This week’s session was kind of just to push us into making sure we are keeping up with work and that we are in a spot where we are comfortable, which I don’t feel like I am, but I don’t feel like I ever am. I’m always lagging behind, but I’m happy with the work I am doing regardless. The album I’ve done for my portfolio sounds really good still, I’ve been touching up obsessively this last song I want on it since I want it to be a full representation of how my stuff sounds and the spaces it occupies, it is structured as this softer, earthy sound that suddenly expands and crashes down as this cathartic release after an hour of lethargic, depressive ambient, and then slowly eats itself back into that spot again. My main issue is making it feel right, making it not too obtuse so that it is not too Harsh, since the purpose is to entice people into liking this genre I love and demonstrate the Harsh sound not as violent but as this sublime, psychedelic oversensuousness. My younger brother and I started working on the box for it as well last week when I visited home, since I wanted to package the album in this origami card box, and it was actually way more tough than I thought, but we got the template working enough to make one out of paper that we could write the dimensions all over.

This week, though, I was able to rehearse my set for the final year show in Iklektik for next week, which I have been making materials for throughout the year around the theme of defamiliarisation, resculpting a Fleetwood Mac into this Sunroof! style psychedelic noise drone endeavour. It has been a complete nightmare regarding my laptop though since it has been losing functionality gradually to the point where running Bespoke and VCV Rack lags my CPU to the point where it glitches and stutters in a horrible manner, so I recorded some takes of me playing them like I would live and laid them out in FL studio instead, so that I can have so effects to play with in there so it’s not the compromise of a backing track, and I can play my noise and guitar while those sounds strobe on. I did a lot of rehearsals in the Composition Room so I could explore the sound at a good volume, and Louie and I are going to do a session where we crit eachothers performance in W401 next week as a kind of final rehearsal session, but I got Song from the masters course to give me a little crit beforehand too, which as usual turned into more of a Jam, but loosened up the structure for the performance, freeing it up so that it is not so strict sections. Song assured me that the stagnance that I genuinely strive for is this slow crawl, which I’m very glad about since my ideal is for the sound to not move ever, and this is not a hindrance for other people, it does just enough for the audience to be engaged, and it’s not just self-amusement.

I am also playing a Power Electronics gig next week in Manchester the day before the Iklektik gig (extremely micro-tour of sorts), which I have made some demo CDrs of this last track (it’s 40 minutes) I previously mentioned in order to have something to sell to make the money back for the Train, as well as leaving my email so that if any feedback comes through, I can hear it, as it is my main concern at the moment is that track. The track before it I tried a couple of times to create more action with the worry of the same thing, that I was being boring, but everything seemed to detract from what I have, it seems to demonstrate the trance-like blackout hypnosis of Wall Noise through a Guitar Ambient format, and I find it really poignant and emotional, I found it a bit difficult to work on to be honest because of this strong emotional feeling. This week has been a bit exhausting and a bit of a proper kick into shape as to finalising everything, but I’m pretty excited. The amount of time I’ve had for this stuff has made me more confident than I would usually be, as I have pretty much been accumulating material for these projects for months. I just need to make sure the execution is spot on. (I started my Bio briefly this week, too, but it’s not particularly great, I’ve been putting it off because I hate this kind of self-gloating stuff.)