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“The Pain of Things that Couldn’t Be” auction launch / Q&A
Recorded: Dec. 8, 2023 Duration: 1:10:57Space Recording
Full Transcription
Yeah, so this piece is called The Pain of Things That Couldn't Be, and it's really based
on going through some losses and trying to represent that in a way that makes sense musically.
And as you all know, with all the blockchain tech stuff, I'm trying to use those concepts
in a way that resonates with the tech.
So with this one, basically what it's doing is creating one piece out of many generative
possibilities.
And instead of making an entire collection of all those possibilities, it's collapsing
down to just one possibility.
So creating a one-of-one out of many potential music pieces.
And the idea is that basically the rest of those are wasted.
And so it's, you know, by exploring the algorithm, you can kind of see what could happen.
And then only one token is going to get created.
So, you know, in that there's, you know, obviously there's a lot of analogies there, but kind of
coming to terms with that and thinking about, there was a time where I was thinking, maybe
I should delete all the files or replace the Arweave link or whatever.
And I don't think, you know, going down that rabbit hole would be like, you know, do I need to
delete the files off my computer in the hallway?
I think being kind of a crypto native token maxi, the token being the one thing I think is enough to
kind of make the point there.
And so I think on the prohibition site, you will be able to continue to
explore the algorithm, but obviously a lot of people aren't finding it on there.
You know, most of the time it will be the token that is the thing.
And of course, as original art goes, you know, that's the whole idea.
So that's kind of the concept.
Process-wise, I don't think I'm going to get too into all the
personal life stuff that led to this, but just to say that there, you know, I was going through
some things and processing a lot of that through this.
It was very cathartic, trying to make sense of, yeah, kind of a number of things kind of
falling away in the last year or so.
And so that led me to have this idea, and the idea was made before the music was made.
And I had tried a few, it took a few versions to get to something that felt right.
And I feel like in the past, there's been like a creation kind of leads to the idea.
And this was very much concept first, leading to the creation.
And I feel like when that happens, you know, it can be tough to get it on the first track.
So there was probably three, two or three ideas before I got to this.
Originally on the piano was the original composition.
And as soon as that came out, you know, everything else kind of poured out from there.
So I feel like there's, that happens a lot where it's like trying to find the entry point
on the, you know, what's going to be the launchpad for this thing that really inspires the rest of it.
And the piano piece, not even the melody, the melody actually came after the chords there.
But I feel like I'm chords first on a lot of things, and voicings are really important.
And this, the chords of the piano was the first thing that came up.
And, and then basically I built a whole composition with that, added a melody to it,
played some electric bass.
That was kind of the next thing.
And I, I think I'm kind of attached to these different elements in the order that I made them.
So I really like the, the electric bass parts for this.
Um, and they fit the piano really well, uh, and then added some, uh, electric guitar or
some other melodies, tried playing the melodies that came up on some instruments on other instruments.
And there's a lot of, um, push and pull and kind of stacking ideas and, uh, culling those
ideas back even in a normal, um, music production process.
But I feel like with this one, it, um, was particularly tricky because I wanted the, um,
recordings to, um, it's basically like making multiple songs.
Um, cause when you are making the, um, when you're making a normal recording to get to
one song, I feel like I have to throw a lot of things at it and feel a lot of things back,
edit those things, add more stuff, and then peel those back to get to one thing.
Um, and so to get to many things, uh, especially many things that you feel good about and that
feel like they are, can be the final thing.
Um, it was really tons of iterations and tons of editing and tons of, um, decision-making
on what is right.
Cause I also wanted to capture or keep that early stuff, um, honest and true to that,
to that first performance.
So not over-editing and not under-editing on this kind of scale was really, uh, was
really, uh, uh, it was really tricky.
Um, Brendan, bro, thanks for coming up, man.
How you doing?
Yo, how's it going?
It's been a while.
Ages, bro.
How you been?
Good.
Um, yeah, I, I've seen you've been up to more generative work recently.
Sounds like the technical aspect is making more sense to you, which is awesome.
Um, I guess I had a question.
It's really interesting.
So you said it's a one-on-one, but all of the parts are generative.
Um, I'm sure you went through a lot of iterations to kind of curate something you like.
But how did you go about that process?
And like, did you go through a lot of iterations?
How is that like kind of seeing what the possibilities were?
Well, the, uh, the good and the bad news with that is that the, so I didn't generate a bunch
and then choose one.
So I'm not curating the thing.
The mint of this will actually be done by whoever mints it.
It's like a, there'll be a random.
Oh, so it's not generated by the transaction.
It's not generated yet.
Correct.
Exactly.
So it's like, and that's, it's a collaboration with the, the mentor in a way or chance, uh,
depending on how you look at it.
But it actually would have been a lot, a lot easier technically to, uh, I actually found
out in the last about, uh, 48 hours that, uh, if I do it as a one-of-one that I want the
other person to mint, I actually have to basically our blocks forces you to mint a token as the
creator.
