Adrian and I met for breakfast. One of our rare face-to-face meet ups.
We talked about family, kids, wives, parents, work, life, music, Tagore.
Not necessarily in that order. But close.
Mostly we reminisced about our music. A reflection of why we started Seastars. (Funny thing: both of us forgot the name of the album! Goes to show how memorable it was, eh?)
We reminded ourselves we didn’t plan for have an album. It was an attempt at expression, we realised. Music happened to be a suitable conduit. The format of working using computers and email suited our lifestyles. Forming the “band” and publishing the album was a convenient end-result of our collaborative process.
But subsequently, it seemed the process of technical refinement took over the expression. While the albums after SeaStars 2007 were technically more proficient (relatively speaking), they lacked that clean-cut simplicity of the first.
Adrian was more blunt: SeaStars 2007 was kinda crappy as an album. I thought so too, knowing what we know now 🙂 Still, we thought there was something in there that was uniquely our styles.
Writing this now, it occurred to me that working on SeaStars 2007 was like discovering we could hear. The subsequent albums was like putting on better earphones, with crisper sounds. But being able to hear better didn’t necessarily mean we were really listening.
Kinda like what Adrian wrote here, about being poor in spirit.
And now we think we’re continuing on that journey more consciously.
Trying to really listen this time.
And to have fun while continuing to find ourselves.
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Originally uploaded by lekowala
~ Ivan
p.s. On this renewed musical “roadtrip”, we have another friend on board. More to be revealed, soon.
Starfish Stories :: The Band 