Welcome to the new version of the Will Stratton website. I've always wanted to have a site that is easily customizable, links to all that social media stuff, and has a simple blogging platform, and I think I finally found what I was looking for. I'm in creative hibernation mode right now, writing when I can and planning the first steps of making new recordings. Stay tuned for more on that soon.
This has been an eventful year; a little while after getting through cancer treatment and moving back to New York City for love's sake, I left my old job in the city and moved up the Hudson River with my girlfriend and our cat, Loretta. I like the vibe up here; it gives me the quiet I need to think, and I already sense a difference in the music I've been writing. The quiet has made me a little more curious about other people's music, too. In New York City music and sound are constant, and to someone with an auditory sensitivity, sometimes abrasive. Yet since I've left, I think I've listened to more music that came out this year. There is something about not having time to listen to music all day when I'm not working at a desk that elicits a real need to sit down and listen when I have the time. So, especially in the last few months, I have found myself with a long list of albums that I needed to make time to check out, most of which I tracked down and heard, some of which I never did. No Quarter, a record label that I really love based in Louisville, Kentucky, makes their music especially scarce on streaming sites like Spotify and even places like Bandcamp, and so although I intended to purchase Joan Shelley's new record this month, I haven't gotten around to it yet--perhaps I'll just get it on vinyl. I admire the tenacity that comes with emphasizing the physical medium to that extent at a time when most people just don't give a damn one way or another, but my own habits have been swallowed up by the passivity of digital consumption as much as the habits of so many other listeners...the instantaneity of streaming it is hard to overcome when there is a deficit of money and especially time on hand, and I think almost everyone I know feels the same way about this.
Anyway: a lot of music has passed through my ears this year, and most of it that has stuck with me will end up on a favorite albums list later this month.