Hump day. The sexual innuendo of the term makes me giggle, but I appreciate that I've made it to the middle of the work week nonetheless. For those of you who don't know, Artemis Sere is a pseudonym and brand; behind the façade exists a normal human with real life problems and 45-50 hour a week Corporate work schedule.
My life can get a little nutty, and I don't even have kids. Making time for art is a challenge these days, on top of all the day-to-day drama.
Music is the primary source of my inspiration and a common thread of my world, a consistent resource for my creativity. For years now, I've tracked my favorite music in annual "Best of" blogs, and I spend a fair amount of my time researching what's new and juicy in the genres that I follow.
These #xoterica blogs will highlight what I'm listening to, and often these shouts will introduce content that will be featured in my annual countdown of best music.
Starting off the day with the new Rabbit Junk EP "Like the Flesh Does the Knife". I'm a big fan of remixes, extending the creative life of a great song and giving it a different atmosphere. I love listening to how another artist would approach a music piece differently than the original artist – or if the original artist augments the experience of a song with different atmosphere. I first encountered remixing via Rob Zombie -- who remixed his classics in the 90s, such as "More Human than Human" -- and Trent Reznor, who remixed Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction".
I'm a big fan of what friend JP Anderson and his wife do with their band Rabbit Junk. I've been listening to Rabbit Junk as a favorite artist since I discovered them in 2009. Their style of "Hardclash" is a refreshing, glitchy mix of many different styles with an aggressive edge.
In the rotation this morning is also Cyanotic's "Tech Noir" album, which is another great entry into the Cyanotic catalog. I'll have a more lengthy review for my upcoming "Best Music of 2017" blog. My friend Sean Payne of Cyanotic runs a label named Glitch Mode, and helps polish, produce and promote the work of Rabbit Junk, and has for a really long time. Cyanotic and Rabbit Junk are tandem bands in my mind, heralds of the glitch and hardclash techno-industrial genre, each woefully underrated and underappreciated.
[ESOTERICA: Yesterday was picking day of the harvest. 6'- 8' tall plants. 22 jars of output.]
#xoterica
