present moment
LimeLight Radio Interview
Ever wanted to know more about what inspired the music on Here For Now? Tune in to LimeLight radio for the details! Big thanks to Chris (KMOS) Francisco for hooking this one up for me!
http://www.socialush.tv/Limelight/main.html
And yes, you heard right… i’m working hard on a bunch of exciting new material! shooting for an EP-release in the next month or so. Stay tuned!
The Case for Working With Your Hands
Props to Resynthesize for finding this…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r=1&em
a FANTASTIC article in the New York Times about the intrinsic (and often overlooked) value of working with your hands. Authored by Matthew B Crawford, whose new book, Shop Class as Soulcraft sounds equally impressive.
“In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue, I don’t think you’ll see a yellow sign that says “Think Safety!” as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit on the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?
On a related note, I recently read a piece suggesting that art students are subject to a similar style of “life-training.” For example: when you set out to draw a portrait, there are no set rules for where to begin or what style it should be rendered in. When you are moving the pencil, you are making hundreds of tiny decisions per second without any detailed instructions. Only you can decide what strokes are “right” or “wrong” or when you are “done.” In this respect, art teaches us confidence… how to make your own decisions and stand behind them… and just like in a repair shop, if you screw something up, the feedback is instantaneous, tactile and measurable. You can’t fudge numbers or lay people off at the end of the quarter to cover up the fact that your kerning sucks.
For this reason, it’s a shame that the art programs are usually the first to get cut when the budget is looking lean. But I digress… if you have time, read this article.
SeventhSwami Interview
As featured on Morpheus Music (link)
Q: First off can you give us a bit of background – how did you initially get into making your own music?
I have always been in love with electronic music. I used to make mix tapes of video game music in grade school. By high school, video game music was starting to get really good, and my friends and I would write these cover songs and remixes of them using live drums and cheap keyboards from costco. Then I scored a program called Songwriter for the family apple IIe and it had the same “piano-roll” view that most music software uses today. I loved writing music like that, visually, but I could tell that it would be a long time before a software program would allow me to make the sounds that I really wanted to make, so I drifted off again. The next time it occurred to me to see what was available, Reason v1 had come out… and that was the ticket. Basically I waited it out until a tool that fit my writing style came around.
Q: How did SeventhSwami come into being?
That’s a funny story, actually. I was at work one day, (I think it was 2002) and my friend, Rich found an anagram-maker online. He typed in my name “Steve Wishman” and the 1st thing that popped up was “Seventh Swami”. After that, people just started calling me Swami. I never thought it would make a great DJ name (just try shouting it to someone in a loud club… “no not Seven… SEVENTH… with a TH… no not the number… S-E-V-E… nevermind”) but somehow it stuck.
Q: For those as yet unfamiliar with your music – could you please describe your sound and style.
That’s always a tough one… as of right now, It’s evolved into “glitchy psychedelic downtempo”… I tend to write a lot of 90-100bpm tracks with hip hop drum patterns… I use rhodes organ sounds pretty frequently… string instruments… chopped up vocals… It’s eclectic but definitely within the realm of glitch-hop, albeit on the slower end of the spectrum… for now at least.
Q: What are some of the music making techniques that you use to get that unique sound?
I like to take a loop of some melody or beat that I’ve written, pipe it through a kaoss pad and then route it back into the computer. That way I can make several variations on a sound very quickly, then cut those up and reassemble them in new ways… I make a lot of my glitch sounds using kaoss pads… both in live situations and in the studio. There’s something about doing something tactile, in real-time with a piece of hardware, that always comes out sounding warmer and more human. I dig on imperfection… like wobbly bass sounds. I tend to use un-synced LFOs or, in some cases I’ll manipulate the filter by hand instead of using an LFO at all.
Q: What would you say influences your writing?
I’ve given this a lot of thought actually. I go through these phases where I’m really unproductive for a month or more… like to the point that I can’t even stomach the idea of touching a keyboard… and then right when I start worrying that something is wrong, it comes back hard, and I’ll crank out 2 or 3 tracks in a week. There is an ebb and flow to my creativity, musically and otherwise, that I’ve finally learned to stop fighting. If I want to lay on a couch for a month, so be it. When I force this stuff, it never comes out right. I’m fond of a quote by Hunter Thompson; “All energies flow according to the whims of the great magnet… what a fool I was to defy him.”
