OK, so let's establish a couple of things right off the bat.

First, you should be forewarned that this record has almost no music on it. I suppose one might call it a spoken-word-ish kinda thing. ... except that it's not full of stories or poetry or prose so much as just me talking about stuff. Does that make it more like a podcast than a record? Maybe.

Second, this is a record about making records. More specifically, it's a very-quickly-put-together record about how i made a bunch of _other_ very-quickly-put-together records.

Hrm. Let me try again.

Every March since 2016, a brave bunch of artists set out to try something insane: to create a full-length concept album entirely within one month. This challenge, called International Concept Album Month (InCoAlMo), is designed to help people blast through creative road blocks by forcing them to compose and record as much as they can in a very short period of time. The results, as you might imagine, have been various and amazing, ranging from professional-sounding full-length records from veteran artists to short rough recordings representing someone's very first musical endeavor. ... not to mention a wild array of crazy projects everywhere in between.

After completing the InCoAlMo challenge during its first five years, i decided to spend my sixth challenge on a retrospective album. This recording, purposely entitled "6 2x4s", presents six pairs of four-minute narratives that tell some of the stories of my preceding InCoAlMo records and the creative processes behind them. The first pair (the first and last track) serve as introduction and lookback on the overall experience, while the other five pairs each talk about the result of one past year's InCoAlMo challenge and one song selected from it.

While this collection of tracks may not make it into your personal dance mix, it was a chance for me to share some thoughts on the fun, difficulties, discoveries, and outcomes of what has been for me an incredibly liberating creative journey. My hope is that it might relate some interesting tidbits to fellow InCoAlMo artists, dedicated creators of recorded works, and/or anyone interested in the adventurous process of making art.

For those interested in hearing the source material, all five albums referenced on this record -- "An Ocean" (2016), "16-Hour Fuse, Book 1: Driving The Monkey" (2017), "Let Go Harder" (2018), "All A Game" (2019), and "Sketchbook For A Requiem" (2020) -- are available in my Bandcamp discography.

For those interested in digging deeper, a few "bonus tracks" (available with download) provide some additional (and potentially embarrassing) insights into the processes and by-products of making these albums.

I welcome anyone interested in pushing their creative boundaries -- or in just hearing a little about how music can get made -- to take a listen to a track or few (or a dozen) and share in a little part of the journey.


For a better sample of my musical efforts when i actually have time to pay attention to performance and production, check out my former eclectic rock project at northmusic1.bandcamp.com or thenorthwebsite.com .

For more about the annual creative challenge of International Concept Album Month, check out incoalmo.com .