Unprofessional Artist

from Organic Machine

October 25th, 2024

16 tracks

52:09

Organic Machine

Unprofessional Artist

0:00

3:40

Unprofessional Artist

Talking with Hands

‘Why am I doing this?’ When I know not many people are listening… Then I start to think about… the true… ‘What are you looking for in getting someone to listen?’ Because I’m long past the aspiration or the grasping for fame It’s not about that There’s no… the point of all this is to express myself But in the hope of finding resonation with someone else It’s not like I want to find someone else in order to gain something Other than just being heard and understood Just resonance (Unambitious, Unprofessional A hobbyist toiling away to impress himself on a world that will never care Never breaching the surface to inhale the intoxicating spray of success Never tasting the sweet treatment of invested capital Burrowing ever deeper into the delicate comfort of obscurity Unsophisticated and alone, forever Unprofessional Artist) The breadth of that resonance, is kind of like the weird, undefined area I know that the main reason that I do this is because that if I don’t express myself If I don’t get these ideas out of my head, I will regret it But even as I get them out, and they’re available… Of course, when it doesn’t find resonance, it’s disappointing Everyone is looking for someone to understand them, to get them And I feel like it’s simultaneously an extraordinary gift to be able to express yourself as an artist At the same time, having a unique voice or expressing yourself in a unique way… By definition means that your audience is smaller and smaller

3:36

Videos

A wonderful dose of accidental destiny happened in the process of making Organic Machine, the third full-length album from Talking with Hands - songwriter Matthew Smith created a treatise on the value of the human creative process.

Ostensibly, the album was intended to be a pair of EP’s pondering the implications of Artificial Intelligence on the creative landscape and the impossibilities of the music business, particularly as we hurdle towards a future of devalued compositions. However, in allowing himself to embrace an “anything goes” approach to the sonic landscape, Smith crafted a single cohesive album that yearns for recognition (“#1 Record”) while equally affirming that the act of creation is a compulsion, not a conduit to a prize (“Unprofessional Artist”). These decidedly homo sapien ideas appear throughout the album, as Smith ponders creativity itself (“King of Hands”), the scarcity of time (“Nothing is Forever”) and the feedback loop of interacting with technology (“Everything Is Better”).

Organic Machine weaves together buzzing guitars, delightful sampling flourishes, hyper processed vocals and, occasionally, multiple narrators. These compositions serve as a nod to the massive, diverse, source material that a generative AI draws from but, moreso, serve as an introspection of the value of the creative process.

Credits

Words & Music by Matt Smith
Engineered, Produced and Mixed by Matt Smith at FunHouse in Los Angeles
Mastered by Tye Bellar
Artwork by Michael Eades
©2024 Songs By Hands (ASCAP)

Thanks to: Bellar, Cammarn, Eades, Frazier, Hamada, Hooper, Masters, Pigg, Rogers, Sun, Smith