17 November 2023

Life (work) currently feels like a Polaroid slowly appearing – there’s color there, there’s shape there and as long as I’m patient love will appear. I am tweaking the final Master for this EP – I have not yet listened, I can do that only once it’s complete. Still in the Dark Room – shapes, sizes are starting to show – how come everyone I meet is 8 inches and over?

Berghain as the Dark Room where lovers sticky remains serve as reminder to your Airs not to leave the ground for too long. I can see myself getting lost. Long. Some of y’all for sure looking back at your night in the Dark as the first night of your new life. I am grateful to have songs, work that brings me back to reality, sometimes. It’s not like I’m leaving this space, the memory feels like a dream and always will.

This life a blur between physical and the above, suspended, floating, never quite reaching solid ground, as if the reminder to stay wasn’t quite enough. I don’t know a lot but I do know everybody horny in this liminal – and I am too. This is the smell of sweat, this is wet floors, this is salty ceilings, this is fucking. This is life I know. This is my music. This is my art. It would be disservice to us if it wasn’t. Why don’t I see more of that around? I saw you in the Dark. You are withholding truth from us. I can’t do that.

I can fit these headphones on you though, they fit perfect, there is love and longing pouring into you; I swear this is the closest we will be. Like shadow at midday. You look good in light, you look good in dark. I know you’ve been working for that.

The pull — to everything beautiful; to beauty in dim lights and the contours of a flashy polaroid — is hard. I am drawn to muscle, I am drawn to you. I am drawn to everything beautiful. Why some of y’all into that Y2K shit, just to look bad? It’s the easy way out: make yourself look bad and somebody sure will give a fuck at some point. It’s the easy way out: make ugly art and pretend there is message behind it. Try make something beautiful. I wanna look at art for long and be intrigued by beauty. I wanna look at you for long and be intrigued by your pretty. It’s harder, and y’all ain’t going for hard. The easy way out don’t make me happy.

You make me happy and you are happy when you wear masc outside and take dick on the floor. I love living this contrast with you, there is a space between where actual life happens. Not the fake version we’re sold on TV; everything straight forward, focused, clear. Actual, real life; questions, contrast, feelings that are opposites but fuel the same desire. I see people live their wildest fantasies. Occupying a space built for us, by us, in a way that suits our needs, even if they’re not explicit. I wanna join.

I recently saw Isaac Julien at K21 – highly recommend. I have never seen video art as expressive, as beautiful and interesting. Beauty pulls me in.

All these hedonistic ideas only retain strength if contrasted with real work – I’ve been on the Mix of my EP for the time being, now at the Mastering Stage. This is where we no longer see black and white, but color. I’m hopeful I’ll get it done before the end of the month. Music come soon.

This is life. This is what we do.

– phl

25 September 2023

Lately

I been looking through partially opened blinds at the line in front of the club for months every now and again. Although there is value in voyeurism and I need just that for my music, I learned that I need to be more approachable – and approach more. I decided to join. It’s been good so far – these are my people, you are my people. The inspiration to write more openly comes partly from a recent newsletter I read: reading from a person you care about feels good.

I’m deep on the last stretch of Vocal Recording for my upcoming EP – it’s been a while since new music left this Studio, but I hope the 7 tracks that are coming will be worth the wait. Recording Vocals is the most demanding part of a song for me, I feel like banging my head against the same wood wall over and over again – I don’t get particularly hurt but I do not make progress. The time it takes makes me wonder if I’m making progress at all. I envy painters whose hands are the medium to control, vocal cords are fucking illusive.

There is a routine that is starting to develop and I am trying to solidify it. Songs, personal ones, the way I do them, are intricate seas swaying from one emotional extreme to another, a routine around creating them keeps them in check, at least a little.

I’ve been at the ocean for a few weeks recently, the one full of salt water. Would all tears shed by humans fill the Atlantic? A form of humility when looking into endless water. A form of purity, selflessness and freedom. The goal is to see the ocean twice a year, every year. I expected to record and make music in the mediterranean, but the sun had different plans, and so we followed. I learned the Spanish know the language of the sun. I mean to learn spanish some time, before the end of the world; I learned I need to make promises and keep them because spanish guys are big on promises. And dicks.

Since being back I been doing Techno better than ever, the real, hard, German type. Some tracks to get you in the loop:

If you wanna handle this with me somewhere at some point shoot me a message and let’s rave together. The monotony and sameness is exhilerating in a world focused on individualism, especially on social media. There is freedom in same, there is sanity in same. We’re all on the same drugs and nothing else matters. The scene in my hometown is growing and I couldn’t be more proud – this is the first time I’ve felt any real connection to a place, and still I could live anywhere with you and call it home.

These nights have brought my understanding of community to a new level, we are party, it’s our DNA. Leaving for the darkroom and being new on the come out is exhilerating.

My body is the record of those I have loved

Anne Truitt

I will leave with some images that encapsulate the feeling of the last couple of months and I will get back to recording – we’ll speak once this EP is done.

Together we are love,

phl