When is a creative work finished?

Willem de Kooning, a leading abstract expressionist painter from the 20th century, maintained that he never finished a painting, just that his paintings escaped from the studio. In other words, he saw art as an endless exploration rather than a finished product.

It’s an interesting question – when is a creative work finished and ready to share with the world? For me, it’s been quite different with each Space March album I’ve created. Some just fell into place and the finish line seemed pretty obvious. Other albums have been through endless revisions and it seemed almost impossible for me to let the album go.

On my latest album, it’s been a very natural process. I’ve certainly put a huge amount of time into this album, but each song has always stayed pretty true to the original vision – it’s just been about making sure that it reaches its full potential.

In my last post, I anticipated that the first single would be released sometime in July/August. Well, that hasn’t happened.

I was originally thinking of getting the album close to done and then finishing off a track each month and releasing it. The issue with this, I realised, is that I’m making a concept album – the changes and improvements I make on one track may have implications for other tracks on the album.

So I’ve made the decision to finish the whole album first before I release anything. The production is now finished and I’m very happy with how it’s sounding. I will fine tune the mixes and masters over the coming few weeks with the view to releasing the first single in December with each subsequent single being one month apart.

It kicks!

I’m really proud of this diverse collection of songs, and importantly, I haven’t got sick of them yet. Production wise, it’s sounds both retro and futuristic, mixing styles in new and unexpected ways.

Get ready.

Craig // Space March