So I could have minted it and then sold that, but because I wanted it to be, um, you know, this
way where the, where the, um, mentor, you know, creates the thing or it gets created on the mint.
Um, I had to like throw an extra token in there, um, as the zero, um, it forces you to mint a token.
So I basically had to code in that like token zero doesn't do anything.
Um, um, especially with the concept, I couldn't have like two of these, um, if the whole thing
is about it being one.
So, uh, yeah, it got a little, it got a little, um, tricky there, but, but functionally that's
what happens is yeah.
And was that a clear choice you wanted it to be like for the minting experience from the
start or like how, what was your thought process behind doing that?
I guess generative minting is kind of like that, but one of ones are, I guess.
Can be different.
Well, what was your thought process behind that?
Totally.
Totally.
Totally.
That's a good, a good question.
So, um, historically I've not really cared that much about the mint experience just
cause I feel like having the stuff on the chain.
I mean, it's nice when there's an ICUI, but I really tend to prioritize just the token itself.
And however the mint goes is like, it feels like very secondary, but for this, the mint.
Um, the fact that no one knows what it's going to be until it happens, I think is that was
really important from the start.
So that was kind of like the initial vision.
There's all these things, you know, um, all these versions of it.
Um, and it's like a three minute piece too.
So it's like a full piece.
A lot of the other generative stuff I've done has been shorter form, um, you know, eight
bars or 30 seconds or, you know, in that kind of range.
And so, um, yeah, I really, it's, it was important from, from the jump basically that
didn't, um, didn't get created until the mint.
And I, I, I don't mean to derail your whole Q and a that you probably prepared, but.
No, no, honestly, it was great, dude.
It was good to have you up.
Appreciate it.
Appreciate the combo.
Otherwise.
I know you're the biggest CCO Maxi.
Will this one-on-one be CCO and how, how does that work with one-on-ones, you know, cause
it's a one-on-one, but you know, CCO is kind of open for use.
How, how does that dynamic work or what, what are you thinking about that for this project?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, great question.
So it, uh, it, yeah, it definitely is CCO.
So the, the outputs and, or the output and the, um, code are all, are all CCO.
So, so kind of open source vibes.
Um, and the way I'm looking at it is, um, putting basically all the compositions in the
public domain.
So it'd basically be that whole folder of stuff.
Um, all the options are CCO.
So, um, so people could conceivably even make other projects out of this or out of the possibilities,
but this will always be like the original thing and the original, you know, the one of
one will be the original piece that I feel like the, um, you know, if, if all that stuff
proliferates in the maximal way, you know, this one, uh, piece will be the piece that,
you know, kind of value accrues to, I think would be the idea.
Does that make sense?
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
Um, but yeah, there are a lot of files, so it, um, I haven't posted a link to just the
files for this, but, um, but it is in the code or maybe I, I might do that explicitly.
I'm not, I'm not sure how I feel about, I mean, it's open for anyone to work on, but you know,
there's varying degrees of how much I want to encourage, uh, you know, certain things, you
know, like with the seed stuff, for example, it's like here, take this stuff, like make
samples and for other stuff, I think, and maybe this piece included, it's kind of cool
that, um, if people have something interesting in mind and they want to chase it down, they
can find it, but it might not, um, be in like the CCO folder that I send to everybody, or
maybe the one piece will, I dunno.
It's interesting, like, this all feels like new territory for me too.
So kind of, you know, exploring and seeing what, what makes sense.
No, that's, that's a good point you make.
Like, um, deciding on whether you make it readily available, um, in this case, it's still
available if you want to chase it down and look through the code and everything.
And I think, um, you know, sometimes it comes down to like, is it worth even going through
all that just to share it out if, um, you don't know how it's going to be used, but it's,
it's definitely there.
So it makes sense to me.
Totally.
And there's, I think maybe different levels of friction that are useful where it's like,
um, you know, some maybe pieces that are a little harder to get to might just select
for people that care to chase that down a little easier.
As opposed to this ending up on a bunch of drag and drop drum beats or something.
Um, you know, not that, I mean, that may happen too, or may happen a lot, or, you know,
someone might find it and then blow up somewhere.
But as far as being a little bit intentional, um, with how likely that is, or, or, you know,
you know, a lot of it is just like the tone, uh, the general tone of like what, um,
the aesthetics of sharing stuff is an interesting, uh, space.
Cause I'm sure, you know, like as a producer too, when you're sharing stuff around, like
how easy stuff is or how much it feels like it's a loop, or if it's something that you
only sent to one person and you told them, Hey, like, I made this for you to work with,
there's just a different tone there.
That's like a levels of, there's like a level of sacredness to some of that stuff that you
can kind of, um, you know, communicate effectively or fail to communicate.
