Hold up! Before I delve into a long-winded and long overdue recollection and ramble on the potential crops of labor this my second year of audial Inktober may have produced, let me first give you this:

It may not be all instrumental, it may not be all metal (maybe not at all metal?), but for me at least it is somewhat monumental! And maybe momentarily a little mental - but I meant all that I sent y'all.

INK 19 is all of last year's daily material in mixtape form, with thorough additional mixing and mastering by the one and only @Jabun! Starring @S3C, @HOTSTUFFDX, @Father-of-Death, @JamesHeart, @Jabun here too, @littlbox and WyteNoiz on occasional instrumentals/beats/boxes, and a few exclusive leftover bits from way back when. Everything's fully revisited; balanced; hopefully as good as recording quality allows it to be.

You can listen to the full thing here on NG, on my site, or download the full pack with individual tracks right here.

Share if you like! Enjoy, and go check out @Jabun's solo material too if you haven't already - or his showreel if you need a master master!

And now over to that long overdue; by now old and fruity Inktober rant:

Inktober turned out awesome this year. Wasn't sure it'd match up to last, but how wrong was I? It all comes back to you, and then some.

I started with a lot of resistance, but as Steven Pressfield says you just gotta learn to overcome that systemically to stay creative; keep pushing yourself and make new things. The War of Art. Thanks @BenTibbetts for that great random (to me at the time - very thought-out otherwise) reading recommendation a few years back!

I ended up collabing with NG peeps on more than half of the daily recordings this year, of which at least 3-4 were pretty elaborate. ninjamuffin99 and KillerRATband handled the mixes on theirs for appreciatively different flavors, but everything else is yours truly. For now. Potential reinterpretations and improvements on a few of the better ones may be on route, like this just recently. And this a while earlier - that one's been a looong time coming now!

Hope to do even more next year. Collabs I mean. Collabs every day? Is that possible? Without planning ahead too much and thus entirely bypassing the very essence of what Inktober is meant to be?

I felt like I burnt myself out enough with what I did this year, but then again I felt the same way last year and that amounted to just half as much, and nothing after, with shorter acapellas too on most days with no collabs. It feels like you realize when you push yourself that you're capable of so much more than you think.

It's an inspiring feeling; something only this particular challenge has truly brought forth in me for the past two years now. So maybe I need to push myself even further to truly greet that greatness I desire to aspire?

You learn to handle stress better too. You grow efficient by necessity. You effectivize your workflow in ways you never knew you needed to until you just don't have the time to do things the hard way, like how I just recently learned how much more efficient the envelope tool in Audacity might be at consistently adjusting the flow of the sound instead of manually amplifying individual bits up and down (thanks for that one @Jabun). And compression. I need to use that. Probably. And panning. Production game be stepping. Up!

So I'm definitely getting back to this 2021! No matter how much resistance I might feel for it at that particular point in time. And hopefully I won't have that familiar phase before then where I drop these creative pursuits entirely; need to warm up to the idea of it all over again. It's all too easy to get into a rut. To get comfortable. To let that spark diminish. Don't let it!

Lemme know if y'all want to collab again next year! Or whenever. I'm down now. Life's looking up. Days are busy but awesome. And here you go again, don't miss that mixtape! Revised somewhat by me with additional mixing and mastering by the one and only y'allreadyknow @Jabun!

We've been going back and forth on this the past month now, and though the original recordings are far from best source quality (I'll blame those daily deadlines and frequent lack of time overall but should probably be blaming my recording/production ethics) I'm really happy with how this turned out! Going to be playing it on every drive to work for a while now; rap along with myself. Good practice; efficient jam sessions; suitable methods of keeping you awake and stimulated whilst on those dark and wet wintery roads that just started getting brighter again! This time's the time it all turns.

This really turned into a rant, or maybe more so a causerie of observations and experiences regarding this particular yearly event. Also read up on the controversy surrounding the Inktober name back when I wrote the above. It's trademarked. Though with non-profit things it should be no problem, so I guess I'll keep using it anyway since I've done so thus far! Until a better name comes along.

TLDR (but do read anyway cause you do get better at longer reading the longer you read long writing): I had a blast this year and I think I might've improved a little since last! I'll let this play in conclusion:

Was going to list some favorites but I can't just choose a few now. Here's a playlist for this year and last and again last year all properly mixed and mastered and possibly with a little more material than the original.

Thanks again @Jabun on that mastering magic on the mix! :) Happy this came to fruition, and happy with this year too! All in time to have a listen as we unwind and greet the new.

Toodles.