Something else really important I’ve noticed about my creative process is that I get inspired by sad situations. For a long time this bothered me because I don’t want to have to choose between being happy and being creative… and I don’t, thankfully… I tend to be a happy person by default. but I’ve come to accept that sadness is one of my muses. This realization has actually been really uplifting to me, because when something comes along that gets me down, I get a little excited because I know great things are likely to come spilling out. Honestly, I think this may be why so many artistic types out there have so many skeletons in their closets. We don’t necessarily like the way they make us feel, but we like to keep our muses nearby. Because when we grapple with them, the dance that ensues is inspirational to us. It’s like the clash between light and darkness; there is no victor, but because of the conflict, the universe exists. What we experience as “reality” is the music that is created by this battle.
This is all stuff that I’m only beginning to really understand and come to grips with. It’s taken my whole life to get here but I’m very happy with this theory because it fits hand-in-glove with my spiritual and scientific beliefs.
Q: When you set about making Here For Now – what was it that you were trying to achieve?
For the first 2/3 of it, I was trying not to think of the end-goal. Instead of putting that kind of pressure on myself, I figured I’d just wait until I had about an hour of music I was happy with, and then think about it. Of course before long ideas started flowing anyway, and the Here For Now idea happened. And suddenly it became this homage to the temporariness of all things, which I think deserves to be shared. I was lucky to have Paul Villinski contribute such a beautiful piece of art for the cover also… He’s done a lot of other butterfly installations but this one, in the shape of a person, was just so perfectly aligned with the “Here For Now” theme… I’m still thrilled to look at it.
Q: How does the album now feel looking back at it as a completed entity?
It feels like a snapshot of part of my life. I notice different things now when I look at the album as a whole… there are stories in there that I did not plan… sounds that have become part of my “sound”… I definitely learned a lot. Also, it just feels good to finish an art project of this size.
Q: What do you find to be the most enjoyable part of your musical career and why?
Finding that “groove”. When you get that extra burst of energy and things seem to start happening on their own… When you start conducting the show from a higher level and all the lower-level functions seem to be running on auto pilot. Those moments kick ass.
Q: How important is live work for you as a musician?
I consider myself really lucky to have the opportunity. Playing in front of a crowd is addictive. It’s definitely the quickest way to find that groove. Plus part of me really wants to contribute something to this scene that I’ve been so lucky to be a part of. I’ve had some of the most transformative experiences of my life while listening to electronic music at parties out here. To be on the other side of that and help another person have that kind of experience is wonderful work.
Q: What does the future hold for your music – where are you heading next?
I think maybe an EP of some of my older stuff is in order. I have unfinished business with a few of those stories. I’d love to do more remixes too. I’ve been having a lot of fun with acapelas lately. I’d love to get another side-project going too, but between SeventhSwami and my graphics work, time is always in short supply. I don’t know how other people do it. If I make progress on any one path, the others suffer for it.
Q: Long term do you have any musical dreams?
I’m thinking something philanthropic. I would love to see this hobby grow into something greater than the sum of its parts. I’ve got an idea or two taking shape right now and hopefully we’ll see some of them start to bear fruit. I definitely didn’t get into this with dreams of making a career out of it, but I think SeventhSwami could easily be one foundational piece of a much bigger thing.
Here For Now… AVAILABLE NOW!
| “Muti further solidifies their reputation as a prime west coast outlet for downtempo electronics with this tight release. ‘tornado dreams’ and ‘forever you forever me’ are highlights, with their digitized focus and IDM aesthetic. thanks for sending…” – SHEN / Noah Pred (Native State/GSC) |
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With so many modern conveniences it is tempting for us to do as much as we can at any given moment, simply because we CAN. The price to be paid, however, is our own peace of mind. In our effort to stay efficient, we find ourselves in the middle of a time-famine where our modern conveniences and devices have made us more stressed out and overwhelmed than ever.
SeventhSwami’s debut album, Here For Now, was created with the intent to help defuse this epidemic of anxiety, overwork, and over-scheduling that is upon us by helping guide people back to the tranquility of the present moment. |
| You can purchase Here For Now through Amazon, iTunes, and most other online digital retailers…
or use the beatport widget below For more about the present moment, please visit the LINKS page on this website. |
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The Cure for Discontentment: Use It
Reposted from http://seeinggood.com/the-cure-for-discontentment-use-it/
In my unemployment I’ve become a bit of an Internet addict. Between Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Digg, my blog, and the fifty others in my Google Reader, I could easily fill an entire work week seeking and sharing information. As I’ve trolled the net these past couple months, I’ve realized the digital era feeds into the collective discontent that defines us as a nation—this idea that no matter what heights we reach, there is still something missing. 10 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power; 15 Ways to Shrink Your Waistline; 20 Ideas to Make More Money—these posts just remind us we can always be smarter, thinner, stronger, richer, happier, or just plain better than we are now.
