goodbye inertia (2024)

yo what’s good who’s here!!!!!! my friend steph said bring the substack back so i said alright. 1 A.M. in my room i love when hong kong is cold, almost recovered from a brutal weeklong flu, coming alive again came with the urge to attack my keyboard and monologue at whoever’s subscribed to this (thank you, but also why? haha not sure why anyone would click yes to hear me ramble. sorry and thanks bless you). notes to self a la word vomit incoming.

last january i was afraid of things changing but more afraid of things not changing. sometime in the middle of the year i cracked the egg of inertia on my heart that was stone cold from lack and longing and at first nothing broke, it was too cold and the floor was too slippery, and then everything fell apart. and like that image of the rainbow in akira kurosawa’s dreams all the light came spilling in like sand, so warm and gentle and generous, in every crack and crevice i found something i accepted i had lost forever ago, there were so many gifts to open, i wasn’t even ready to take it all in, where did all this love come from?

i haven’t felt this myself in a million years, feel like i drained my heart wide open last year and renewed my sense of self and flowered all the friendships i was so lucky to have in my life. there are a lot of people in LA and NY that i miss and have had trouble keeping in touch with but all my close friends in hong kong know me, see me, inspire me, move me and challenge me in ways i didn’t expect when i moved back here with a frown in 2019. i’ll count my blessings every day.

was so goddamn busy latter half of the year, in the best way. worked with my dear friend ollie chen (filmmaker + musician, he’s part of the band almond milk, i made a cantonese song with them last year) on some exciting tings (scored his short film, shot BTS pictures, we shot this other short film that i’m less proud of but some songs came out of that), had a few sound design commercial gigs that were fun, picked the discipline of opening ableton every day back up for a few months in the fall (i stopped tho lol but i’ll get back). i’ve got three songs coming out soon that will be part of willow tree deluxe/extended/blah blah blah edition, the single i hope label can help push is called screws and i’m proud of it, i think i made it in a few hours after restringing my bass and guitar with flatwound strings and was just playing around with a motown inspired kinda sound. i love the rush of completing something that you did in a short amount of time / on a whim. spending weeks on mixing a song is cool with me but i hate when the writing process (of a song) spans longer than like a month. it irks me so much. I NEED INSTANT GRATIFICATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i just like working your way to get to “the zone” and then coming out of it with a 99% finished product. tweaking afterwards is fine but that trance is magical and necessary for me to feel the rush. fuck, that feels so good.

anyway i also, in that trance way, made this IDM (ish? electronica / ambient?) 24 track album essentially in 2 weeks, most of them were exported immediately and untweaked etc. this “brain to disk” approach (play, practice,, no fine tuning, instinct driven, experiment/practice-forward, anti perfectionist, anti quality even, quantity, make more “bad” things mindset, do more think less, make faster than you can judge) was something that really helped me get unstuck creatively. naturally as an artist you wanna have a polished discography, and i’m not saying i wanna put out bad albums but it is more important that i’m practicing the craft, running the motors, using the muscles. telling myself i’m an artist without making anything (songs, essays, zines, photographs) feels so shit. i feel like my life is useless when i’m not, in my head, in the middle of a project. even if it’s a small silly project like a zine that 7 people will buy. that’s the shit that keeps me going. i know productivity culture is toxic if you’re doing it for work/society/others etc. but personally i think it’s healthy. actually that’s an understatement. it is intrinsic to my survival!!!!!!!!!! alas. i have this post it on my desk that says MAKE MORE BAD TINGS and it came after hours of talking with ryan on the phone in september when we were talking about being stuck with tryna write good songs. that’s something i’m tryna carry with me into 2025 and the rest of my life. anyway that album is called YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE A LOT and idk when i’m allowed to release it (gotta wait till after the three songs) or whether imma release under cehryl or cehyrl for jokes.

2024 was a great year man, thank you whoever/whatever’s up there. i feel good. i feel great!!!!!!!! i feel incredibleeeeeeee and i hope you do too. feeling mucho positivo like that star eyed emoji. i feel inspired and i feel loved, and i have a lot of love to give and pour into people and things. i’m very happy to be alive. may each year be better! may each day be better! may we be better! in all ways! as friends! as artists! as humans! goodnight!