On FRUTAL's Development and Scope Creep

It’s funny how sometimes you’ll have a spark of an idea, to create something small like a sketch, or a little art project, or a small video series, or an EP, or a web app. Something not too big, yet large enough to convey a message, to craft a little world, to tell a story with changing themes, to hold and express sentiment like a roller-coaster at sunset with a glistening bay in view, going up and down as the light dims revealing another world.

And then the output of the spark that ignited the creation spirals out of control and the original work no longer suffices, so you place the first creations on the side while you work on a different set of related ideas, elevated to a higher level, and then - months later - you rediscover the original work and it not only holds sentimental value but you see how you can bring it back into the narrative, so you reintegrate them, and work on them anew, yet after more months of work you find that they are too distinct, as if two bodies of work loosely connected by an idea, but instead of separating them into two separate projects you start drawing bridges, and you try to connect the work together with more work, shorter work, like commas in a long unruly sentence.

And suddenly the small project has turned out to be an expedition lasting close to a couple of years, and the work reaching an end no longer looks like the spark of the original idea, yet you are sure there is some merit, as it is its own world now, and you have to set it free, but you are unsure if it will meet expectations.

And then you remember: There are no expectations.

And thus I’ve been working on FRUTAL for a while; an album I started working with my friend Pyrathee before I set off to Ireland. We decided to hang out for a series of 4-5 sessions to work on some material, where he’d play drums and I’d compose, play guitar and sing. The result was 4 songs related to fruits in one way or another, some based on real stories, and some fantasy. The intention was to craft them with a heavy grungy sound, hence the name of the album would be a wordplay on “Brutal”.

Yet 4 songs weren’t enough, so I paid a few voice actors and narrators on Fiverr to read out fruit names and definitions, and then these had to be woven into little musical worlds or motifs. But now we had 6 bridges and 4 songs, not enough songs for an album, but wait, this wasn’t supposed to be an album! Yet there I was, writing more songs, now in a different style, and then I had to construct more bridges, toppling some of the older ones down in the process, and more songs were crafted, about plums, about apples, about mangoes.

And the “Cantaloupes” barbershop quartet no longer matched the theme and had to be re-written thrice. And then I was satisfied, knowing the work consisted of three themes, that reference each other, that play together, that flow, that come back in one way or another throughout the album, a few themes to carry different feelings, different weights, some frutal, some brutal. In a way it resembles my personality, and life changes over the past few years, a story. Rock, indie, electronic, and bridges in between.

The work is nearly done, I hope you enjoy it and that it generates the feeling of going on a journey in you, one full of fruits with a touch of madness. Follow the blog, or subscribe to the newsletter to be notified when it drops.

And remember: Eat your Daily Mangoes.