2026

Welp.. Happy New Year!! 2025 was definitely one for the books considering how much work I was able to release. This year I'll be continuing to focus on a lot of my musical endeavors. Here's what I got going on:

1. The Yamaha MT8X
I've finally found an 8 Track Cassette Recorder that was in great condition at a reasonbable price. Did a short test with it the other day and it seems like it's ready to go. This unit will be the offical recording unit for LST LVS personal projects from here on out. I have some ideas that I'm going to be drawing out in the next few weeks that will hopefully see some light for 2026. Stay tuned for that

2. Yamaha CP
I finally got a keyboard that could keep me away from using some free VST software for my DAW. Now that I have this keyboard I'm able to connect it to my guitar hero guitar to do some midi connection and write the riffs I wanted to write with no restrictions. This has been such a great addition for the setup that I'm now off the market for a keyboard. This is all I need

3. SP-303 & SP-404 MKII
Last year I started dipping my toes into sample based recording. When I inititally bought the SP-303 I wanted to see how the workflow felt using something archaic than the new samplers we have today. I exclusively want to sample from cassettes and have been bringing this unit to work to sample from cassettes I bought from SAVERS. Intially this was just to get the exercise of capturing samples a certain way, but at this point I'm realizing that this workflow helps keep my mind fresh on how I work on sampling and to figure out new ways to record.

4. Recording Projects
I think I'm going to be going full steam ahead writing and recording this year. Not sure how many releases will be in the chamber, but I have a couple planned. There's a collaboration that I can't really speak on just yet, a couple of tapes and maybe tracks that I can one off for you all to enjoy. I want to keep the practice of writing and releasing stuff just so I can see it out in the world.

5. Photo Editing
This year will be the year I'll finally take the editing of scanned photos serious. I'm going to be doing my best not to shoot as much and focus primarily on the editing side of photography. I've shot enough work and I think that it needs to be displayed somewhere. I don't know where, but somewhere and somehow.

... and that's where I'm realizing the artistic direction is chaning. I've shot so much, but edited so little that I forgot that the meaning of photography (at least in my end of it) is to shoot and edit your work and not just SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT all the fucking time. I'm beginning to realize that the camera is fading away in interest and I'm slowly wanting to just dive in on the other side of editing the work and cleaning up what I got. I have to be good and I have to let that side of me be in full focus. Photography has not been that attractive for awhile and I think there's that shift that I'm beginning to understand with others who had faded from it all these years.

I have a lot going on this year that will require a lot of time at home rather than go out and I'm okay with that. With the time I have to record these days I'm going to be doing my best to write as much as I can this year. Pretty excited man.


- Arthur (B)