And then, um, you know, um, how that gets communicated and then sub communicated, you
know, ends up kind of mattering as far as how it actually gets around into the world.
So that's a good point.
I mean, you as the artists, like, even though it's CCO, um, definitely you have the agency
to make these design choices.
And in this case, you know, you're kind of exploring new territory.
It's a one of one, but, you know, making it a little bit more sacred, um, having that
one generative piece, a little more special compared to the individual components, um, makes
sense to me.
Yeah, it's, um, it's definitely an interesting place because, um, you know, there, there is
so much content around and as we have folders that we share with people, I mean, just producer
wise, I know that like, sometimes there'll be like hard drive dumps where it's just, oh,
drag this folder of stuff.
I've got a bunch of cool stuff.
You'll like this.
And so like, there's like a deluge of like gigabytes of drum sounds or, or other sample
things.
And, um, and then there's also like the crate digging stuff where it's like, no, I've found
this thing.
And like, that's my folder of stuff that like, I found that I'm going to use, or, um,
I feel like even Instagram screenshots or like screen records, there's like some of those
that feel important to me that maybe I flipped some of them or worked with some of them, or
like, I feel that even the word flip, like trivializes it, but like reworked some stuff
in meaningful ways.
Uh, and some of that stuff gets shared or some of it, um, doesn't matter.
It's just for me, or I have things that I'm planning on working with in the future.
That's like, no, I'm not going to like just pass that to, you know, friends that swing
by the studio or whatever.
There's a, a level of, yeah.
I just, yeah.
Come back to that word, like sacredness to some of it.
That feels like even as a huge, like open source, uh, collaboration maxi, you know, there's
still, there's still gotta be the stuff that's for you.
Um, and yeah, it could be for everyone in some ways, but maybe you just, you know, like
anyone could go and maybe find that thing or it could have screen captured that thing.
But there's a taste and a tone that leads to certain consequences, you know, good or bad.
I think.
Yeah.
And that, that just brings up a good point on my producer journey.
Like definitely in the beginning, it was like, Oh, give me all the samples you got, you know,
give me a dump of all the gigabytes and stuff you have.
But the longer I've been in this, the more I learned, it's like, you definitely want to
be intentional with the sample choices you use.
So when someone is definitely curating their own, you know, folders of samples that, um,
really work for them or they really, you know, connect with, that's definitely something really
personal.
So I definitely see where you're coming from with that.
Um, yeah, I think in this world where we have, you know, so much content and so much, you
know, uh, art adjacent things and splice loops, like there was a, I feel like I'm coming into
this thing lately where it's like, I was an aesthetics guy for a long time.
And I like, obviously like music means things to me and it's like deeply emotive.
And even just like a chord progression with no title can really move me and be important
to me.
But I am starting to realize that in a world and a culture where we have limitless visuals
and limitless audio and like generative, all this, you know, AI generative stuff and like
whatever programmatically generative things that the only things that are.
Really going to cut through the noise, I think is stuff that really resonates with people
and meaning wise, you know, like, um, I don't know if you'd like check out the dissect podcast
much, but they go through, they just did in rainbows, which is really great, but they went
through uses and some Frank ocean stuff.
I think they did blonde and orange, um, general orange, but anyway, they like really pick apart
stuff.
And a lot of, especially the, um, references in the, in uses were like super thoughtful.
Like the samples are from places for very specific reasons and they reference very specific things.
It's not even like the coolest sounding splice loop is ultimately just a splice loop.
Unless it has like some particular title or some, you know, it has to attach to culture
or somehow, or maybe there is some first person that puts that in a song and that assigns it
the, the emotive, uh, value, but you know, those things have to be attacked.
I think somehow, I think what adds color to a lot of music is knowing the story behind it,
you know, the story that people can listen to something people can, um, kind of relate
to maybe, um, and that's why I think also that it's super cool that you're doing this
spaces, you're recording it.
Um, you're trying to share what, what the story was behind, um, your piece was, um, and
I think that really brings it to the next level, right?
It's, it's the stories that people can definitely relate to more.
Um, so appreciate you doing this.
Um, yeah, I know you kind of talked a bit about it.
Um, and I, I'm kind of out of questions here.
I do have to drop soon, but feel free to like go through whatever you were still going through.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No worries, man.
Yeah.
Stick around as long as you want or, uh, dip when you got it.
No worries.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll, I'll, I'll keep grambling on, uh, definitely, definitely want to come through to support
because I've been MIA recently on Twitter a bit, but I've been seeing your work, so.
Yeah.
It's good.
It's good to chat, dude.
I missed the, uh, the Friday nights, the Friday night dinners.
Same, same.
Yeah.
We'll have to do one of those again, but yeah, dude, we'll, we'll hang soon for sure.
Yep.
I'll, I'll, I'll lurk now.
All right, man.
Um, yeah.
