While some of the overdubs on this recording are passable, the fact that it uses the entire Dilla instrumental clearly shows my amateur technique at the time of release.

      Grade: D

In light of my recent work, it’s amusing to hear the drums bone-dry. The looping piano line has a nice curve, though perhaps outstays its welcome. The splices, which were a really exciting discovery for me at the time, still sound good to my ears. My first foray into what I now call “fragmentation”, on which Like Drinking a Shadow is a kind of essay. The piece conveys an effect of being trapped in a kind of frayed “knot” of time, hearing the same thing repeatedly, sometimes whole, sometimes in shards. Cursory sound engineering holds this piece back from being as immersive as it could be.

      Grade: C

An attempted expansion upon the ideas of Time-Knot which fails because at least one of the component loops sounds like a mess ([0:15]). Not without good ideas, but overall not a listenable track. The thought of putting this on aux is pretty amusing.

      Grade: F

A live performance into a 4-track looper (decked out with plenty of reverb and delay) which holds up better than I anticipated. I really like the primary motif, which starts looping at [0:32]: it has a beautifully tranquil berceuse-like¹ quality to me. Some haphazardly played parts, a lack of sonic variation, and overall amateur production hold the piece back from creating the kind of high-resolution water for the listener to swim in that it was aiming for. Also another instance of loitering loops which addle the freshness of the music.

      Grade: C

A breakthrough, and a piece which has stood the test of time for me as source of inspiration. The way that the sequencing of the piece unfolds somehow implies a world that I can still get lost in even after listening to this recording probably over 100 times. If I could, by some magic, pick any one of my recordings to turn into a 3d space that I could explore, this would probably be the one (above even Hardcandy, which is a kind of spiritual successor to Like Drinking a Shadow which applies vastly refined production techniques towards creating a similarly imaginative space). The rippling pool of harmony which blooms out of the descending 5ths that open the piece is one of my favorite moments from my discography, and its reprise in the final minute works wonderfully.

It’s a shame that my ear for mixing wasn’t very developed at the time of making this piece, because the moments throughout the recording where an element pops out as louder than intended, or where the dynamics proceed in a somewhat clunky way, distract (if only mildly) from music which is richly complex and thoroughly surreal. A statue among stones on Page 1, and still one of my best compositions to date.

      Grade: A-

The pieces in Sketchbook Page 1 were my first time figuring out how to use audio as such, i.e. not merely a means for transmitting live recordings. This was an important turning point in my music, and I’m glad that, looking back on these works 8 months later, I can clearly see their value and influence in my artistic journey, even if the majority of the individual pieces don’t hold up very well. I hope that this will serve as encouragement to some artist out there reading this, as an illustration that works which may seem like failures can actually be crucial steps on your path.