It has been a while since I've published anything noteworthy here. That seems to be the case most times I write for this blog, and I every time I feel that I need to justify my absence. That has been theme in my life recently - justifying myself. I recently made the choice to dedicate myself to making music for a year or two, and it is impressive how much time I spend struggling to allow myself such a "selfish" choice. I went so far as to ask ChatGPT to pretend they were a right wing neoliberal shitbag (not my exact words, though I regret not using them) and give me a list of criticisms so I could practise replying to them. It (I refuse to either gender or anthropomorphise the little turd) did a pretty good job. Here's a taste:

• Making music is a luxury for rich people or teenagers, not responsible adults with degrees.
• You're distracting yourself with art instead of engaging with the real, material struggles of the world.
• You're doing this for attention, not expression. Be honest.
• You're making music when you could be spending your time actually helping people, e.g. activism, volunteering, ...

These and many other useless thoughts float aimlessly around my head, leaving little space for creation, appreciation or attention. I picture them as dementors (I hate Harry Potter but hey, I also grew up with that bollocks) attacking me as I try to navigate my way through a dark forest. Their armed with reversible Ice-9 which they fling at me. The Ice-9 seeps into my limbs and freezes them, every step I take cracks and screeches as I need to break the ice loose.

Then I start to question everything: Do I really want to make music? Deal with the music industry? Am I even capable of making music, or at least music that I would be satisfied with? Do I even like music that much?

Of course I fucking do, shitting Christ. Having survived the dementors and shaken myself liquid again, I come to a clearing in the forest and I am able to attend to the world around me. I hear Rosa Ballistreri crying "Moru moru moru" and I feel a pulse run through me. I remember the first time my friend showed me the song. I was stoned and ready to go to bed and he was telling me excitedly about how Rosa, whose songs he'd grown up with, was also politically active, and how in one of her songs she sings about how the Mafia and the church worked hand in hand and how he felt connected to this Sicilian icon through his anti-Mafia activism when he was still at school.

Today I came back home and was flicking through my Bandcamp wishlist to have some background music while I read. Now I find myself listening to Pépe's album "Reclaim" for the second time. Perhaps because I haven't been infatuated for a while, because I haven't allowed myself to, that I let myself fall so deep into the bed of bells of "Goma", the track that signals both the beginning and end of album. Most of the tracks have simple, entrancing melodies which hold my attention until they pause and I realise that I've ended up somewhere entirely different. Pépe truly created a world with this album and shared it with me. If I had not read the Bandcamp description, I would have imagined myself in a small garden. Wait, not just any garden - it's front garden of my grandparent's house in Sea Palling. I have my back resting on the sundial and I'm watching the sun's rays piercing through the bamboo. They chase each other on the grass in front of me, colliding, merging, splitting, narrowing, widening, disappearing. I close my eyes and hear the wind tickling the leaves and cow bells in the distance. When I open them again I'm in a concrete structure, like the floor of a car park, except it has been overrun by flowers, vines, brambles, ferns, trees, ... The light is the same, a harsh white softened by its' weaving through green curtains. I wrinkle my toes and feel moss between them. I smile a silly smile as I strain water from the moss onto the soles of my feet. In the middle of the car park is some weird contraption, not unlike The Breakfast Machine from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or one of Wallace's inventions. It is a web of bells, tubes and pans lightly struck by rods and other scrap metal. A wind mill is powering the machine and I notice how the low rumble of its gears is in tune with the chimes of the bells.

Making music is not selfish, and neither is writing. Creation sustains us, and that includes me. It gives meaning to reproduction, in the broadest sense of the word. So does attending to the world. Sharing and receiving. There's not much more to it than that.

Oh piss, I see some intrusive dementor thoughts drifting their way into the clearing. Fuck me, one of them has video evidence of how I embarrassed myself that one time and yet another is threatening me with a graphical illustration of how long I spent studying (9 years!) only to throw it all away. Now one of them is pissing and vomiting on me with surprising dexterity. Yikes, OK, gotta go, til next time!

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