Page 26 - Zone Magazine - Issue 033 - Jan Johnston

Hey Gavin, I really love your latest album.
I truly appreciate that you took the time to listen to the album because I made it so that people could dip into my imagination outside of the Spotify-single-song- AI- playlist paradigm that we're in right now. It's a longform expression. I didn't even want to release it as 18 separate songs. I wanted it to be a 120 minute listening excursion. Like a great DJ mix except I made all the music. And why I put it up on BandCamp, so that I could offer it as a continual mix. Then people started asking for
individual songs so made those available too.
I put it up on BandCamp and then shelter in place happened so I haven't even sent it to many DJ's or made the songs available on popular digital music sites.
What was the idea behind it?
You can read a little bit of what I wrote
here https://www.hardkiss.org/hawke and even more about it here https://www.hardkiss.org/forword
To frame it in from another perspective -- A couple of years ago, I had a shopping deal for a novel that I wrote called CUBIC LUST. I had adapted the novel into a screenplay and had a Hollywood production company opening some doors for me to pitch. I had 18 months to see if this would amount to anything. I'm an outsider, not a Hollywood type, but I have family in LA so I make a few trips there every year. It dawned on me that I was waiting for something to happen that was out of my control. I felt uncomfortable with the possibility that nothing constructive might happen. Amazing things could also happen but none of it was in my control. So I began a new project which became THE DARK ART OF LIGHT WORK.
Many ideas and influences come together in this project which is both a book and an 18 song album and other forms yet to be developed. This idea of how the imagination creates reality came into focus. I was exploring the occult, astrological predictions, integral philosophy and reading and listening to podcasts from the finest minds of the past and current times. I began writing a song a day with some new instruments and VSTs. Probing the art of bringing things from the imagination into existence. A lot of music and words were written in the spring/summer of 2019. I had a good idea of what 2020 would bring forth, my guides were telling me that shit was about to get re- arranged, and I wanted to make something for 2020. Something alert, beautiful, peaceful, contemplative and hopeful. I wanted to poison the ugliness and corruption with a contagion of another kind.
I sought out collaborators and drew on ancient musical influences, voices in Sanskrit and Hebrew, instrumentation from Africa and the Middle East. The music grew into a mix of uptempo and downtempo elements almost creating two different albums. I had been DJing for my wife's yoga class for a few years on Saturday mornings. Starting with solo piano pieces and moving through tribal and ethnic tapestries into ambient outros. Not really what you'd expect from a yoga class, moving around tempos and playing with different global flavors, creating space and
mood for the teacher and students to explore. This aesthetic influenced THE DARK ART OF LIGHT WORK. There's both music for moving and savasna. There's enough uptempo tracks to rock a Northern California dancefloor but also chill vibes too.
Can you tell us more about the 4 hawke albums you released?
I pretty much release my music myself or through friends. DARK ART OF LIGHT WORK is the 5th Hawke album which hasn't really been released but you can get it on BandCamp on Hardkiss Music. The first album, NAMAQUADISCO was released on our Hardkiss subsidiary Sunburn Recordings. Heatstroke came out on Six Degrees. Love Won another came out on Eighth Dimension. Plus Plus Plus was self released. Love In Stars came out on Hardkiss Music. It's available on the website: https:// www.hardkiss.org/product-page/hawke-vault-mp3-5-x- hawke-albums-extras.
What was the inspiration behind the albums?
Each album is a different period of my life. I'm just messing around with sounds and ideas and techniques and song writing. It's a hodge podge of different shit some of it more cohesive than others. I'm learning and experimenting with the people around me.
Can you tell us more about the
treasure hunt album and
gold USBs?
For the album LOVE IN STARS which came out around 2017, I wanted to bury my music catalog underneath the tallest building in San Francisco which they were building at the time.. But when I tried to infiltrate the building site to put the golden USB in the cement mixer, I got stopped. I wanted so some future archeologists to find my music as an artifact. Plan B was to triangulate the Bay Area with my music. I chose to place golden USB drives with my music catalog in three of the highest points around the Bay. I hid golden USBs in Richmond, San Francisco's Alamo Park and in Marin County on top of Mt Tamalpais. I inserted the first clues to finding the USBs in Hardkiss vinyl record sleeves at several record stores in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Rafael. People who got the first clue were directed to the second clue - a URL to a video clue to finding the USBs. Then people went on missions to find my music. A fan flew in from Texas. Eventually all the USBs were found. It was a super fun way to connect with people and take the whole process off of Spotify and the other digital monopolies into the real world.
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