I have been operating out of a small studio in Nashville for the last few years; a little unassuming basement that is packed out with wonderful isolation and ceilings that I bump my head on. It’s better than it sounds.

It is undergoing a transformation; a couple of trusted co-hort have joined in on the lease and brought in a whirl of outstanding and musical changes to the place. I will write about that in a proper “note” for my own pleasure and for the information dump. This note is a free-wheel of a kind of creative thought-experiment in which I am beginning to think about the recording space.

I am thinking an artist who, in good faith to their creative development, swings between albums or creative works with a nonlinear exploration of sound, color, form, subject, etc. Each body of work is both an amalgam of previous experience and creation, but also can leave what has been previously explored.

Now, I am thinking of an artist who, in good faith to their creative development, explores the same note, the same texture, across a lifetime of making. In each iteration of “the same”, you can start to appreciate a new depth to what was previously thought to be already spent. “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things,” and such.

O-K! In a new season of my life and career, I am starting to wonder, very badly, how to RE-DEFINE my process. As if I had been exploring the same note for too long. This new whirling of pals into a creative space is now moving me away from a past season; I had experienced it as “MINE” and as a place for “ME” to be making. I have been very pleased with the things made in the space, and more importantly the artists who have made things with me in the space. But what has to be made eternal?

Now, I am thinking of an iteration of a creative space – in our case, a recording space – as a moment in time. I had thought of it as a linear endeavor ~ trucking on to become perfected, each year becoming more systemic. Now, I am thinking of an iteration — here for a while, some meeting of community, of all of us spread across the spectrum of leading and following in some dance. This one is indeed an amalgam of previous experience and creation, but is certainly stepping onto new and uncertain branches. But, in making new branches and spaces, will hopefully be a spot for good art to come and roost.

Re-defining the method is like a crop rotation for the creative brain. It leaves in its wake a fresher soil.

Any-ways. We will post some photos in the future as the studio launches itself back out into the world.