Life within Limits

Just thinking about self-proscribed and externally-conditioned limits as they are part of my creative processes. Especially with the Zanoisect project I've concerned myself with setting up proscribed experiments - limits explicitly set - to blow open new possibilities. Blinded by the vast potential of options to explore in any given creative situation I prefer drawing up boundaries to work within. I set up walls to bounce off of instead of exhausting myself running wild in every direction. In consequence the results are part of a learning process and stepping stones for future experiments. Exactly how and why I have so many releases, boys and girls, it tied up in this process. Some releases are documents of passing conditions and interests and others are this long story of experimentation in an ongoing desire to bring forth from ZH27 things you can't and won't hear anywhere else. I take blows from people who can't imagine having the need or energy necessary pull off this lifework of mine. Inevitably it's people who've put very little time into listening to the range of what I've been releasing, so these attacks tend to strengthen my reserve to keep busy, not diminish it. When people reach this level of ability in their professional lives as sportsmen, investment bankers, doctors, etc. nobody suggest they should play less games, make fewer great investments or cure less people as they've already done enough. Seems my setting up of limits has done me quite some good as a tool for doing a wide range of works within a field that's easy to get lost in. I think in-between two extremes of 'uncontrolled wank' and 'uptight proficiency' lay much exciting area to explore audio possibilities. As things approach those extremes I personally lose interest and wonder why I've bothered to listen to this instead of something else. I'll trust you understand already that I have short patience for people who need to ride someone else's horse into town - anyone in search of that perfect sound to impress the executives at Warner Bros. Those are limitations that deliver inconsequential results. The gain there could be measured in millimeters where I'm looking to go kilometers away from what's obvious. So the limits in my creative world are not about how much I do just on how I go about what I do. Go forth and conquer!

February 9, 2004