Thoughts about my music project
I’ve had some more revelations about the album I keep wanting to make with Ritual Dust, I keep writing these in disconnected little notes as they come to me and slowly a clearer picture of the shape of the work and the intent behind it is emerging.
It is time to usher in the new ways. It’s not the time for a return to the land but to return the land back. Where we’re going we don’t need a romanticized past to guide us, but instead a deep and honest curiosity for the ways human lived, organized and collaborated outside of the hold of capitalism and white supremacy.
I think I’ll take the title of the album from this first bit; Usher in the New Ways which plays on the whole idea of bringing back the old ways which is deeply flawed and motivated by the fact that as a culture we stuck ourselves in a place where we can’t imagine the future anymore.
There is a yearning for folklore, for deep connection and meaning, for a feeling of being part of the landscape, for rituals and celebrations that bring us together, for magic and enchantment.
I’m definitely gonna be exploring folklore and ritual in the album, and looking into ways to fill the spiritual hole that whiteness created in us as it severed us from the culture of our ancestors.
I want to bring people together to create something akin to a stone circle, a monument, a sacred site, a place of meeting and celebration but above all an incredible act of collaborative work not motivated by greed or centralized power but by a shared mutual interest and excitement, which for me is part of what being human truly is
That’s the most recent piece that clicked in my head, the idea of collaborating and doing the album with other people. Not only it’s something that ha always motivated me, bringing people together to create something larger that what we can accomplish alone but it’s also incredibly motivating and inspiring to me to have the input of other creatives and share ideas. And most importantly it models what I think we need to do at that point in time to bring change in our society and to face stuff like the climate crisis: building community, mutual help and collaborative action.
The more I keep figuring out this project, the more the songs I have been working on seem like a precursor for it instead of a part of it and I’m realizing that I should move forward and get these songs out in an EP first, close that chapter and then start this bigger album project officially. So my current goal musically is motivating myself to finish my favorite tracks I’ve been working and playing live into an EP that I’ll call Earthworks and release it when it’s done.
Putting Fantômes into hiatus for another year
This was the logical succession of figuring out what I wanted to do with my music project and also the other projects that are important for me these days; Pious Rot and the work I’ve been doing with VOIDXWITCH. Since I want to have more direction in my work and focus my energy on these, I’m pausing Fantômes for another year to create space for myself to explore these other things. In an ideal world I wouldn’t have to work a day job on top of that and could really fully engage with the work that is meaningful to me but we still need to pay bills. I’m curious to see how this year will go for those other projects and where we’ll be in a couple months.
Curse pop typography for VOIDXWITCH
Hex came up with that term Curse Pop to describe their music recently and we had the idea of turning into some kind of visual that we could reuse for their project, either as just a static visual, animated in music videos or even on merch. Since doing the new logo for their project I’ve been really inspired by the whole neo-grunge / acid graphics design aesthetic with it’s black metal lettering inspiration, 2000’s flair and chrome effects. So to continue in that line I drew a very spikey version of the lettering with the two words nesting into each other and with a very symmetrical composition, that way when we animate it or make it rotate it’ll work better and we can have the two words doing different things.
Then I headed to blender to do a 3d version of it. I’m so happy to go back to doing 3D in blender, I used to do quite a bit of it back then and even made a little zine with all 3d modeled landscapes and a small game. I find that 3D is such a great way to push visuals further and create effects that would be really hard to get otherwise. I’ve learned a lot of new tricks recently from watching https://www.youtube.com/@intr4 on youtube, like adding imperfections on surfaces and using HDRIs for more realistic reflections. This render is still a work in progress but i feel like I’m getting closer to what I want.
Photo experiments
Following some really early tests inspired by this video on the color style of the movie the Ring I went out on a walk and took more photos to see how the yellow filter combined with the tungsten white balance on my camera would look in daylight. I had so much fun on this little photo walk and was so inspired by seeing the results directly while shooting compared to doing color grading after the fact, I really feel that making visuals choices like that in camera can really change the way I shoot and how I look at different subjects. I’m more and more convinced that a lot of movies that date from the film era were so visually striking because of these bold in-camera choices that the DP took and committed to instead of trying to keep all doors open and figuring it in post. This had inspired me to get some film and start shooting more on film in order to have to be more intentional with what I shoot and how I do it.
Dolmenwood TTRPG illustrations
I recently got contacted by one of the people making the Dolmenwood TTRPG, they had found my work through the album covers I did for Aura Merlin and offered me a commission for a couple of illustration for their upcoming book. This is a big thing for me, I feel like I’ve been looking for that kind of stuff for so long, trying to find a way to make fantasy illustrations in my style for a living and collaborate with publications I’m excited about.
I’m currently still in the concept and sketch phase of the project but I’ll be update you on the process and I go along since those will also be made in full color, a welcome challenge and motivation with the cover of Pious Rot that I was planning to do in the same way.
Reading:
- A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin
Watching:
- The X-files
- Godland (2022)
Listening to:
- BLVCK by La+ch, SVDP & Backxwash
- Out of the wind and into the Sun by the Bothy Band