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  • Robert LoganCognessence@social.linux.pizza
    Jul 23, 2026, 3:09 PM

    @elifyalvac Thanks for your interest in this (it's been quite a bit of work; a bit of a nuts undertaking really. 😅)

    It seems you know me too well! There is a personal meaning in the number. But also, it came to about near that amount. Quite a bit of music was left out - really, it's amazing how much music you realise you've made when you actually try to short through it.

    I'm sure that'd be the same for many of us. Partly it's also because I made a commitment a fair while ago that I would try to make music or work on some aspect of it every single day, no matter what. A lot of that doesn't end up fitting an album, and the labels I was on didn't want to release more music (and obviously no Bandcamp for a number of those years, nor really much of a community or sense of enough confidence / interest even once it did exist.)

    I'll admit after the initial excitement I felt a bit self conscious even now. "Who do you think you are? Who wants to hear another 132 tracks?" But the inclination to do something like this isn't there often, so it seemed worth taking advantage of that. And as little as these things can do in number/monetary terms, I also put it together to give any money made to some family members who are in trouble - so that was another impetus. Either way, the material is out there now for wondering listeners to enjoy at their own pace, rather than sitting on my hard drive. Seems better out there than not. These are all tracks that mean a lot to me. :)

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  • Elif Yalvacelifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org
    Jul 23, 2026, 4:54 PM

    @Cognessence Ha! I did imagine there would be a meaning with the number. but not because you are predictable but more about your track title references from our earlier conversations.

    thanks for explaining it in detail! It sounds like a nice consistent ambition to take a step for the music you make every day, and indeed, some of that will just remain as a sketch or get repurposed! I am happy you put these ones on, no matter what happened with labels.

    you might have called it “random 132 tracks” to lure some BoC fans :D putting the joke aside, I am so thirsty for beautiful music without having to change a channel. when it is a time when I don’t deliberately go and pick an album, I love it if the music I am being introduced to is beautiful without me having to change the channel or take an action to pause things. the past year I’ve had to switch too many times between the channels, I am an oldschool national radio listener, and I’m extremely disappointed with radio 6 nowdays, or even on somafm, which I love ofc, sometimes I have to do that in my favourite cliqhop IDM channel. but all I want is to keep listening without having to change and move around, when it is something I didn’t intentionally pick. so definitely, in your niche target group, I will be happy with the number 132!

    "Seems better out there than not” is the way to go. Maybe I should remind you my very first blog post that I wrote with input from you all fedimates here although the context might be broader: elifyalvac.com/2026/04/15/blog/

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  • Robert LoganCognessence@social.linux.pizza
    Jul 27, 2026, 12:26 PM

    @elifyalvac Hi Elif. Your post here was so good that I left it without a response! 😅 And btw - your image of it being like a radio station where you don't have to change channel is EXACTLY the kind of thing I had in mind. I don't know why I didn't put it that way myself; but yes, I love the idea of this endless kaleidoscope of music one can just let run and run, like a good radio station journey, but with something of this length not being the ambient experience you'd perhaps expect - something rather with more consistently varied and involved material. :)

    I went back and reread your piece just now, prompted by you prompting me. Everyone's contributions are good; funny to be a little citation in someone else's reckoning with the same question I've apparently just spent months not-quite-answering for myself. :D

    It already addresses things better than I could: the worth isn't in the noticing of the thing. It's in the making, and then in whatever we make being allowed to keep existing beyond us, in whatever form. As a side effect of that process, other wonderful happenings may occur too, as you said: finding an understanding tribe, for example.

    It was good to read about Tekla Griebel Wandall in your blog again - a whole life spent publishing, with performance only coming decades later. We just don't know what will happen, do we? Even where our work can't be performed, or nothing like that ever arrives, the making and the self-documentation stand - and not as a waiting room before some "real" thing happens.

    I also keep thinking about how carefully you separated "worth" from visibility in that piece. The DIY tour, Reykjavik, the NNA Tapes discovery - none of it reads, in your telling, as proof that persistence gets rewarded with an audience. It reads as proof that honouring a musical impulse consistently changes what becomes possible for you, as one example. A different claim, and a more honest one. :)

    Thanks again for your words. The making itself is never worthless, whatever does or doesn't come after.

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  • Elif Yalvacelifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org
    Jul 29, 2026, 3:36 PM

    @Cognessence I got it on my bandcamp collection finally. It will be there to not get frustrated with having to change the radio channel or skip tracks :D

    and thanks for rereading my blog post and contributing to it!

    I guess another thing to think about is, which was something I just wrote to @Maes_Matt on another context is, to keep doing what you love anyway, and then enjoying the other stuff as a byproduct of it if it works out in the ways you wanted it to. so yes, the making itself is never worthless.

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