in 2021 I made a lot of music. almost a song a week. so I decided to see if I actually could make that much music. so I started my 52 album. one album to hold all of the output. adding new songs as I make them. that's a nice thing about Bandcamp, you don't have to have your final release all together before putting something out. you can have an experiment like this that grows and grows.
I started with making template with a half ass mastering chain on it to keep a little bit of unity to it all and started laying down ideas to build different songs from. Trying to get a head of things. Give myself some room for when things got busy or my motivation was lacking. I was determined to get out 52 songs but would let myself wax and wane when I needed. it wasn't strictly one song a week, just that much by the end. some weeks I put out more than one song and some weeks I skipped.
I wanted to see if I could keep this up and still feel inspired while I did it, explore new sounds, try different things and not fall into barfing something out just to hit the numbers. And I feel I did a pretty good job of it. I did more than just ambient stuff. I tried out new techniques and got better at the things I already do. I mixed things up with hardware and software sounds. it was only a couple times I felt pretty uninspired and I sat out in those periods. I didn't feel I forced anything and still always only made music when I wanted to. and building up unfinished ideas when I was feeling it helped keep things going. some times I felt uninspired to start something new but was easy to open up an unfinished session and find my desire to mess with things.
I set up to make this all very intentionally raw and unpolished. it was about getting things out and not perfect. capture the feeling and not worry about small mistakes or getting things super polished. I found plugins and synth patches that would introduce nice unexpected things into the project and embrace them. sometimes I'd have to chase down some strange sound that didn't work but more often then not they wold be the thing that made a song really interesting for me. "all distortions are intentional"
as a commercial venture, it's been a bust but I'm ok with that. it was about the creation and was happy even a few people cam along for the ride. I would release songs irregularly and at odd times. I didn't reach out past my usual social circles much at all. I didn't approach any media about the project. I would put out songs mostly late at night and not mention some of them at all. I did what I wanted with no real plan and was happy that way. I would send out Bandcamp messages as reminders at times that more songs had been added.
overall I really enjoyed this project. I wouldn't do it again haha but I got out of it what I wanted. I also managed to start some other new projects and put out some cover songs as well. so that's pretty cool. now I figure out what to do next. thanks to everyone who's checked out any of the songs this year. I really appreciate every listen.