The Missing Piece

This was the last piece of music I made for the album. I had “finished” the record, but something didn’t feel quite right with the overall form. I went through the quotes for guidance, as I had done throughout the process, and found one that matched up with my feelings at the time: “I have the feeling that something is missing, but I don’t know what it is”.

Beyond being the missing piece of the album, the quote connected me to all of those important parts of my life that have slipped away over the years for one reason or another. All of the close relationships that fell by the wayside or were forcibly removed by life’s corners. But when I set about the writing process, what I found wasn’t some sort of lamentation, the music became the missing piece itself, as much as the commentary about loss. And as music does, it could hold that jumble of ideas and feelings coherently in a way that words cannot. It filled the gap for me at the time, so I named it accordingly, rather than sticking precisely to the quote.

This highlights something relevant about the whole album. I tried to represent the quotes with each piece of music, but in hindsight, often I am trying to remedy the situation in that process. Difficult states are presented both as a reflection, and a source of hope or positivity, which is in the end, why any of this music is worth making. Closing on that felt much better.

Audio
Max Cooper

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