—I'm never going to be a musician in the 90s. I'm never gonna know what that was. And I know there are so many advantages to living in the world we live in. And I know this also is a topic that's probably been done to death. But I feel I'll always long for just knowing what it would have been like or long for some of those things that just won't happen anymore. For everyone to have their phones away. And, like we talked about, I feel we are coming to a head again. some things I feel are organically just resetting. I go to some shows and it's uncool to have your phone out. And that's great. But at the same time I feel I'll always long to just feel that or know what that was like.
- And we can't. Yeah. I agree with you. The phone specifically. Or even to exist at a show, or just anywhere, without the urge to check my phone. I have that thought often, envying when I didn't, even—my brain didn't even know that. My brain didn't even know the potential of scrolling on my phone. Well, I don't know that there was much of my life where my brain didn't know that, but I just mean a different time where people were just where they were. And there was no option to not be.
It feels now it's just that through so many different means you're never- it's never being more than- what is it- a foot away from a spider? I think there's something too, just, even if the phones are all away, and you're out somewhere, we're still so connected now. That's a feeling that doesn't go away, I think, when you put your phone away.
- I already know my week screen time and even if I'm meditating or something, my brain is still affected by the experience of being on the phone for so long. Yeah. You can't unsee it.
No. Well with that…
- I didn’t know it was pronounced “house-cats!”
Hauskatze, yeah. Haha. It’s a bit unclear.
- I like unclear. Lipsticism is unclear.