Often it’s the deadline, to be really honest. Also, research is my favorite part. I could just research forever. But then I actually need to produce. Maybe that’s why the offering part is so beautiful, because each offering/performance is different because it’s a different time, it’s a different space, and I’m a different person. Each day you’re a different person, and because the people you’re doing this with are also different, the work changes. Maybe you’ve found something else that inspired you, so you add it and let the work grow. It grows infinitely, alongside you. With video, it’s set, so it’s harder to add to it even if sometimes you’re kind of like, “Oh my god, I would love to add this.” With embodied practice it’s easier. It grows with me. That’s something I love, especially because my research never ends. It’s ever evolving.

I don’t know the answer to that, especially with projects like Seat Assignment or Sorted Books, because both do still feel ongoing. The Sorted Books Project is my longest ongoing project to date, where I’m working in libraries or book collections with other people’s books and trying to work only with what’s there, to draw something out from the book arrangements I make.

My mind is nearly like an infinite tunnel of potential ideas, but the ideas are all a part of what is already there. In my imagination, I always think there are more parts to record. Then when I work it through, I make it to a certain point and I’m like, “Actually, that’s enough.” Some of the extra bits that I’m thinking of are suggested anyway by interaction with what is already there, and it gets to a point where to add anything more would just be too much. I often imagine recording parts that people actually do hear, but are not actually there. By the time I’m done with the main guitar and other elements, [more parts] don’t capture anything else with all those suggested things. If I try to realize them, it’s less effective. I think that’s why people have often said they hear different things depending on how they listen to [our music].

I keep messing with it until it gets to the mix table. Sometimes you can’t just change the whole song, but maybe I can change a verse in the very last moment or a chord or the introduction to the song, or the song’s order, some fade-ins or fadeouts. It’s a tough process letting go, saying, “This is it. It’s going to be this way. There were multiple choices, but we’ve chosen this one.” But it’s also a relief because it means you stop wondering. You stop thinking about it and you just let the songs find their own way and say goodbye to them and hello at some point because you’re going to start playing them live and it’s a way to actually get to know your song once you finished it. I usually know. It feels like a release to let go of a song.