Shawn Rudiman – Conduit and Flow State
A photograph of Shawn Rudiman’s Pittsburgh studio, where he disappears every day to make music.
Mastery
Sometimes I wish I had the confidence of a dude who had no idea. Isn’t it enviable: the confidence of the completely ignorant? The Dunning-Kruger Effect? Instead, I’m saddled with that very millennial impostor syndrome, especially pronounced among those of us who are generalists in an uncertain world. What’s my skillset really, we wonder as we traipse from professional assignment to professional assignment. I can code a bit here and there, but I’m not a software engineer. I can manipulate data a bit when needed, but I’m not a data analyst. And I can optimise processes, but am I an operations fellow?
Then there’s the other voice in my head that says, if you’ve gotten where you’ve gotten, you must know something. The world isn’t particularly replete with people throwing their hard-earned pandemic money at hacks. So how about you keep those niggling doubts at bay and go for it, carpe diem, not all those wander are lost, we shall overcome? Besides, what other option is there. Fake it ‘til you make it. One for all and all for one. When the levee breaks, you’ve got no place to stay. Well, not the last one.
But then there’s what I know to be true. What’s truly enviable isn’t the rarified air of Mount Stupid. It’s the confidence that comes with true mastery. Yes it’s a fleeting confidence that is inevitably replaced by thoughts of inadequacy when the road ahead to greater mastery makes itself apparent. After all, it is as Aristotle said, or Socrates, or Plato, (I think Socrates), that it’s those that know the most that feel they know the least. (Yes, it’s Socrates: socratic ignorance / wisdom, it’s called.) That with great knowledge also comes the knowledge of how little one knows and just how much there is to know. That’s the gold standard, I’ve always felt. That’s the quality I’ve found in Shawn Rudiman’s twin tapes Conduit and Flow State, released in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
Conduit
On the face of it, Conduit is a simple techno album. As evidenced by the conspicuous absence of techno-related ramblings on Stranger Fiction, you might be able to infer that I’m not much of a techhead. In fact, my love for electronic music usually finds a more natural home in house, garage, ambient, electronica etc. But Conduit isn’t a simple techno album. For one, there’s an emphasis on melody that sets it apart from many of its comrades. Then, there’s a more measured reliance on the boom-boom-boom-boom of the kick, which makes for a more dynamic listening experience. And finally, there’s a greater-than-ordinary understanding of atmospherics.
Flow State
This focus is particularly apparent with Flow State, where techno’s usual pulsing kick becomes a rarity. I don’t even really think of Flow State as a techno album, seeing as it covers plenty of ground from all those electronic music subgenres I previously mentioned, particularly electronica and ambient. Instead of resting its gaze on techno structures, its relentless focus is on moving atmospherics. This allows its music to emote in a way that straightforward techno often does not. The result is more than just a double-album of experimental electronic music: it’s a technically accomplished, emotionally dense aural tapestry you find yourself experiencing for close to 2 hours.
Music – like most creative work – is part art and part craft, and mastery of the craft helps further self-expression through the art. It’s simple really: well-crafted poetry does a significantly better job of conveying emotion than poorly-crafted poetry. [1] It’s clear that the Pittsburgh-based Shawn Rudiman works tirelessly to make music that flows so effortlessly. It’s easy to see that for every minute of music committed to tape, hours of music must’ve been consigned to oblivion. When I think of the flow state of the 2021 album’s title, I imagine not someone ignorantly assembling blips and blops and hoping for the best, but someone whose skill has been honed, someone who disappears into his studio every single day of the week to assemble a perfect emotional mindmap. It’s the confidence that comes with that sort of mastery and single-mindedness that I wish to emulate.
[1] How many poems have attempted to express what Maggie Smith’s Good Bones does. How many manage to?
I have yet to hear an underwhelming Thou record. A decade after Heathen, Thou’s 2024 release, Umbilical, is just as fantastic a representation of Thou’s brand of sludgy doom. Or is it doomy sludge?