Yesterday I found a post on Zen Habits—one of my favorite blogs—that addresses this very issue. Leo offers several cures for discontentment, including:
1. Change your attitude and perspective.
2. Take some kind of positive action.
3. Do something that gives you meaning.
I think the first is the most useful suggestion, but not for the reason you may imagine. Perhaps our discontent isn’t something to be cured but rather something to be accepted, appreciated, and leveraged.
I’m not suggesting we should accept unhappiness as the norm—just that we need to acknowledge the factors that encourage discontent and realize they aren’t going anywhere. Our society breeds dissatisfaction because it feeds the consumer machine. We don’t live in Bhutan—a nation that measures its success in gross national happiness. We live in a place where every day someone creates a revolutionary diet, publishes a ground-breaking self-help book, and creates a newer, more exciting technology that promises to simplify our lives.
We’re constantly inundated with advertising messages that imply happiness is just a face cream, cocktail, or gadget away. According to Juliette Schor, Boston College Professor of Sociology and author of Born to Buy, we’re programmed to accept the connection between consumption and happiness when we see advertising as children—at a time when we’re incapable of rational thinking. My point: dissatisfaction is rooted in our culture. Hell, it’s part of the human condition: the never-ending pursuit of meaning and answers to why we’re here. While we may find respite from our searching through meditation, selfless giving, and appreciation for what we have, odds are we will never fully relinquish the tendency to look for something more.
That doesn’t have to be such a bleak realization. One of my favorite quotes (anonymous) is “Always be happy, but never be satisfied.” It didn’t resonate with me at first because I didn’t recognize the distinction. But there is one. Unhappiness creates emptiness. Dissatisfaction breeds progress. I believe in acknowledging the factors that encourage discontentment, we can learn to identify the difference between enough and lacking in our lives—and then leverage our discontent for positive change.
If you dislike that your excess weight affects your quality of life, you may start a new exercise regime and become stronger for you and your family. If you’re dissatisfied with the practices in your business, you could innovate and come up with a more efficient, streamlined process. If you’re unhappy with your mother’s experience fighting cancer, you might raise funds to support treatments that ease the side effects of chemo. If you’re frustrated with our government’s policies, you just may run for office and fill a nation with hope for change in a time when it couldn’t be more indispensable. Discontent is only dangerous if you turn it against yourself instead of letting it empower you.
If that’s what you tend to do—if you are, in fact, persistently unhappy—I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t think anyone can offer a complete recipe for happiness in a blog post (or even a book for that matter). But I can offer you a piece of insight that helps me when I start looking for more: if there’s something that’s bothering you that you can control, address it. At the same time, ask yourself this question: can I still enjoy this moment, even though there are things I’d like to change?
Related Reading: The Power of Realistic Positive Thinking
What do you think? Should we pursue cures for discontent? Is it possible or advisable to become permanently satisfied?
By Lori Deschene, Photo Romancement
If you enjoyed this post, please support seeinggood.com by suscribing or sharing this post on Digg/StumbleUpon/Twitter (@BeMeaningful).
Lori Deschene is a San Francisco-based writer and editor. Visit her blog about positive thinking at seeinggood.com.
Slightly Stressed Out
Two Reasons:
a) I put off a bunch of things until the last minute… again… Some people I know say that it’s the hallmark of the graphic designer… As a whole we tend to procrastinate.
Sometimes I’ll get my shit together and maintain good habits… good posture… for up to a few months at a time. But then I become kind of a workaholic and one day I will predictably jump out of my seat and say “fuck this… i need a break…” and then I’ll go back to “living in the present moment” for an undetermined amount of time… spend money foolishly… forget about planning altogether… end up cutting things way too close… And see I put quotes around “living in the present moment” because that’s not really what’s happening… that’s just what I’m telling myself. If I was truly living in the present moment I would be mindful of all things with a smile on my face… wheras what I do is more akin to shirking responsibility and sticking my head in the sand.
See if I could just get in the habit of living moderately… truly living in the present moment while knowing when to call it quits and go relax… then maybe i wouldn’t burn out and need to vacillate from one side of sanity to the other in order to be content.
b) My mother is insane and bent on destroying us all.
That is all.
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