Hello fans, I realized that the last post I provided you was nothing more than an explanation of the reason my site looks so different. Even that was six months ago. That being said, I wanted to provide a bit of a minor status update.
For the past several months, my life has been quite challenging. I have been faced with many issues from many different fronts. Originally, it just started with a change, albeit one out of my control, with my career. Then, my wife ran into serious health issues that required a very tough surgery. As if the world was not painful enough, an unexpected social challenge faced my family that left us reeling. The financial issues of many stupid decisions my wife and I made as much younger people also caused (and still cause) us considerable stress.
So what does all this mean? It just means that I have not been doing so well at getting creative. I have never forced myself to create music just because I feel I need to. That is why I choose to be an independent artist. Instead, I prefer to create music when the urge strikes. Virtually all music that I create when I feel like I am “forcing” the creativity ends up being music that I don’t keep or shelf permanently. Though some of this material has occasionally made it into other works in some form or fashion, it is not something that I like to do.
To simplify, I am basically in a creative downturn right now. Though I have almost enough tracks to launch Expanse, I am still stuck on creating one final track. I have dabbled with creating a ‘title track’ like I did with Currents and have made many attempts at capturing the soul of this album in such a track. Yet, all the attempts I make at such a song seem to fall short of the ‘soul’ of the album. Alternatively, I could create a final track and just not make a title track as I did with Audiophiles. Even in that mentality, I have a hard time creating anything that I truly believe is worthy of release.
At this time, Expanse has 5 original tracks and one Christmas track. The first track, Distant Voice, set a great tone and feel for the new album. Then, Take Flight was a beautiful and flowing track that captures the joy I had when I wrote “Windrider”. Next, I focused on the “spacey” feel of the album and created “Burning Star” which is still one of my favorites for this album. A chance stroke of inspiration struck that allowed me to craft the trap-focused track “Street Fire” to meet the gritty feel of the life in one of the poorest parts of my home city that I experience through my ministry with Freedom Fire. For my Christmas track, I opted for the remixed version of Jingle Bells, Space Jingle, that is still one of my children’s favorite tracks. After this, I had a momentary creative flash where I made “Solar Winds”.
All of this information means that I have 6/7 tracks to release. Yet, until I get the inspiration to create that 7th track, I won’t have Expanse ready. Again, I do not wish to “force” creativity so it may take some time until this new album is ready. For many of my long term fans, this is no surprise as it often takes me 3-5 years to release an EP. All I can ask is for your patience. If you enjoy my music, sending me some positive vibes or an encouraging message would be awesome. If you can’t/don’t want to, I understand that too.
In the meantime, enjoy the material on “A Different Christmas” as it is almost time for the Christmas season. That’s all for now… DJ 6i, out.
