Recording as a Leap of Faith
Paradoxically, the act of recording is one of investing in the future while simultaneously giving emphasis to the past (i.e., the faith that someone later will choose to revisit that which has already occurred, rather than create anew in their own living instant).
This undertaking very easily can detach the performer from the life at hand, in favor of some abstract future and audience. When the process of recording (i.e., the technical aspect) takes precedence over that which is actually being recorded, then the origin of the entire endeavor has been subsumed and the vitality of the music suffers.
But no matter how bleak the material, recording is ultimately a gesture of hope. If someone truly didn’t “give a fuck,” then they wouldn’t be recording whatever it is they are doing to begin with.
Erecting these temples for tomorrow is done with the twain belief that there will, in fact, be a future and that future matters enough to invest the present toward it. It is a scream into the hereafter and if even one person retrieves that audio message in a bottle—these SOS calls—and if through that listening, their life is enriched by it, then, all commercial considerations aside, the entire effort has been a success.
Almost every record ever purchased, now rotting away somewhere in an attic or bin, represents one person’s desire for a better life, the hope that the music contained within would answer some of their questions or needs. The music itself merely acts as a go-between to experience, the quest to find pleasure, reduce pain, and grow inside—that place where singing and/or listening become regained as acts of self-preservation and help us access another world, transcending even the music itself, bringing us back to our birth, leading us home, and reminding us that we are still alive.