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If you’ve read any of the previous blogs about my musical endeavors, you’ll know that I’ve had a lot of musical projects over the years. By a lot, I mean way too many. I created all of those projects because I was trying to explore different sounds that I felt didn’t really fit together. There was a time during my early 20s when I did have a project that explored all of the different aspects of music that I was interested in, and that was Natthimmel. I recorded songs as I had the opportunity to throughout 2002 and 2003, and once I had enough to put out an album, I put out “The Great Beyond” in 2003. For numerous reasons, the album went nowhere and it discouraged me from blending all of my musical interests together until Amaranthine Skies came along in my late 20s, which featured an album of deep ambient tracks, an album of reworked older songs of mine that ran the gamut of genres, a post-metal/drone album, and another somewhat spacy ambient disc. I also wanted an outlet to use some of the voluminous amount of photographs I’ve taken over the years as album artwork, and after applying an amaranthine-colored filter to the photos, I was able to do so for “Days Gone By, Volume One” and “Enveloped”. Through all the projects in my 20s, my musical tastes were still evolving and I wanted to try new things with music that didn’t really fit with any of the projects that I had active at the time. There have been times when I forego that and pursue what I want without worrying too much about genre, but they were infrequent. Now that I’ve passed the 30 mark, I’ve noticed that I’m having a hard time finding new bands to get excited about. I still look for new bands quite often, though most of the new music that I’m enjoying is being made by my friends and being distributed on either Concatenation or one of their music labels. This brings me to Philistine on the Sidewalk, which was supposed to be a weird experimental drone project (inspired by Bull of Heaven) and ended up doing things for me that I was never quite able to achieve with my older work. The most important of these things is that I’m able to listen to these songs and enjoy them without question, which is something I have a hard time doing with a lot of my older music. It also helped me realize the direction I want to go with my music. I wrote last week of expanding to three projects and over the last week, I’ve had a lot of time to think about that decision. I thought about how those three different sounds that I wanted to focus on with Philistine on the Sidewalk, Amaranthine Skies, and the music I will make under my own name. The thing is, I can mix all three of these sounds and concepts together without too much of an issue differentiating between them all. That led to the question of which name should I use. I’ve had the Amaranthine Skies name active since 2007 and it’s been at its best in the ambient genre and the rest of my efforts under it have been lacking. Philistine on the Sidewalk has been around since the beginning of this year and while it certainly found its stride early and people have been enjoying it more than any of my other projects (I think), I can tell that it’s starting to run its course (if it hasn’t already). That leaves me with Jason Vincion. I’ve had the name since 1979 (obviously) and I’ve used my own name for an album already, so there is some precedent. What it comes down to is that I’m over the need to have a name for a solo project. I’ve more or less found the sound that I’m looking for and I’m ready to move forward with it. It’ll also make things less confusing for those that enjoy my other creative efforts (for instance, this blog) which I’m continuing to pursue and build upon. I got hung up on having a project name for a solo musical endeavor thanks to my huge Nine Inch Nails fandom as a teenager, and said idea was further ingrained in my head by Burzum in the late 90s, and more recently with Jesu. The other thing that pushed me away from using my own name (aside from “A New Beginning”) is that I associated a person using their name with the singer/songwriter style of music and I was not making that type of music. It’s silly that I got that in my head, as I have lots of jazz records wherein the band leader uses their own name. Another reason I’m going with my own name is that I’m tired of conceptualizing projects. The problem is that I get hung up on the idea and delay (or don’t manage) the execution. There’s nothing to conceptualize here – it’s my name and I’ll use it to put music out under. Simple as that. I know that I’ll still conceptualize albums, but that’s more a way to figure out which songs fit together on an album and which part of my style I want to emphasize for said album. Speaking of projects, I’m going to be consolidating them all (save for Concatenation) on to this site. Nintendo-A-GoGo has had its time in the sun, but I’m going to be starting up a section on the site for all of my written endeavors (though this blog will still have its own section), which includes the work I’ve done for that site. I still want to clean up the old works from the original site (mostly the game reviews) and put them up here. There are also new things that I’m going to start adding to this site, and the streamlining is under way. It’s time to put all of my solo efforts in one place and move forward with them together, rather than have them spread out across the internet. I’m also looking to change the name of the site again, as “The Realm” has a few too many monarchic and feudal connotations. I’m thinking of having the web address in a tasteful font (not Papyrus – another downfall of Amaranthine Skies) all-capped and sticking with the “For the Love of Creativity” tagline, as I still love being creative in many different areas and the content of the site will reflect that more and more as time passes. As far as execution goes, I’m going to stick with the weekly blog for the time being and put up a website-exclusive song every month on the front page. I’ll aim for the first of the month and I have a song that’s close to being done for July. I’ll also debut a prototype of the new look when I put the song up. For a guy that doesn’t need any projects, I sure have a big one that I’m undertaking! Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on June 26th, 2010. |
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