So other things about this piece.
Um, let's see, I do feel like that, that covered a good chunk of it.
The auction's going to be live in what, seven minutes.
So, um.
Yeah.
Maybe details on the sale.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good call.
So, um, this is a Dutch auction.
It's actually the first Dutch auction I've done.
Um, so the way that works is it's, uh, got a starting price and then it falls down to a
finishing price.
And that is, um, starting at 10 AM.
So it's starting at three ETH and then by 2 PM, it goes down to 0.1.
Um, so basically, you know, in, uh, four hours, it'll be sorted out, uh, one way or another.
Um, and, um, and yeah, I said, um, yeah, I'm just, uh, curious to see what happens.
So, um, so that's the structure.
And like I said, yeah, it's starting in five minutes, six minutes.
Um, so yeah, first Dutch auction, we'll see, we'll see how that goes.
It's an interesting format because, um, yeah, there's something about the regular auctions
that always kind of set a little bit weird with me, um, posting escalating prices and
all that stuff.
Um, so this one, it's cool.
The way prohibition does it is they just got it on this automated thing and then the price
just falls.
And then when it falls to a place that people want, they can grab it.
Um, and I think it's particularly interesting with a one-of-one thing, cause it's like, um,
yeah, it's there and then it's not.
So, um, yeah, curious to see how that goes.
Um, any other technical stuff on this one?
Let's see.
I think that's, well, that's it on the tech side.
Let me go through the thread real quick.
Um, let's see if there's anything else I want to chat through specifically.
I know we're kind of just in chill mode today.
Um, yeah, so instruments wise on this, there's the piano, uh, like I said, that was a starting
piece, uh, electric bass.
There's some synth bass, um, all the, um, guitars and electric guitars, um, or I'll record it
through amps and all that stuff.
Um, it's interesting doing generative recordings, um, as I tend to, you know, so far I've just
done generative code stuff and generative recordings, combinations of recordings is kind of how I got
into generative to start with and wasn't, um, wasn't super interested in, um, in code before, um, synthesizer code and all that stuff.
Um, but you know, that has gotten really interesting.
And I think, um, um, there are some other, um, projects that I've got in this kind of generative
recordings thing.
Um, I'm not sure, um, yeah, the, uh, I'll wait to talk about the next piece, but that, that'll
be like a, that'll be like a bigger, like a generative samples kind of collection.
And, uh, you know, whereas obviously this is just a one-of-one thing.
Um, I guess I'm somewhat doing the extremes on these different ideas, but I think the most
important thing for me is that it's just like relative to the concept, you know, that the art
matches the concept like particles was, you know, 30,000 tiny pieces, uh, you know, short
form pieces that are very low cost.
And, um, you know, branches very much, uh, about the ranching code.
And, um, you know, this one is very much about the loss and we're losing, um, you know, we're
kind of culling from the possible recordings down to what is there.
So, um, so yeah, making stuff that's, um, as much on the art side as possible, um, in this
world where art and app are getting, um, combined in some ways that are interesting.
But I think for me, leaning toward the art side is important.
And, um, this piece is a big swing in the art piece direction.
I was debating if this is maybe the first piece that I have that I feel like is like,
um, an art piece, um, art capital A art.
Um, you know, with a concept that's really, um, executed in a way that I feel like represents
the original concept and does the thing in a way that feels, um, honest and authentic.
And, um, and I feel like, uh, I feel like it does capture that, but it's, um, maybe because
of that, I'm particularly nervous about, um, about sharing it.
So if I've been fumbling a bit around here, that, um, that's probably why, but I'm definitely
really excited to see, um, to see how this goes and to see what it ends up being.
Um, I'm stalling a little bit for a buddy of mine that I know is coming through, but,
um, we may end up, um, wrapping it up pretty soon.
And regardless, the, um, I'm going to go ahead and pin a couple of things while we're here.
Um, the Explorer algorithm is live.
which is rad to be able to, to, um, to look through and I know a three minute piece is
not, uh, a thing that people will probably just flip through, but, um, you know, especially
as the piece goes on, it does kind of diverge and, um, in some really interesting ways.
So I hope, I hope people can get a sense of, um, the range of the thing.
It's hard to illustrate the range with, um, without really listening through, and I know
we're not really in a maximally, um, attention, uh, attention maxi space right now, but, um,
um, but yeah, it does seem to be, um, it is nice to have this being, um, available.
Um, all right, taking a second to pin some things.
Um, all right.
Um, all right.
That's interesting.
Wow.
Great.
All right.
Okay.
All right.
Auction is officially live.
All right.
Cool.
All right.
So I'm just going to go over a couple more things for the
All right, cool. So I'm going to go through, let's see.
Yo. Hey, what's going on, man? Thanks for coming through.
Of course, man. I appreciate you. How'd the, um, what's up?
Oh, I just was asking how the, uh, how the prohibitions case went.
