The reason for the failure, the real reason for the absolute face plant of freestyle, is in the lack of the creation of something new. It was, in retrospect, an act of taking a math exam in the guise of producing something new. All of themes are well established. All of the word play is well established. When I say "well established" I mean it has all been done successfully prior too their various incorporations into Flowgenomics. And that is why I feel, in rereading several times over, that it is one of the worst failures I've managed to generate.
There's nothing in it. Nothing identifiable in it. It's like saying one and one is two. Over and over again. Except instead of numbers we have concepts in the same positions of the variables. Concepts drawing toward a well established and well documented conclusion. Not that they are not my sentiments. It is just the framing of the picture, the execution of the strokes, and the lighting of the presentation that is phenomenally stale. It's not even so bad that it's good. It's just so putrid that the stench engulfs any reason to enjoy it. When I finish reading it I feel like I've lost time that I will never get back and it leaves me, if anything can be left after riding my eyes down the page, angry that I wasted time.
Well, I did not waste time in evaluating it. I learned what I could do better and worse by making it. I can further apply what I've learned to making something better. The galling thing, the disappointing thing, is that someone else has, perhaps, wasted time reading it and for that I apologize. It will remain up, though, as I persisting reminder to myself for the high latency space to work in. There is absolutely something to be said for the pressure of short turnaround times, but that piece is a clear example of what is and what could have been, had I given myself the time to mull it over for several handfuls of days before pressing it.
What I also learned was some of the value of new music. New music is, by definition, new. By technical definition. By ethos, however, new music is truly new when it conceptualizes the familiar in new ways. By that token, Flowgenomics is the equivalent of vomit. A math exam with set answers and many of them regurgitated from memory with fidelity and sealing it's fate as nothing more than parroting. One plus one equals two. There's a certain amount of shame I am still trying to digest. A certain amount of wishing for a second chance on it, and I can have one at the drop of a hat, but I will not take another crack at it just yet.
I am partly too disappointed to look at it for an eleventh time, but part of me wants to remember the mistake so that I have that in my furnace to power the train toward better production. The mental workshop. A fine substitute for class. What makes new music new is not necessarily the paint on the canvas or the framing or the lighting, but the artist's ability to take a familiar concept and make it interesting again; in this case by presenting the ideas in ways they haven't been presented before. Maybe it's not one particular thing that does it. That makes "new" new. It's not all "or"s. It's a whole lot of "ands". So I'm going to hold that idea in my mind the next time I feel inclined to spit out a rhyme about the fire inside me and engage and coactivate memory language and footprints of words that crush the edges of other footprints of other words. Anyway. Just though I should let you know that thinking is happening. I don't just open my mouth and talk off of the top of my head everyday.
Sometimes you've got to plan if you want to get better.
