I should preface this by saying that this is a personal reflection, and not intended as a universal statement on music appreciation. My distaste of certain ideas and approaches is largely fueled by my evolving experience of music, and the way I project that onto the world.

Lately, I've grown disillusioned by the way music is sometimes consumed—appreciated, or worse, dismissed for reasons that stray too far from what music fundamentally is. Over-intellectualisation can overshadow the raw, emotional experience of sound. I know that music can invite discussion of culture, genre, theory, and our personal biases, but when abstractions like these dictate value, I can't help but feel like something vital has been lost.

What does this have to do with Muse? Well, I think they're a band that reflects this idea in my own life. Their music—like so much I loved growing up—carries a sense of seriousness. Yet this seriousness contradicts how we naturally perceive music when we're you

I wanted to shed some light on some behind-the-scenes stuff pertaining to the recent gig for Stimulacrum @ The Bee's Mouth, and also touch on some of the struggles I've been having with regard to gigging and my health.

The set was performed on a pair of Elektron synthesizers - a Monomachine and a Machinedrum UW, with custom firmware (X.01A and X.10), a MegaCMD with MCL 4.51, an Arturia Minilab 3, and a 3x3 MIDI merge device (U6 MIDI pro) to route everything. It was mixed with a Mackie Mix8 and recorded with a Zoom H4N Pro recorder from the tape output.

The routing was essentially:

1. MD in -> MCL out 1
2. MD out -> MCL in 1
3. MnM in -> U6 out 1
4. MnM out -> U6 in 1
5. MCL in 2 -> U6 out 2
6. MCL out 2 -> U6 in 2
7. MiniLab out -> U6 in 3

The MIDI merge routing was something like:

1. In 1 ->