I was going to hold off on posting this until a little while from now, but I can't help myself because I'm excited.

I feel like I'm in the midst of learning everything all over again - even what's the sound in dubstep right now, since I so heavily went back to progressive metal for so many years. Couple that with re-learning FL Studio, mastering techniques, and synthesis, while balancing it all with my family life, it hasn't been as easy to create as I had originally hoped.

That's not to say I've lost hope, though. I've been listening to this melodic dubstep and color bass stuff from Chime, Ace Aura, and others, and while I find the sound interesting, it isn't as dark as I would like to go with my music. And while I like the heaviness of riddim, I find it too difficult to create character in this space.

I rediscovered minimalists like J:Kenzo, Biome and SP:MC, and what I love about their style is how easy it is to create heavy music with very little. As I've gotten older, I've found that I have an affinity towards it, because its running in the opposite direction of what's mainstream: heavy, huge chords, fill in every last gap and hyper-compress (like I said, not that the mainstream sound is bad...but it doesn't readily lend itself to standing out of a crowd). Moreover, I simply don't have the time to spend 5 hrs mixing down a mid-level bass noise anymore, unless I want to release a song once every 6 months.

So, what does all of this mean? Expect my next tracks to be dark. And by dark, I mean DARK. If it goes according to plan, it will make anything released in 2011 look like a child made it (because it was). Song List #1 is still valid, but I'm believing more and more that it was a stepping stone to arrive at my current list. I'm considering releasing this as a 3 to 4 song EP.

1. Dark Essence - a heavy entrance. Expecting it to sound like the arrival of a mothership, or the antichrist. Take your pick.
2. Dissonance - a punctuated song. I'm picturing heavily detuned sliding saws for this one.
3. Soul Distiller - the most rhythmic and experimental song. I want to play more with the guitar on this one, and take nods from ambient prog metal (think Tool, Karnivool). It's been my dream to created a polyrhythmic dubstep song, so I'm planning to employ hemiola for now, or maybe an odd time signature. We'll see where this goes.