Combing my list of unfinished drafts, I sometimes unearth little gems. This one began as a nod to a certain New Orleans ambient noise band, but quickly veered into a miniature Grand Statement about what I get out of music.

This self portrait is a handy visual metaphor for the words you’re about to read.

I was discussing Belong‘s debut album, October Language. I was living in San Francisco and had picked up the album on CD at Aquarius Records. The following is what I wrote almost exactly 4 years ago. I’m sharing because it still applies to my life.

Talking about that feedback-stretched-into-clouds sound, we pick up the thread:

It exemplifies that sort of blasted out, wasted, transportive, mystifying blissful washout only music can achieve. This is the transcendent experience I’m always seeking. Since the same thing never hits quite the same way after a certain point, I’m always naturally moving on to the next thing.

Thankfully I’ve long since moved from substances to music and my heaviest indiscretions involve triple LP sets in the mail. I don’t seek a certain sound or mood or genre or anything; I’m just putting out feelers for whatever can steamroll me with that feeling.

I crave being destroyed.

I am always trying to recreate that total elimination of myself, the connection with everyone and everything revealing itself when one truly lets it all go. The expansive nature of just being. The sheer force of some music strikes the part of my mind that’s ready to make the leap. I hope that it hits a more direct link than drugs could ever achieve, but art of that magnitude is a rare thing.