What am I doing with my music? A dodgy question in that "doing" is rife with "intention," which I think is detrimental to the sort of music I work with. When having to think about music outside of itself, I prefer to think of the music I make as relational. How does this music relate to that or the other? What is the relationship between this music and emotion, what is the relationship between this music and environment (psychogeography), what is the relationship between this music and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, jelly doughnuts, Colombian death metal? And so on.

For example, the matter of emotion. Music in general is prescriptive, a mood-alterer, manipulative. This is not derogatory, for the Beatles have saved lives; Maria Callas has found missing hearts; a dose of Hank Williams can help sometimes; Al Green for the romantically challenged; the Swan Silvertones for those haunted by dark clouds, and Deicide for those who take shelter in them. So music can be used to induce mood and emotion. But when I think about putting a music into the world, I see it not as manipulative, not as taking a listener to a specific place. Not with desire and intention. I imagine a music that is sensed by a different part of our being: music sympathetic to that which is not fleeting, forged by condition or circumstance.

This way of thinking about music is as a heightened sense of awareness rather than a goal or intention, a "doing." It is without a desire to inflict or alter.

There is a relationship between music and the grandness and minutiae of existence, from doughnuts to emotion and beyond. Considering these relationships helps me to form music, understand my surroundings, navigate, consume and live with satisfaction and awareness.

Practically, with the music I make, I am able to indulge in my likes. I can make friends. I can travel without being a tourist. I can listen. I can explore differences and accordances and carve out something of a life. These "doings" are a pleasure.

- Sean Meehan, Blocks of Consciousness and The Unbroken Continuum (pp. 136-137)

Keith Rowe, Above and Beyond (1997)