Roseate

“Walking gave some of these thoughts somewhere else to go for a while.”

I was sitting in the office with some music on tonight and I couldn't actually tell you what it was. Which is weird because normally even if I'm not properly listening I'll know what I'm listening to, or something will catch me and I'll end up stopping whatever I'm doing because I'm thinking about the track.

Tonight it was just there.

I think I was tired. Not tired enough that I wanted to go to bed though, which was the annoying bit. I'd got to the end of the day and everything was done and I just didn't really feel like I'd got anywhere. It had been busy, I'd done stuff, spoken to people, dealt with whatever needed dealing with, but then you get to the end and you're sitting there thinking... alright, so now what?

I remember thinking about going to bed earlier that night and then not wanting to go to bed exactly. Which sounds stupid because obviously I was tired, but it wasn't really about being tired. I just didn't want the day to finish.

So I went outside.

I don't remember thinking I needed to clear my head or anything like that. I just put my shoes on and went. Headphones in, whatever music came up, came up. I'd skip something if I didn't like it, let something play if I did. Pretty much the same as always really.

Then I stopped skipping things.

I don't even know when that happened.

I was walking along and suddenly realised I'd been listening to the same thing for a while and hadn't touched the phone. The music had just kind of fitted. My pace had picked up a bit without me really noticing and I was just walking properly rather than wandering around thinking about what I was supposed to be doing with myself.

And then, inevitably, my brain started working;

• Why does everything feel harder than it used to?

• Am I losing interest in things?

• What's wrong with me?

• Am I doing enough?

That last one is a bastard because it can turn absolutely anything into evidence that you're somehow not doing enough. You've had a busy day and your brain goes, yes, but did you do the right things? Did you do enough? Could you have done more?

Oh, just fuck off will you…

And then there's the whole fixer thing.

Yes, I do it all the time. Something feels uncomfortable and immediately my brain wants to understand it, pull it apart, work out where it came from and what I'm going to do about it.

I'm pretty sure I've spent years doing that.

But I was walking, so I couldn't really do much with it. Walking felt like it gave some of these thoughts somewhere else to go for a while.

I'd have a thought and then I'd walk another twenty yards and there'd be another one. Then I'd notice something else. Then I'd be listening to the music again. It was almost like...

"Oh, you again."

"Can't stop, got somewhere to be."

There wasn't actually anywhere to be. I just kept walking.

By then it was getting darker. I remember the stones under my shoes and the temperature dropping and the sky changing behind the trees. There were birds flying around above me and I remember thinking that they had absolutely no interest in whatever was going on inside my head.

Which is probably for the best.

They were just getting on with being birds.

I carried on walking.

I don't remember much else about the walk, which is probably telling in itself. I came back in, took the headphones out and went back upstairs.

Then I stumbled across ‘Scared’ — the track by Fred again.. and Yung Thug.

I can't remember whether I'd heard it on the walk earlier or whether I'd thought about it afterwards. I think I'd heard it. Anyway, I put it on and ended up listening to it a few times. There was something about it that I didn't want to let go of.

So I started messing around with it.

That's how these things happen sometimes. You aren't really sitting down to make anything, you're just listening to something and thinking, what if...

Then you're dragging another track in.

Then you're trying something.

Then you've been sitting there for an hour or two.

I wanted more of the pads. I kept going back to that bit. I think I ended up stretching it because I didn't want it to disappear as quickly as it does in the original.

Then I started building around it.

I don't remember the exact order of things now and what came first, but that's often the process in the moment.

I remember some of the tracks. I remember thinking some transitions were shit and changing them. I remember finding things that worked better than I realised at first. I remember listening back and thinking, that's it. That's it... leave it.

And then there was the first attempt at recording it live.

I got about half way through and got drawn in by the PARTYNEXTDOOR remix, and kind of forgot that I was the one in control, driving the music, and ended up letting it play out whilst I was distracted by how it made me feel.

I'm convinced of it anyway. Something like that.

Ok, so wipe off 30 minutes. But hey, the music was doing its thing, so I was happy to play it again.

And the second time was different. I just played it with the same energy but stayed present with it this time and enjoyed it even more.

There are bits of that recording where I can remember exactly what I was thinking, and other bits where I genuinely don't remember doing it at all.

That's probably my favourite part of mixing.

You can be completely inside what you're doing and then afterwards listen back and think, when the fuck did I do that?

The whole thing ended up being about an hour.

I remember looking at it afterwards and thinking it was actually alright.

Not perfect. Definitely not perfect.

But I was ok with it because it moved me in the way I wanted it to.

And by then it was late - so much for the early night.

I was still in the same room. Same laptop. Same headphones.

I shut the laptop. That was that.

Done.