It was, uh, it was good. We got robbed, uh, which was a bummer, but it was good.
Uh, yeah. Oh, good. Thanks for coming through.
Yeah, man. No, thanks. Thanks for seeing my after here.
I thought I had spaced it out. Um, so there wasn't the, uh, the time conflict, but whatever.
Oh, good. I ended up pushing, but yeah, man.
I'm going to mute for a second. I'll be right back.
Cool. Cool. Cool. You're good.
We can do this all together.
I'll be right back.
hey Jordan everyone thanks for coming through um yeah just finished pinning up some stuff to the top
and uh yeah the auction just went live a second ago so um yeah so this piece is a is a generative
recordings um piece where basically um the music is recorded uh many different versions and then
the idea is um upon minting uh collapses down to just one of those uh one of those
versions and the rest of them get lost so um the piece was kind of uh written about this
um sense of loss i had the concept for that um uh just
it's been a it's been an intense year so um the um concept came first and then the music
came after and um i wrote probably two or three different pieces trying to find something that
um was right for the concept and um ended up uh stumbling upon this chord progression that
did exactly what i wanted it to do um emotionally kind of represented exactly where i was at with
things um so that was written on piano um and then came up with the uh the melody kind of separate from
the chords and um and then built around that and so the way that process went was um you know
basically recording an entire pass on the piano the whole three minute piece um it's about three
minutes and 20 seconds and um and then building that around that so uh some electric bass some synth
bass some guitars basically there's multiple layers um and even with a piece that is just um like a you
know a regular song kind of a piece i'll create a lot of layers and then pull back what's not quite
right or do some editing and then you know create so it's it's a kind of iterative process for even a
normal song and so for doing this was uh like uh orders of magnitude trickier because um
you're doing that to just find one version that makes sense and then to do multiple versions is um
you know you're kind of um doing that times uh yeah probably 10 or 20 or something so um
um so it was a tricky process to get right and and to um get the outputs right also um having the
different things combined in ways that felt true to what i was trying to make it feel like um so um
but yeah uh components wise uh there is a piano electric bass synth bass uh there's a number of guitars
and um electric guitars acoustic guitars um some picking stuff some uh chord based things a bunch of
effects pedal um layers and possibilities in there and um yeah if you um check out the exploring algorithm
it'll it'll play um you know each version of a basically a three-minute piece um and there's some
um uh you know obviously there's similarities and they're cohesive um but there's um yeah some
definitely um yeah completely different takes on on how the piece is so um that was kind of the creation
process um as far as uh technically um yeah doing the making it a one of one i had to do a little bit of
uh creative work because um the way the engine works you need to um
um meant a zero token so i had to go into the code and make that make sure that zero token uh was
going to be nullified so um because the whole point of this work is about making one thing out of
many things um and having the rest go away or die off and so if that happens twice i don't know
it felt uh very counter to the concept so so i went into the code and made sure that the zero token is
just a blank token and i meant that to myself and burned it um so yeah if you're seeing one of two
on the page that's why um but uh burned tokens don't really show up in uh marketplace pages and stuff
like that so um so i think it will endure as a one of one and it's uh you know um i'm happy with the
uh um with the way it ended up working out but uh let me switch i'm switching headphones real quick
um so yeah um that is more or less the the current state of uh the current state of the piece um
um yeah the auction is live now the um explorer works great and um yeah i'm just curious to see
what happens it's a judge auction so whatever is going to happen with this will happen in the next
four hours as the price uh goes down until someone snaps it up and um
um and yeah uh it is uh cc zero so uh brendan was here asking uh earlier about what that means
um in this context as a one of one um are all the outputs zero or just i mean all the outputs cc zero or
just the just the one um which is a interesting question i think the way i'm looking at that is
um um that all the elements are cc zero so um uh the code is as well but i think um all the pieces
should they be found and able to use elsewhere i think um uh are free to use and i think um
you know the one of one will be the place where all that stuff started so um that's kind of how i'm
thinking of it um but the um i'm not super eager to share the rweave link with all the um you know
super easy access to all the stems i think um if people want to find it they can they can look for
it or they can reach out um and i think being um you know having some discussion as far as how easy
or how much friction there is for some of the collaboration i think is good um this is a piece
that uh really really means a lot uh to me in a way um in a lot of ways actually it feels like
one if not maybe the first um like capital a artist pieces that i've done and i think leaning in
to that is something that um is um increasingly important for me um just like self-expression wise
and also you know really adding meaning and and purpose um to these um mediums that we have here
it's one thing to make some tools that are cool and uh flashy and um you know some aesthetically
interesting things but i think um self-expression and leaning into uh the human condition as we
you know get into this world that's increasingly content filled and ai um capable is um
important to lean into or you know maybe i'm just you know at that point of my journey where it's that
seems more interesting um but um also certain things are just so important to us that they just have to
come out and i think um yeah this is one of those things where i had the the idea for it and i just
