I’ve always tied up a ridiculous amount of my life in music. As long back as I can remember I’ve spent countless hours carving songs I identify with out of their source albums, fusing them together on audio tape and then later on CD, trying to form some sort of transcript of what I perceived to be the current iteration of my self, with the intention of giving the resultant mix to people I care about. In doing so, there was real risk involved: I always felt that in the songs I selected I divulged something profound about myself – my brokenness, my corniness, my taste for melodrama, my warped sense of humor, my personal demons and darkness and sadness — though I earnestly hoped all the while that the recipient would "get it", and thereby somehow "get" me in a way I was certain they couldn’t otherwise. Through the music I wanted to forge a real and meaningful connection between myself and the listener. I felt that in the music, I was sharing who I truly was.
There’s something incredibly childish about all of this to be sure, something incredibly naive. Can simply loving a song transform it into a conduit for your private emotions, your sense of self or identity? No, probably not. Still, I feel compelled to perform this ritual as I have since I was a teenager, and send my songs out into the world. I hope they’ll mean something to you, too.
(Previous mixes can be downloaded here.)
