Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. (John Lennon)
… and I can’t say I had planned this 5 months gap between now & the latest newsletter.
Life happened indeed !
After the burnout & health crisis I went through in October 2023, it took one+ year to rest, recover & regroup. After that came the time to understand what actually happened so I can figure out what to do next.
Building a healthy creative ecosystem that would respect my values so I don’t do the same mistakes seemed paramount. I also felt a urge to create & share art that would bring something “worthwhile” into the world… and well, I had to find out what “worthwhile” meant first!
Most people would do this by going to a therapist, maybe a coach, others might find their voice back by going on a retreat in a desert 1… But, because I noticed most musicians & creatives I know where all going through something similar to some degree, I went for a less common approach:
I joined a program meant to help you create your own conference by looking at your personal life story from a “grand scheme of things” perspective. This process started in October 2024 and lasted until the end of March 2025, with me giving my conference in public for the very first time.
I spent most of these 6 months thinking, studying the work of others (artists, doctors, philosophers, political analysts, sociologists, etc…), writing (A lot!), doubting myself & second guessing, rewriting (even more!), which took most of my time & brain power.
In this conference, I touched on many different subjects such as art & creativity, the concept of Care, the notion of vulnerability as a power & a force, Accelerationism & performance versus the human need for resonance & recognition, the ideology of neolibralism, and more.
It was incredibly eye-opening & clarifying to dig deep in these subjects & uncover how they relate to one-another. It gave me a footing (as they say in martial arts), a strong basis to my thoughts & ideas I never had before.
I’m not sure I will ever give this conference again in the form it happened last March because I feel it would deserve to be rewritten starting from the conclusion I arrived at.
Maybe it will become something else, like a book ? A podcast ? I’m not sure yet. One thing I’m sure of is I will keep on exploring & talking about these topics since I’m regularly reminded how crucial they seem to be in understanding our era & imagining new perspectives.
One of the conclusion I drew from the conference is that art is a mean to rise our level of awareness.
Artists create worlds for people to live in & experience for a while. When we experience of work of art, we can subconsciously observe ourselves, see how we react to it & we can potentially reflect on these reactions of ours. It helps us getting to know ourselves AND the world around better: it expands our capacity for attention.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead considered that a healed femur was the first sign of civilization, because a healed femur is a sign that a wounded person must have received help from others.
The so-called “non-essential work” of the artist is therefore essential: Attention is at the core of our humanity, thus it must be protected & encouraged.
If you take a step back & look at the bigger picture, you might notice that each of the existential crisis & threats around us are rooted in our lack of, or decreasing capacity of attention: depressions, burnouts, culture wars, global warming & its denial, the rise of facism, etc…
It’s no surprise that more & more people feel like everything is crumbling & that civilization is falling apart: it is ! Because being able to capture & redirect the “attention” (aka the main quality that allowed us to be where we are now as a species) has become a primary way to create financial value and getting power, at the cost of destroying it. it’s what we call “the economy of attention”.
Thus, it’s no surprise that an artist forced (by economic & social pressure + lack of alternative options) to engage in the economy of attention will very likely lost its sense (aka “depression”) of purpose & end up drained of energy & motivation (aka “burnout”): the system we are living in tends to push artists to become the opposite of what they are supposed to be.
We are now in this advanced stage in which this lack of meaning, purpose & motivation is spreading through society as a whole, and everyone is nudged to act against their best intentions & original purpose to fit into a system that is working against everyone’s best interests (give or take a handful of billionaires….).
The silver lining is in the realization that we’re all in this together now: we are all facing the same issue, but in different ways. Every one of us have developed their own strategies to face what is essentially the same challenge. This means we have an incredible numbers of perspectives, ideas & potential solutions that we can share & put in common, providing that we pay attention & are brave enough to accept being vulnerable in order to do so… And art can help with that!
If you’re an artist or a creative: you already know how to turn your longings into offerings. Keep doing this!
Create & share your art, these “worlds” so we can experienced them & see the world from your perspective for a little while.
Tell about your process, your intentions, your doubts your failures & successes so people realizes art & creativity is not magic, it’s not a “natural gift”, it’s not about receiving inspiration from above & “nailing it” on the first attempt: it’s messy, it’s joyful, it’s hard, it’s tiring & energizing: it’s work & it’s life-like!
This is how you reclaim your art from being just a product to be consumed. This is how art can retrieve its true purpose.
Coming changes & future experiments:
I have decided to change the name and purpose of my koyl bandcamp page:
From now on, it will be called Aetherphonic, and I will use it like a record label page: the main releases of all my projects will be hosted on it under their respective moniker on top of the independent Arkanist & Kolyder pages. Some releases (mainly the single tracks) will not be on the Aetherphonic page & will remain exclusive to each project individual pages.
Visit the updated Bandcamp page here: https://aetherphonic.bandcamp.com
This is part of an effort to make most of the music available in one place & acknowledge that, while the projects are different, they are all part of the same organism…
I’ll be uploading Arkanist & Kolyder old releases on the Aetherphonic page at a reasonable pace (probably once a week) in the next months so subscribers are not overwhelmed with notifications.
A new Kolyder album will be released late summer / early autumn.
It will consist of guitar-based improvisations. Some of them will be familiar to you because I shared them in this newsletter, some will be entirely new…
I’m currently putting the finishing touch to the artwork & promo before sending it to blogs & music writers for reviews.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to review it or know someone who might be interested in writing about it.
The improvisation I’m sharing with you today…
…was recorded using the Godzilla Tuning on my cheap Squier Mustang.
The combination of this very weird tuning (Db-Ab-Eb-E-B-E) on a guitar with a neck so wobbly I have to take care not to pick the notes too hard if I want them to have good intonation made this performance quite intense! I couldn’t count on any familiar shapes on the fretboard and had to be very intentional with each note I played.
This gives this track quite a special vibe, kind of heavy & focused while on the verge of crumbling… which is quite fitting with the name of the tuning.
I think it’s a good real-life example of how circumstances (=weird unfamiliar tuning + crappy guitar) can affect where you put your attention (=trying to not make mistakes).
That’s it for today: I’ll be sending the next one mid summer. It will include something I’ve never tried before with live-looping improv, which led to a realization that will have me expand the kind or music I release as The Arkanist.
Take care & give a shit!
koyl
I’ve just finished reading “The Lost Voice” by
: it’s the story of how Greta lost her ability to sing because of a rare disease & how she found a new voice for herself. I was very much touched by her interview with and knew I would have to read the book. As expected, it’s about grief, overcoming obstacles & discovering your true self but it’s also very much about attention. I highly recommend it.
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