knew that it needed to happen um you know you get that muse whisper sometimes and it's uh
sometimes it's just impossible to shake and this is one of those where
um like i was talking about the music creation was a thing that um needed to be chased down kind of
um regardless of how many iterations it was going to take to figure out the right chords and all that
stuff and then um you know it was a it was a lot of work to get this one um to a place where the
the outputs um made sense and and felt right and then getting the code right and then getting the um
you know some of the technical things right um in the last few days to make sure it does what i wanted
it to do where the mint is the um is the creation moment and not me minting it and then selling it
um after creation i think it's um for this one in particular it seems like this is a
really important to have the mentor share that so um so yeah we did what we needed to do to get that
across the line and um it just at this point it's just good to have it out in the in the world um
yeah if anyone um has any questions pop up but i feel like um that's most of
what i wanted to um to chat about in the recording and um yeah we started about around 9 30 so um
i did a little q and a with brendan earlier also um so if you guys have questions cool um
um if not you know no stress at all well do you wanna do you want to field questions are you open to
speaking more about it i know you've been speaking a while so yeah you know me i just kind of were
right if uh if left unchecked so yeah questions are great
um okay cool um yeah how do you how do you feel about everything now that it's out um
yeah i mean i i it's it feels fantastic to have it out and deployed uh i feel really great about the
um about the work and it i'm a little bit in that place of um you know the days before
as you're trying to make sure things are right and you're trying to you know get some of the
logistics stuff sorted out um can be stressful in a way that gives like an extra euphoria to the
deploy deploy day um but i feel i feel i feel really really good about it um yeah yeah yeah
that's good man it feels it feels uh it feels like a heavy one i hope uh how everything is all right
and at least with with this piece you know maybe you have closure or yeah can kind of
move on from from everything in a way yeah um thank you man um it's yeah it's um
um it definitely feels like closure in a you know in a sense and i think it's rare that i have a musical
piece um and especially a blockchain piece this is uh probably the first um where it feels like uh
uh like a real cathartic um alchemy of some of those uh feelings into um into exactly what needed to
happen artistically um it's a little bit um a little bit unresolved since the piece is uh generative in that
way you know so i won't know what the final piece is but you know the version that i can control is
done and i do feel good about that but you know the final piece will obviously be however it ends up
working out over the um you know however it ends up working out um but uh but yeah no i i i do feel
good and and thanks of uh yeah man it's been a it's been a it's been a it's been an intense year but um
things are yeah things are in a better place than they were when i was you know uh at the depths of
what inspired all this stuff and um and i think there is i'm gonna be kind of like a reckless optimist
so a lot of that comes through in this piece too like there's some real feelings had and some real
things that i um i'm processing but throughout that there is this um this hope and that that
um you know some some beacon in the distance even in the in the depths of things so it's um you know
so that that that plays a big role in in my um world view in general and and throughout you know
even of times like this it's like there is a resilient uh optimism sometimes unreasonable optimism and
to be honest but but that's that can be helpful too
yeah as we get to the end of the year a lot of reflection a lot of uh taking stock of things
but i guess also similarly as you're you know putting this out into the world coming into a new
year fresh start do over clean slate you know ready to ready to move forward yeah very much so
that's a really good point
yeah timing wise yeah yeah that's that's a that's a great point it is definitely definitely a time of
reflection and this is definitely a piece that is nice to have it feels much more like a
uh a resolution uh of sorts to that so it's nice um yeah it's nice to have that happen in this year
because um you know we do tend to think in in years by number and not by previous 12 months kind of
things it's nice to have those kind of bookends be able to process things in those kind of ways and
i think um as an artist too there's a way to um hold on to things maybe too long and um i've been
guilty of that in the past and then you kind of feel like oh well the time to really put this out and
have my real heart behind it is kind of in the past or like or i have to kind of remember those feelings
to talk about it um um later and so um that's one thing i've been trying to tighten up lately is just
the kind of um creation loop um to have that still be able to release things while those feelings are
fresh and i think um yeah i think that's important yeah how do you make space how do you make space for
something like this to to be made when you're doing you know like web 2 work you're doing other web 3 work
like how are you able to compartmentalize i imagine you gotta be in like a very different kind of head
space uh yeah it can be tricky to kind of switch modes uh in that way i feel like um switching gears
creatively can be can be really tricky um for this one and i think maybe in general there tends to be
kind of like the creation window that's like okay i there's some idea that happens um and then when the
actual creation starts like that idea may happen immediately or um you know that the idea may precede the
creation process by some minutes or some months but once the creation happens i feel like there's
this uh somewhat small window of creating authentically about that thing and then when
that window closes you can do some you know tidying up or some editing or whatever but it's hard to go
back and create authentically um after that window is closed and maybe impossible um but it's definitely tough
