photograph of the artists mother and grandmother 1949 - 1950
Edits (2007 - 2023)
by David Ort
In late 2022, just after my daughter was born, a friend called me and asked if I'd like to produce some ambient tracks to submit to the major streaming platforms and playlists, which didn’t pan out in the end, but just the thought of it inspired me to lean deeper into my music. So that's how the Album “Edits” came to be, as a bit of an assignment.
The real beginning, though, goes a lot further back. In my head I had a long list of nearly finished tracks that I could share with my friend out of the gate. I think I said I’d give him 10 in the first week. In reality, and to my surprise and dismay, I did not actually have 10 nearly finished tracks. What I did have though was about 15 years worth of sketches and fragments of musical ideas. I had files I had made on an old 90s workstation (“Bells”), and files that were 30 min takes of eurorack modular synthesizer experiments (“March”). I had grooves that had something good going, but weren't working as the complex dance tracks that they had intended to be (“The Beach at Night”). I did also have a few songs that were composed as ambient works but they didn't have any context, so even though they were some of my favorites, they weren't landing well when I let others listen (“The Ship Yard”) .
But the assignment was essentially to be minimalist, so I went through the catalog and cut out all the fat. I stripped out anything overtly percussive. I grabbed little clips of musical phrases that I never felt were complete. I sought the small choices that were lurking the background that had become, in time, the thing I was most attached to. And that’s where I started in on the process of reworking and finally finishing things.
There is a freedom in the editing process. A freedom from making something entirely novel, that part’s already done. Now the task is to make it complete. To imbue it with structure, or to find a way to exalt the parts of the piece that really matter. That freedom and process was very empowering to me, I was able to give credit to the musical phrases and powerfully choose if they are enough. That all the other bells and whistles that I was adding to them were obstructing the deepest self expression which were in the melodies, harmonies, and textures.
As I mentioned, at the same time as this “assignment” came about, my wife had just given birth to our daughter. Each night, after the baby went to bed I would listen back and edit these works in a very intentionally peaceful environment. It was a very emotional time and I was able to use that sensitivity to mine the archives for only the most moving pieces and exalt them. And that's how it continued week after week. I would reach back into the files, as far back as 2007, and find any glimmer of something that may have stood the test of time. Anything that peeked through the sloppy sketches and presented itself as worthy. The editing process is ultimately about a finishing process. Which is where the album really coalesced.
Just as I was getting closer to completing that process some new information about long lost family came into my life. We were given new information about my family history: the opportunity to know why my Grandfather took his own life in 1948. The information was simultaneously harsh and healing. It was something new coming from so deep within the past and all of its weight was reconfiguring our memories and feelings. All of our “maybes" had a new lens which we had to now look through. We had to make a deep edit of our perception of my grandfather, an artist himself, and his story. This was a story about suffering and healing, about what is hidden and what is revealed. What is expressed and what is repressed. What happens to all of that when given enough time. Sometimes stripping obstructions and falsehood is the only way to see the beauty and sincerity that was always there underneath. It's about time and how some choices we make can ripple through generations.
”Edits” is an album about finding peace and power in the things that are emerging from the past. It’s about the power of revision.