One of the most liberating things for me releasing this album was that once the record was out to the world, I was able to reunite with my ability to fall in love with songs.  Perhaps because Dahlak’s already had three releases, he was able to keep his cool a bit better.  But for me, once the actual musicmaking ended and the months of mixing and mastering began, every song that came across me became a quality inspection.  Are the vocals on this song clearer than the ones on ours?  Does the kick hit harder?  Are the adlibs more dynamic?  Yeah, it sounds a lot like I was just sitting in front of blogs, streaming songs, and being a hater.  And in a lot of ways I probably was, but I swear it was mostly if not all due to the painstaking process of soullessly obsessing over the sound of each bar in the record, mixed with a whole lot of the nervousness that comes to releasing my first record ever.

Anyway, now that the songs are in the universe and there is nothing we can do but listen back for what the people have to say, I’m pleased to have stumbled across these two videos.  The first is Blakroc (The Black Keys x Dame Dash) ft. Mos Def and Jim Jones (hey look Nico, I like a Jim Jones song!), and the other is Lykke Li’s cover of “Will You Still Love Me.” After viewing music through such a calculated lens, it’s a warm welcome back to fall back into footage of live performances.  They capture the breaths, throats being cleared, slurs, and subtle nuances that are often leveled away in the post-production.  Ironically, it’s footage like this that I daydream about myself being in.  Understated and nostalgic, and ultimately as imperfectly perfect as humans themselves.

Via Graveyard Shiftin‘ & Gorilla vs. Bear