It’s probably a bit nuts how little I actually ‘promote’ my music. Lol.

Rewind 20 years… I had all these grandiose ambitions of massive success as a producer/artist… before even having made the music… and foolishly squandered much of my twenties with head in the clouds dreaming about it rather than actually putting in the work creating. T’was only at 28, once in Bali, that I really began getting my feet wet and developing any consistency producing. Fucking nuts to consider that was 13 years ago. God, how time flies.

It hasn’t been a smooth journey since then, but increasingly steady. (And satisfying.) Though while I’d been at one extreme prior of focusing on the fantasies of ‘success’ without actually creating anything, it seems I may have since swung to the opposite extreme - focusing on making the music, to the detriment of any/all marketing & promotion, and no longer really giving any fucks about “success.”

Indeed, there may here be some wise embodiment of those sayings, “build it and they’ll come; focus on refining your vibe and you’ll attract the right people & opportunities” - though also, there’s probably something to be said about balance… complete hermitude in the studio perhaps better complimented with at least a little self-promotion along the way and/or sharing some of the creations along the way, rather than keeping them locked in a vault for no one to hear other than the average 5 Spotify listeners a month that come from God only knows where.

Granted, timing.

Maybe my unique creative path isn’t linear, doesn’t follow any conventional model of how things “should” look / play out, and is in its own perfect evolution over a longer period of decades than ego would impatiently prefer. After all, the quantum leaps in improvement of engineering quality over the last year or two alone have shocked me - dumbfounding, how what I thought were decent mixes have since been proven otherwise as going back to remaster, feeling like I had rushed much of my music out prematurely before quality was up to standards; or at least, grateful for the refinement of skills, standards, and results allowing me to rerelease stuff that sounds way better than the originals did. But lest I digress.

Perhaps t’is a bit of a shame I’ve been toiling away on all these labours of love, so few ever hearing them. While balancing healthy amounts of both confidence & humility… alot of it is pretty damn fucking good, after all.

Maybe there’s some ‘truth’ to the/my Venus in 12th house thing of ‘hidden talents,’ and some self-compassion due for the ‘grant serenity for what can’t be controlled’ thing - what will be, what will be… my work never “destined” for the heights of what I once aspired to when younger, no matter how to-a-t I’d follow all the hustle-culture formulas praising hard work, commitment, etc. Though no doubt, none of that’d be valid reason to resign and do disservice to both myself & the world by withholding the gifts of my talents & fruits of their labour. That damned Buddhist “middle road/ground” - finding the balance is forever a dynamic process of micro (and macro) adjustments.

Blah, blah, blah. Same ol’story. Though at the least, I’m finally enjoying the journey as it unfolds. No real hangups over outcomes anymore, allowing the process to be what it is and just finding/creating more small moments of happiness as doing the work - or, reengaging in the play. Outside validation of ‘followers,’ stats or accolades having little impact on what I do what I do - simply just finding contentment in surfing the creative waves as they come, finding bliss in the flow of detailed work of refinement as surrendering to the current cycle of re-mixing & remastering, the meditative work/play of polishing off my ‘babies,’ nourishing them and watching them come into their own, its own reward.

(And/or that still could all be a nice-sounding narrative in which there is some truth, while being used to gaslight myself into complacency with “playing small” and rationalize a rebranded resignation/apathy rathet than doing what may be necessary to really level-up. 🤷‍♂️)

In any case, should even one or two of y’all reading this happen to listen and enjoy too, awesome…

🙏✨

For anyone on SoundCloud... playlist HERE.

(thanks to the Hive platform's fault for not having this embeddable - can/will do it via Peakd, but including the code on Hive seems to make this entire post disappear from the preview. nice.)