What you see and hear through the Fajar Soul Dweller Studio / Rehearsal & Writing Session #1 video above is a perfect example of the creative moment as I express it in the text below. I had a song I wanted to immerse myself in. The studio process wasn’t contributing to capturing the emotional essence I was looking to touch, or at least feel, so I invited the rest of the band members to join me in the “collective dwelling sanctuary” (yes, I do give names to pretty much everything; it makes it significant — and drives everyone else crazy!) and we started to let go…
The aim is not to “find” something nor is it to get somewhere tangible, but to lose ourselves in such a way that what is being played becomes a reflection of our hearts and souls. It will last as long as how deep we are willing to dive personally, and our level of abandonment will ultimately define the measure of cohesiveness it will generate. At the end of that immersion, I don’t care if it’s good or bad, if anything made sense at all… What usually emerges is our spirits being cleansed from “searching” for something out of creativity. We become “it”. That’s a sort of “ritualistic” process to reshape our perspective from looking for something and becoming that so-called “thing”. It’s transformative on multiple levels to do so…
At least it is for me.
Talking with Hugolin regarding the distinctive vision I have about artistic expressions — total let go and its embodying abandonment, both inherent to the whole disposition of my creative process — following our first jam session, I realized how alien I was to educational formatting, especially when it comes to art. It just doesn’t make sense to me somehow. You have to copy the work of someone who, because of his defiance, broke the system they felt trapped in and then rewrote the whole playbook... Ain't that paradoxical?
It became even more puzzling (or I should say “infuriating”) to me when Hugo confided that one of his teachers told him that he would never become a professional musician (that term makes me laugh every time I hear it from a union member who doesn't pay their bills by playing music) because of his transgressive mentality. While it was a cruel, hurtful, and unnecessary comment from someone who's supposed to inspire students to become who they are in order to find their own expressive way, I thought it actually was the best compliment you could receive as an artist, especially coming from someone who's paid good money in a super secure position to clone students year in and year out... It's quite special, at least for me... I believe that it's constructive transgression that changes the course of our lives, not the status quo or playing it safe. I could go on forever on that specific topic of the “do as I say because I say it” kind of oppressive mentality from some of the academic members... Oh, well...!
That rich conversation made me realize that if I have considerably evolved as a person over the course of the last few years, that notion of inner affective surrendering has always been there in one form or another. It's only been more vibrant within me ever since I initiated that uniquely meaningful and fulfilling type of interior spiritual voyage. I guess that expressive quest to “be” initially took place when I asked my father to buy me an electric guitar with the couple of hundred dollars I had received from my grandfather’s passing. I was 11 or 12. I wanted one like Joe Strummer's. And my father bought it. Well, it wasn't really like Strummer's; it was a Squire, with the same black and white colors... Cool, that was close enough for me. I was ecstatic! And before he paid for it, he looked at me and said that he would give it to me under one condition: I had to take guitar lessons. “Even better,” I thought... Until I met my teacher, who wanted to turn me into another copy of Eric Johnson. My perception of an instrument was, and is even more resolutely so now, solely made to channel sensations that cannot be expressed, in the likes of Glenn Branca, Swans, or Nick Cave’s darkest period… And if you can't truly teach that, you can nonetheless facilitate such expressive desire within someone... Right?! That wasn't my teacher's idea, no.
I wanted to learn Nirvana's song Polly. He was out of his mind when I had him listen to what he referred to as non-talented trash! And when I wondered if I could learn a song from The Dead Kennedys, The Cramps, or Joy Division, he said that all those bands were sonic pollution, that I needed a year or two, if not more, before being able to play real music. WHAT?!? Not knowing the guy's elitist philosophy, I would have assumed he wanted to maintain his teaching schedule full forever... But no, not him. He kept telling me that a desire to excel is what would make me a real musician one day, that only technical virtuosity is at the service of music, contrasting greatly with the fact that I have always considered virtuosity (if there's such a thing in expressive art) to be at the service of our subversive display of human emotions. Not for him, no. He constantly made sure to reaffirm, firmly, that he was against that “free” form of expressive mentality, saying “Who will remember punk rock, Alex? Who? While Satriani, Johnson, and Malmsteen are already eternal.” I eventually answered the question within myself with '“Sex Pistols, The Clash, Ramones, Talking Heads... no?!”
How bizarre it was... I mean, from Mozart to John Lydon, Kurt Cobain, and so many others, including some guitar/drums heroes, those individuals weren't products of circumstantial conformity but the emotional reflection of their time and environment. It was a need to free themselves from the dictate of standardization that started their journey and the determination to be liberated from a limiting and rigged type of social/economical/expressive system they could have become the product of otherwise. That’s the starting point. It didn't have anything to do with techniques or being the best at whatever or not. Motives might change along the way — we all do. And good for anyone who becomes a virtuoso. I admire committed and hardworking individuals... But that's not the question here.
In the end, it's what serves who and who serves what... Maybe that's where the difference lies. That's my view. It's my foundation. And it remains true to this day. That same teacher even told my father, “Alex has a ton of potential, but he doesn’t want to follow the rules. He has too much of a free spirit to play the guitar, maybe he should learn something that will suit his unlimited creativity.” WHAT?! Well, here I am... It’s interesting how the most meaningful elements of my ongoing transformation still remain so close to its inception. I do have that teacher to thank: he guided me on my expressive path. Not sure it was what he was foreseeing for me, though... I use guitars, but I'm not a guitar player. That nuance defines my creative universe, I suppose!