and um yeah so you know for for this one that was a lot of the um you know record you know the initial
once that initial chord progression and voicing on the piano thing kind of triggered the intro into this
uh that that open window then it was a bit of a creation sprint to express enough things um
um and figuring out how to edit uh the right amount of things so that you still capture the tone and
the expression of what needed to be expressed during that thing because you know if you over edit things
you can clean it up too much and kind of take the soul out of some stuff but also if you just do a free
uh free association you know self jam and you can't just like uh mint that thing either because it's
going to be a mess so there's like a um yeah they're figuring out what the constraints are and trying
to work within that in a way that makes sense to the medium um and this case was you know um preserving
a lot of those longer takes um from you know basically the first day of this and you know keeping
a lot of the feel in the dynamics and uh and then some of the timing push pull stuff um and then you
know um getting into that place basically multiple days in a row um to generate enough things um for
options and then coming back to that uh a little bit later you know some couple weeks later to kind of
clean it up process things and um you know start making sense of the code um and uh yeah basically
yeah trying to keep all those processes kind of as um successive as possible
yeah i know you said you didn't want to get too much into the code
but i feel like you've talked about it with your other genitive collections that the code is cco and
a lot of times the code is as much of the art as the visual i'd be curious to know how much
however much you're willing to to speak on it what is it about this code that i don't know speaks to
you or that maybe uh you want people to uncover or maybe you can give some sort of hints
um i think that that doesn't get uh that doesn't get talked about enough yeah yeah i don't mind i
don't mind talking about the code at all the um
i mean most of the the value of the code i think in this particular one is just that it um
it's kind of like a concept art of the code you know i don't think there's anything particularly fancy
in the code itself as far as the combinations go um a lot of this was taking um kind of a somewhat of
a fork from the original branches project code um combining um audio elements and then playing them
successively um and for a while towards the end of working on the code you know i kind of got into
uh producer nerd mode and was like oh maybe i should make it so you can control speeding up and slowing
down of the things and like maybe make it reverse or like make it kind of like a mini da sampler thing
um which seemed really fun and and kind of flashy at the time but i think um this is one of those like
less is more kind of things where it's like that's going to distract from what the piece is and it's
really about the the the loss here it's about having these things and and uh thinking you have
them and they get away or having them with them grasp and they get lost um and any um extra filtery
producery auto chop stuff that uh would be fun to play with and will probably make its way into the
into the um sample collection um on this piece just felt a little cheap so i did experiment a lot with
that but kind of decided um after the fact like um uh i think if i do that this is going to start
becoming the piece that is the auto chop sample thing piece and not what the focus needs to be um
which is unlike the real art of it um and there's something there about like you know no press is bad
press kind of a thing maybe that would just get the buzz around but it also i don't know kind of
cheapens it in a way that i think i wouldn't feel great about uh and uh time probably wouldn't be
very kind but and also there's room for that other places so i didn't feel like it um yeah sometimes
you know discretion is uh was a better part of valor or some pretentious quote along those lines
you know figuring out when to do stuff a lot of that i learned as a musician too where it's like
you know you can play a bunch of fancy stuff but like what's serving a song what's serving the art
what's serving the piece what's serving the kind of concept so for this one instead of doing some
winky fun code that uh would be fun to play with as a producer like um you know it's not it's not about
that in this particular case so um so all that to say the code is not particularly fancy but it uh
it does the thing and um i did have to get a little tricky with the the zero the zero token um i don't
know if we already talked about that yet but um had to make sure that that zero token was going to be
a blank token so uh had to code that in but um other than that the code is not really tricky
yeah i was just going to you can explore the algorithm with this and actually compose new
pieces each time yeah yeah every crazy yeah every explorer should be should be different
and the actual artwork isn't the white the white square
no the art is um like a very dark a very dark square so the the blank the white square you see
there is the token zero uh blank thing which is actually null but art blocks intent uh interprets
null as white um it's kind of interesting to have kind of a yin and yang thing going because the
artwork the visual for this was basically supposed to be no visual
but it's um i ended up doing instead of like full black i did like the tiniest
kind of uh glow on the horizon kind of uh it's basically one tick off of pure black which is like
zero zero zero zero zero one zero i think is the color code um and that's kind of to represent the
you know the optimism on there but the idea is that like being about negative space
the visual is that negative space in the same way that like
kanye did the black donda cover or like you know beatles did the white album or something like this
is my piece that is that um no visual kind of a piece um and yeah so i won't be doing that for any
other pieces or i can't imagine it would map on as a concept to any other pieces but
but yeah the visual is no visual basically
got it which also is a bit of a double down on the music thing i'm sorry
no yeah go ahead i was just gonna say that it's a you know a bit of a double down on the music of it
