Why So Many Releases?
In the summer of 2022, I began a project with a simple goal: write songs chronicling the four seasons as I was experiencing them.
I had just moved to a part of the United States that actually had all four seasons (with dynamic weather!) after living in a very static, dry area in the West for 38 years that did not experience four seasons as people do on the East Coast or the Midwest. Along those lines, my initial goal was to write a song a day on average for an entire year. (I ended up exceeding the goal by quite a lot thanks to weekends where I could write numerous songs a day.)
I completed this project in the late Spring of 2023 with the release of the albums “Your Love is Better Than Life,” “Emerald,” and “Pearl.”
It was impossible to stop though. I was enjoying the journey too much, so it evolved into new goals and projects.
2. The Next Project: music-based journaling.
I have been an avid journal keeper for most of my life. Instead of writing daily or weekly entries on paper, I decided to write songs on a weekly or even daily basis. The advancement of recording technology has been so staggering in recent years that it is a fairly simple process to quickly put a song together. I can write, record, and mix an entire song on a single lunch break. Years ago I earned a B. A. in Music Composition (with plenty of sound production courses) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Drawing on that training has helped speed along the writing/recording process and give (in my opinion) decent quality and uniqueness to each song.
Using music as a substitute for journaling has allowed me to preserve simple memories and to document insights from books, novels, and movies I’m enjoying.
Music has a magical way of not only preserving the basic information contained in memory but also its emotional and spiritual signatures — and oftentimes in vivid detail.
All of these things I’ve been able to preserve in a quick, easy-to-access cloud-based form, thanks to the now ubiquitous world of music streaming. Whether it’s Apple Music or YouTube, it’s so easy to flip open an app, find a particular album from a particular date, and relive the memory or insight I was trying to preserve. That has been the primary allure of releasing everything through these platforms.
The playlist-making capabilities of Apple Music are especially awesome as journaling tools because I can mix and match memories/insights from songs to build sonic scrapbooks.
Occasionally, I release “new” albums that are really just new arrangements and combinations of different songs from past albums — my own curated playlists of the song “memories” I’ve created. These may look like “best of” albums and are sometimes titled that way, but their actual purpose is to present a unique curation and combination of previous material. Even changing the song order of an album without changing the songs creates an entirely new listening experience, in my opinion — assuming you’re a fan of listening to entire albums from beginning to end (which I personally love doing with all my favorite artists).
This project of “song memories” has aided me in remembering things in a way that’s more immersive and impactful than I had anticipated. It’s been a powerful, moving experience at times, especially during difficult seasons of life.
Of course, many of these moments and insights I’ve placed behind symbolic language and metaphors to allow some privacy and to make the lyrical themes more striking. Many of the songs have nothing to do with me. They are written from someone else’s point of view as I’m trying to get into their headspace and life experience — someone whom I find inspiring or interesting from a book or news article or from a Bible story or an ancient manuscript (an attempt to time travel into their world). Many of them are light-hearted or simple reflections on a favorite scene from a film or a line from a book.
3. At this time, I don’t actively promote my music anywhere on social media or play shows.
None of that stuff (promotion, performance, etc.) is the primary goal of this music journaling project. It’s been a tool of reflection, encouragement, and empowerment against the forces of depression that are always at work in our society. It’s been a life preserver while attempting to navigate through a very complicated — and often very dark and sorrowful — world.
For example, you’ll notice that the first full album — “88 mph,” released Sept. 6, 2022 — has many road trip-based themes. I had just finished a big drive across 2,500+ miles of territory in the beautiful USA, and I was reflecting on all the little moments and insights from that experience.
It’s also a shout-out to one of my favorite films — the “Back to the Future” series — and the fun sci-fi theme of time travel.
It’s amazing to me that technology has come so far now that a project like this is even remotely possible. In the ‘90s when I was a teenager working odd jobs to buy precious (but expensive) recording time at a professional studio in the “big city” (Bakersfield, CA), I never dreamed that sound production tech would reach this point. It’s astonishing, and every time I record a song over a lunch break, a tinge of gratitude hits me.
I’m continuing this music-based journaling adventure through 2023 and beyond — God willing — and you’re welcome to join me for the ride if you happen to stumble upon this website or my music by happenstance. I may eventually try to get the word out in case it’s something that might interest, inspire, or encourage others in some way — maybe inspire other people to do similar projects for themselves to help their mental wellness — but for now, I’ve just been focusing on the fun and deeply nourishing creative process of building a music-driven journal.
To keep up with the latest material, just search for “Kevin Ott” on any music streaming platform worldwide, and you’ll find my latest releases which are, essentially, my latest journal entries.
Thanks for stopping by and reading this!
Sincerely,
Kevin
