Modern Myths - To Make an Album in 2017

A few days ago, I got the first mixes of my album.
Obviously, I've been listening non-stop. For anyone reading this who's ever had a child, it's a bit like obsessively staring at your last ultrasound before actually giving birth. It's as close as you've ever come to seeing how your baby's gonna look like, yet it's still not quite actually what it should be, so you can only muse upon the final outcome.
I'm not there yet, but I'm as close as ever, and I couldn't be more proud. In all honesty, I wasn't expecting the album to be this good. I'm quite impressed with what I've created.

During one of my listens last week, I found myself diving into the momentum of the album utterly and completely. It was like time didn't matter, nor what happened during my day, nor what I had planned for the next one. Space didn't really matter either, nor did the outcome of the future. In that moment, there was me, pure me, and the songs, gliding into one another, and their stories, weaving together the bigger story of Original Game itself.
I found myself reconnecting to each of these stories and ultimately reconnecting to the bigger story -the reason behind my Original Game in the first place.

And then, I understood what it means to write and release an album, in 2017 -versus writing and releasing a song, which is what most artists do these days.

At that point, I told myself This is why I wrote an album anyway. Because it mattered to me to tell this story.
Each song is a chapter. You can listen to just one song, if you'd like, but then you're not getting the whole tale, nor the reason behind the song.
Listen to the album, or any album, really, in its integrity, and find yourself surrendered to a modern legend, myth, or folklore.

We owe it to each other to keep telling stories. This is written in one of Neil Gaiman's books somewhere.
It's true. We owe it to ourselves to keep folklore alive, renewed, and up-to-date. 70 years from now, people will listen to the albums we've created, and they'll be able to get a glimpse of the reality of our times. They'll be able to know what our stories were; they'll know what we dreamed of, what we fought for, what we delighted in, and what the shape of our desires was.

Let us keep making albums -capture complete sonic tales. Otherwise, we only leave boundless chapters behind, without any beginning or end. I mean, chapters do have beginnings and ends of themselves, but they have no frames to hold them in. Which is fine, if that's what you're aiming at, all things considered.

Point is, the Art of the Album is not lost, or gone, or done with. It's a way into modern myths, and a way into another universe.

Posted in: alex robshaw,Column