Beadzzzz!!! And I got all of those from taking my shirt off just once!
So both halves of the Mad Rapture whole have been traveling to exotic locales in the last month. I (yours truly, m) spent a week in New Orleans, Louisiana with a great friend who is himself leaving for London next year to study music. P returns late tonight from even more adventurous sojourns to New Zealand.
I think I speak for both of us when I say that we are dying to get back to the music. We are thrillingly close to finishing CD 2 (yes, it even has a title!) and this summer we will begin putting together what I strongly believe will be an unbelievably kickass live show.
A few years back, I might have felt bad and a little panicked at taking almost a full month hiatus from music. I used to feel guilty for taking time away, for taking a break from songwriting. I harbored the secret fear that maybe the only things that really paid off in terms of creating new musical ideas were strict focus with a little heartbreak mixed in.
Here’s the beautiful thing I’ve discovered: taking the time to experience new sensations, to indulge in new experiences, taste new tastes, see new sights… it all goes into the music eventually. Those sensuous creeping Southern vines I saw all over in Nawlins? Crept their way into a design for the new album cover. The imperfect but undeniably infectious amateur brass band I stood on a street corner on a muggy New Orleans night to watch? Yeah, their sounds are finding their way into my next few songs. The night I stayed up until 4 a.m. dancing and sweating myself into a near-trance state at a grimy club on Bourbon Street? Those beats are in my brain somewhere, percolating into something new and different and beautiful of my own. Sometimes it takes some time, but then- boom- something you saw or felt or heard months ago will reveal itself in a lyric or a riff or an album concept. I can’t help but be a bit awed by our brains’ abilities to synthesize new experience into art.
The best part is that I’ve learned that contentment, and its even more elusive cousin, joy (perhaps rapture…? :) is ultimately a more potent and heady brew than heartbreak to drink when songwriting. Spending time with great friends, taking long walks, staying up late drinking or dancing or just having a conversation with someone special are an end in and of themselves, but often are also ingredients in creation. Pretty cool.
So prepare yourselves for something new and different from Mad Rapture. Can’t wait to send some new music out for your enjoyment in the next month or so.
love always,
m (and p in absentia)
