Reflection 1 - 05/10/2026

Two reviews in and it's time for the first reflection. Something I thought about doing to gauge myself and reflect on my own work here. Be it my reviews, my music, or the website, I just think it's best to take a moment and reflect on it all. The topics of today are mainly my first two reviews, so I figured we start there.

The Reviews

When I first envisioned the review part of this website, I didn't want it to be a generic score basing system or whatever. I wanted to take the time and give every album a level of engagement it deserved and talk about how it sat with me. To trial this method I used The Stare Kits album first for a few reasons. The first being that it gave me a measure of my current skills as far as writing about music goes, and boy did it test it harshly. I didn't think initially I was gonna have issues describing the music, and I felt that I could have done better if the vocabulary was available to me. But that ending paragraph made me keep it, even if the rest was wobbly and uncertain. I really did feel like I missed out when listening to those old live show recordings. It made me wish I was there, and what better result can you get from a live album. The intention was pure, but maybe I need some more experience before I tackle difficult works like this.

The main struggle with talking about this album, was finding the words to describe what I was hearing and the battle with my own uncertainty as a first review. These are issues I would resolve when I tackle the second review, but you could hear the struggles in my own writing. Do I think it was a bad review? Not necessarily, it was more of a "I can do better". I had some ok and great descriptions in there, it makes me more determined to get better and review this album again in the future. Maybe I will try again in a year?

So on the second review, I tackled something easier to describe and often overlooked in my own opinion. The Deep Purple Mark 1 albums. My strengths appeared in both reviews but was on better display here, I was able to describe what I was hearing and feeling a lot better because the music was easier to describe compared to the Stare Kits. Music in the no-wave category tends to resist description and I will need to explore new ways to talk about music when handling difficult music. During both reviews I was usually playing the album on repeat and let my subconscious mind take over, only editing what I said for clarity and flow to the best of my abilities. That being said, I did intentionally not go over every song for both albums. I never wanted to be an authority when doing these reviews, I wanted to encourage people to go and listen to these albums for themselves and engage like I have. If you haven't already, go listen to both albums, they are worth your time.

My Music

This is gonna be the shortest section, and all I got to say is this. I just haven't had a whole lot of time to record, still finishing my fourth album. But it's gonna take some time and experimenting, there's a lot I want to try and explore. I tend to release individual songs as I go due to my creation process, I release each song one at a time on SoundCloud before it gets wrapped up in an album. So if you wanted more of my music content, check the SoundCloud.

The Website

If someone time traveled and told me I was gonna create a website hosting album reviews and my own music 10 years ago. I'd say you're lying, I have no idea how to play any instruments and wouldn't even know where to begin with a website. This is crazy to me, I actually did this shit and I am ecstatic with the results. A few things I need to figure out though, the discogs system I have in place is ineffective for reviews that tie multiple albums together without being a complete mess. This is something I want to solve eventually, but that will take some time. And for anyone unaware, that hand drawn lamp is a theme toggle. If you want dark mode you should probably click or tap it, always on the top of the page. Contact page with any questions and whatever, thanks for reading, that's all I really got to say on these matters.