Nothing is lost on the latest single from artistic alchemist CLAUDIO, 'Losing You'.
A lavish art-pop wonderland glazed with R&B arrangements and ardent basslines, 'Losing You' tackles themes of self-sabotage and the subconscious in sophistication.Written, recorded, produced and performed by CLAUDIO, 'Losing You' dazzles in humid beats, glossy reverb and emphatic backing vocals. The track was engineered by Mark McEwan (Birds Of Tokyo, Tkay Maizda) and mastered by John Greenham (Billie Eilish).
"It's inspired by the witnessing of self-sabotage in real-time; and feeling powerless against the momentum of trauma patterning," shares CLAUDIO.
"I came to the difficult-to-swallow understanding some years back via a rapidly failing relationship, that self-awareness is not always enough to outrun the deeper wiring of the subconscious.
"Especially when two people are inter-playing their childhood-written programmes as if they were literally scripted and being acted out."
Continuing to explore those themes, here CLAUDIO expresses her thoughts about converting a feeling (good or bad) into a sound and the creative process required to achieve such outcomes.
"I was born in Perth and lived in Paris, France for over a decade. Although my life has pivoted around my own art and music, as time goes on, I find myself becoming more holistic and inclusive in what I wish for my experience of art and music to be.
"I do believe that starting this process of self-excavation is a great beginning for anyone wanting to access their truth.
"These are possible beginning steps for a deep creative process, especially for those who feel very stuck in their self-expression and don't know where to begin."
1: STOP
Catch yourself in a feeling. Especially a feeling from which our positivity-obsessed culture instinctively runs. It is no coincidence that we're experiencing an epidemic of anxiety and depression in our culture.Most of us were raised to fear the rising discomfort of difficult emotions, which is very problematic because they're an inevitable part of the human experience. They also make for some of the best art.
Most of us had (very well-meaning) parents who either dismissed, punished or distracted us from expressing anything 'bad' – like anger, disappointment or sadness – believing that if they didn't control it, that we'd never learn resilience.
Except that resilience does not come from suppressing emotions. Doing so is a recipe for mental illness and disease. Resilience is being able to make sense of our experiences and choose an appropriate path in light of them. Funnily enough, good art will give you that too.
The other problem with trying to stop an emotion is that you can't. You can stop someone from outwardly expressing a feeling. You can't stop their body from experiencing it. When you stop a child from expressing their feelings, you send them the message that they are less acceptable to you while they're experiencing a problem.
Therefore, we're conditioned in our society to believe ourselves to be unacceptable/ unpresentable while we're experiencing a problem. So we hide. And try to 'stop the bad feelings' instead of sitting with them and allowing them to run through and out of us.
So sit with it. Literally. At the height of what you deem to be the ugliest parts of yourself, right there in the thick of it, even if you're really un-proud of your most recent string of choices, a radical choice is to get brave enough to say to your body: "I love and accept you. Exactly as you are."
You might cry at this. There will be a lifetime of backlog. Let it all out. You don't need to fear drowning in tears when you were drowning anyway. Resist all distraction.
When the urge to run or change something or the negative inner dialogue starts to flare, say over and over: "I love and accept you as you are." This in itself is transformative for most people.
2: NAME IT
Remind yourself that nothing needs changing. In this process – just as we could in life – we're using all the feelings as indicators. There is no such thing as a 'wrong' feeling. Literally ask your body: "What is this feeling or programme called?"If you give it a second, your body will likely come back with some emotionally-charged belief. Almost all of the information that comes out of this process will pre-date the actual situation by about a lifetime.
Ie. most of these limiting programmes have been sitting there in the subconscious since our childhoods – playing themselves out over and over like prophecies. Eg. "NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME." "I CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT." "EVERYTHING IS MY FAULT." Etc. Etc. Everyone has them.
To view them with neutrality is one of the greatest things you can do for your art or your health. I tend to view them symbiotically.
This can be big for a lot of people. They usually sit squashed under a shame wound. Meaning, the subconscious doesn't want us to see them. It believes its job is to protect us from those truths. So when we discover them, they usually hit with a lot of charge. Ie. you'll probably feel rocked to the core to stumble across one.
Take your time with it all. Once you've sat with the revelation of it and the charge has come off a bit, now you can choose what you'd like to do with it.
Where do we go from here? Are we purely expressing the feelings around the old programme? Who we thought we were? The craziness of finding it? Or are we letting it go and celebrating that? Are we telling a story with a clear narrative or are we letting a feeling be communicated in pictures and sounds?
There's an infinite number of ways to go. You just have to choose a direction then if your still stuck. . .
