“The Opposite Of Shapes” is a term I’ve coined for the sound I hear in my favorite songs – the one I strain my ears for, impossible to pick out of the mix, so loud and so subtle at the same time, until I just have to believe it’s the final instrument – the sound that bubbles in between all of the tracks, everything and nothing at the same time. The element that makes a song good or not, well mixed or not, a hit or a flop. Sometimes it’s a feeling, sometimes it’s an actual sound. When that final piece reveals itself in a song, I can float in it, become it, and insert myself into that mysterious and thrilling space. I feel like it’s been made just for me.
Listen to the album while reading the text.
The name of our band, Outer Shapes, derives from that idea of the Opposite of Shapes, that we often describe the most complicated ideas through their opposites or nearby companions, through the space left empty between the others. It’s become part of our philosophy. Clouds are the opposite of shapes, nebulous and shifting, and death is the opposite of life, an unknown contrast to the brightness we know. We often talk about this idea while composing our music. We want to bring power and energy to our most intimate thoughts and feelings, hoping it helps them find their way into the world, accompanied by a unique contrast that helps strengthen and push those feelings further than we originally conceptualized. Taking the shape of something we want and warping it until something magical floats to the surface beyond our understanding, yet still only describable by what it was the moment before that element appeared.
Plus, we wanted our music to sound like outer space. Thus, Outer Shapes was born, a testament to our mission.
Inner Shapes
The cocoon of creation is a sacred place, whether it be a canvas, a studio, or a conference room. Art can be collaborative, but the best moments often come from a single mind, in a moment of inspiration, or a groove in a group headspace. Critics and fans crave the knowledge of what happened on those hollowed grounds, a secluded haven from the rest of the world. Videos of musicians recycle the same stale clips of artists in the studio, only minutes of the months they spend in their caves.
Our band is entirely composed of my partner, C, and I. We make all of our own work from start to finish, and I do all of the visual art as well. It’s been an exciting and unique experience to make art together as a couple, learning to communicate and letting it consume our world in a way that connects us more than we ever were. We share our dreams, hype each other up, and fall into bed at the end of the day, exhausted. We become our most vulnerable and create art that touches upon our deepest selves, churning over ideas comfortably for days. That depth of comfort makes everything all the more remarkable, our apartment a capsule from the rumble of the city outside.
Senses
I experience life through the space my body occupies, and I think most of us do, to a degree. We often like to think of those big, life-changing moments as the ones worth writing about, but I like to hone in on the feelings that stick with us, the ones that manifest in our bodies and cycle in our heads, whether we realize it or not. I noticed early in our songwriting process that almost all of my songs bore some connection to the body’s senses:
I find the things I’m looking for in places I can’t touch
It’s just too much,
Chocolate eyes intertwine
I could let go sense of time
Catch a moment, lose your place
feel the world in flowing waves
As I drifted through my head
I watched the constellations spread
I traced the patterns on my face
and let my ego interlace
Where do feelings stop and senses begin? I can’t seem to find the line. Our newest EP, Senses, further explores this question, with each song being based on a sense – sense of taste, sense of touch, sense of self, sense of sound, and sense of time. What’s the difference between these senses, especially the physical versus the mental? How do they connect with each other, and how do they inform every corner of our lives? Memory and feeling become one in my head. The song merges my senses with one in my body.
Art Is Freedom
I didn’t really realize I was an artist until I graduated college. I was at one of the toughest points in my life, and I started seeing a Gestalt therapist who connected me with different modes of art to see what helped me best express my troubles. Talk therapy was too limiting for me and hadn’t helped in recent times. I’d been meticulously journaling since before I began high school and had often been told I was creative. Still, the pressures in my community of academic achievement had prevented me from thinking I could ever really explore it.
I have always been obsessed with music but never considered making it myself. With this therapist, I spent time singing and humming, connecting with the vibrations in my chest and letting them flow through me. I painted as we talked other times, and art soon poured out of my body. It changed my life so profoundly to be able to access my creativity through more than just words on a page, and that helped me see in so many more dimensions. I felt like I had a purpose. I flowered into myself, and it taught me that there’s an artist in all of us if we can escape the confines of capitalism and social expectations.
Art is freedom, and it connects us to nature, to our senses and feelings (especially the most difficult ones), and to those around us. When I say art, I mean all of those creative rhythms of life, things we may do every day without thinking of it, down to getting dressed in the morning and making breakfast. I see it all through the lens of creativity, of constantly growing. I have set myself free.
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