There's a measure of self-scorning affliction that comes with any profound desire for liberation. Same goes with yearning to free yourself from structures, with the emancipation of the mind from the paralyzing aspect that comes with trying to make sense of something that doesn’t have to be comprehended nor constructed in order for others to feel it. There’s a quote by Andy Warhol that pretty much encapsulates that intentionality:
“Don't think about making art, just get it done.
Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad,
whether they love it or hate it.
While they are deciding, make even more art,
emphasizes a prolific and non-judgmental
approach to artistic creation.” (1)
The emphasis is on engagement rather than self-doubting criticism or the insecurities that come with other people's potential reactions. Such elements don't create life, they only nurture hesitation, temporization, and indecisiveness. That's what ultimately chokes any of the necessary instinctive resolution needed in human living types of expressive art. Intuition is the rejection of conformity, subversion is the act of resistance against generic commercialization designed for overconsumption, intention is the consequential motive at the center of explorative experimentation.
That may explain why, faithful to my full-throttle life stream, I rarely take a day off from creation. It’s a daily component of my spiritual hygiene and a necessary motion for my psyche. And being on the road with the band ain’t any different for me. Therefore, it becomes a reality (imposed or encouraged) for my bandmates as well. I do remember renting a rehearsal studio in Paris because we had 2 consecutive days off, only to see us write a 40-minute song, one that we ended up playing (without any disastrous outcomes, or so I believe!) the night after at Le Zèbre de Belleville. It was a moment. As special as the song was, I never dwelled back into it after that. It was a one-time-only kinda thing, which, for me, is a tremendously unique emotional collectivization. That’s what communal music is for me: a shared moment deprived of any ambitious self-governance.
I have those rehearsals on the road every occasion I get. It goes all the way back to my first Chinese tour that took place in 2011, even if we had a crazy schedule of 18 shows in 21 days all over the mainland. Yes, it was pretty crazy to even dare try to squeeze a rehearsal somewhere between the local trains and inland flights we had to embark on every single day to get to the next concert. Crazy even in my own standards...! But we did it. It was somewhere in Shanghai or maybe Beijing that I met one of the most amazing female-fronted shoegaze/punk/hardcore bands, which was an absolute rarity at the time. I ended up inviting them to play with us the night after. That concert was included in an independent documentary about the most subversive bands to ever play that iconic venue. We didn't know they were filming, let alone doing a documentary. We randomly saw it a decade later looking for images of our band playing in China, which reminded me that whatever may seem crazy can lead to a deep significance sometimes.
In fact, if those on-the-road writing sessions have always been deeply meaningful for me, they became an essential aspect of my recovery journey when I set up our HQ kind of traveling camp in Cologne last summer for what was a sort of touring reintegration for me. Well, it was more of a '“let’s find some answers to all the fundamental questions I had about the potential coexistence between my precarious health and how I have to let myself go when I embody my music’s spirit.” That was a true pivotal instant for me. But still, for the sake of convincing myself that I knew everything would be ok (I didn’t know anything at all), let’s call it my “touring reintegration”. But more seriously, those “rehearsal/writing sessions” routine turned into a determining factor to the peace I eventually found in getting back on stage regardless of every single one of my doctors and specialists' lack of positivity in that regard. “You have to accept that you may never go back on a stage, nor speak normally again, Alex.” Well, here I am!
Therefore, when I started envisioning the nature of A Nightfall Ritual with a little more clarity, I thought it wouldn’t be a pure reflection of that defining period of my creative voyage if I wasn’t inviting you in some of those “rehearsal/writing sessions”, reason why I decided to add some additional material to the DVD’s film Ascending Through Let Go. It is a first for me to invite you beyond the usually closed door of my creative intimacy, especially as those highly personal insights weren’t filmed for further release purposes. Consequently, this is what gives them a genuine and honest character. We speak in French, I’m conducting the band in my own lingo, you can see me writing lyrics and instrumental parts as we go, but more importantly, you can witness, hear, and see what it is to be in my emotionally intuitive exploration, while I’m looking to touch what I refer to as the “invisible” element of my music… And that’s determining for me.
Quite frankly, while I never particularly appreciated seeing myself on the screen, I nonetheless can say that all those “rehearsals/writing sessions” added to the DVD bonus material are pure and poignantly revealing for me. At that point, I was at the very early stage of my recovery, which means I was in the midst of relearning absolutely everything I had forgotten or couldn’t do anymore. In those little clips, you see Ben and Jeff trying the best they can to offer me enough of a wide sonic canvas for me to determine how I would like to express my heart and soul through that new reality of mine… And only that is quite poignant to watch, to feel… Yes, intentionality is subversive in every shape and form. And I am the first to undergo its subsequent pruning metamorphosis.
In many ways, whatever the term you want to use, be it “subversion”, “transgression” or “intentionality”, I’ve learned that it’s all about the measure of the disposition and willingness you have to keep on evolving as a person, and in my case, to the creative extent it will eventually lead to if what I do genuinely reflects who I am, and that at any given instant of my ongoing transformation… The rest is the rest… until it’s an evolving act of significance.
Life creates life
Your brother and friend,
Alex
PS: You can watch the different rehearsals/writing sessions excerpts on the DVD A Nightfall Ritual.
(1) The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975)
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