also um because you know so much on twitter and in marketplaces and just around um
there's such an emphasis on visuals and there's a necessity for um
um all me all music artists to make visual things um and you know all the visual artists aren't
obligated to do audio things so i think um that's a chip on my shoulder i've had for a little bit
uh and also for this i feel like you know uh not only because it does kind of lack of visual align
with the concept but it felt like there wasn't a you know a visual that that um but yeah i feel
like that lack of the visual is is truest to the truest to the concept so um
so yeah so yeah that's the current statement
yeah i mean from the previews i heard i haven't been able to really explore the algorithm but i'm
excited to do it uh the music is beautiful did you were there any kind of fun surprises in that in
that process any anything that in your testing kind of stuck out to you um
yeah i well it is it is always surprising to hear things that you didn't
uh control for you know because obviously as i'm making it i'm hearing certain combinations of
things and i'm creating with certain combinations in mind as i'm hearing one thing i'm playing another
whatever i'm not creating them all blind so there's stuff i hear along the way and then there's some
that um you know that especially doing the explorer and just like over the process you're listening to a lot
of these and um yeah the way some of the hyper minimal ones kind of contrast with some of the
more maximal melodies towards the end some of the huge kind of soaring um uh electric guitar like tremolo
parts or um that um that was surprising in a way that just you know wasn't wasn't kind of how i
uh designed it but um but yeah but i really enjoyed those and being surprised is is um obviously one of
my favorite things in the process so um but trying to think along the way i did um yeah i mean there's
some there's some there's some references to um to some other songs in here that i didn't think about
um until after the fact and um and kind of appreciate that like the um the original piano line
um is a bit of a reference to that radiohead videotape song which is um very much of a similar
concept kind of dealing with loss or being faced with the um in their case kind of an end of life
thing or like you know in my case kind of like a you know um yeah similar kind of a end of a end of an
era or end of a period of time kind of a loss and um the um love that song by the way oh bro it's so
it's so beautiful man that that for me personally might be my favorite i know well it's hard to pick
a favorite but it's it's the album that resonates with me the most i think um in rainbows yeah that's
a that's a favorite man and um been listening to the dissect of that actually recently the videotape
one actually just came out a couple days ago um oh nice that was kind of crazy to be wrapping up the
final uh debug of this um while that dissect came out and was kind of really digging into the meaning
which i didn't know about um i'm not a big like lyric listener which uh getting down their nose but uh i um
you know i'm trying to trying to get better but uh it was interesting to see that connection made
um kind of after the fact and um you know the muse conspires reveals things in interesting ways so um
yeah a lot of a lot of synchronicity in this uh in this uh release mm-hmm yeah yeah definitely man
um um and then um yeah other other music wise um yeah most of it was just about trying to you know
kind of dig deep in and uh express those things in ways that are um hopefully like convey the emotion
but you know there's not lyrics so any of the uh pieces in there there's like an amorphousness to
almost like a dream you know where you kind of like like eternal sunshine when you see the guy's
face in the dream but it's just kind of a blur because you don't remember what he looks like
uh i feel like um there's some of it you know being just an instrumental piece or and some of the
vocals in there um that um are kind of lyric ish but not uh kind of invoke that kind of a vibe
um yeah these are great great references too i mean you're these are albums movies feelings that uh
it's like my it's like a weird kind of happy place for me like melancholic melancholic anything is like
my jam and so i know obviously the work comes from like a you know maybe like a not great place but
just know that uh i uh i'm i'm vibing with with what you're with what you're putting out
yeah thank you i really uh deeply deeply appreciate that man i uh i definitely the stuff that matters the
most to me is that kind of melancholic thing like that's what really kind of cuts me deep
listener wise and the stuff i gravitate to and so you know kind of coming into this artist um
i guess i guess getting deeper down the artist rabbit hole and finding a place um
there's like this continual voice finding that's happening especially in uh you know especially with new
mediums um here but even with going back to some older things that i'm very comfortable with playing
guitar playing uh keys playing bass and having those things um be very uh natural to me in a lot of ways
there's still a lot of like remembering it's very much the very the very newest and the very oldest thing
you know um the stuff that you're kind of most comfortable with uh reminding you why you do
what you do and reminding you what's important and reminding you um what's like worth creating
so yeah this very much came from that place
oh yeah man we should probably we should probably shut it down pretty soon
yeah you got any more questions feel free no no um congrats man i'm i'm more than anything just
anxious to go and uh and listen to it and live with it and uh looking forward to to seeing where
it lands in the auction yeah me too man uh like i said before just it's good to have it out in the world
and whatever happens happens you know it's kind of trusting the process absolutely yeah man well
thanks so much for coming through it's really great to chat with us through this um this stuff with you
man yeah we still got to catch up too yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'll text you all right cool cool
yeah man i'm around today so if you're uh if you got time cool cool
awesome man well have a good one and uh yeah thanks again for coming through
all right all right brother talk soon all right later on
