Brian Eno once said:

These people are not “making a record”, they are making music because it creates for them a world they want to inhabit, makes them feel alive, and that life floods out over the edges of the recording and into you, the listener. And that, I’m starting to think, should be an artist’s minimum ambition.

That statement really hits home for me. From the first album on, I tried to create a sonic place that felt like home. Every home was a little different, as if they were in different locations, with slightly different cultures, but still inhabited by me and the other musicians. NF was very romantic, but by the time The Hours… was created the home had become much more multifaceted. slow was a harbor in a storm for me. Rain Poems was part of crafting a new home, after leaving Santa Fe and my studio.

Another thing the quote reminds me of is that it’s not content that I am creating. That word is a put down that originated in Silicon Valley. It belittles what we do. It denies the years of practice that go into music. It denies the experience of creating and making music.

Calling music “content” is like calling a lovely meal “food“.

— ottmar

It’s not untrue but it misses the point entirely.