For many artists, the processes of exploration and development that go into creation are elements that are often kept hidden from view, with only the final, polished products reaching the eyes and ears of audiences.
But some artists seem to invite their audience into those processes, creating works that blur the lines between a finished piece and the raw materials that make it up.
Artists like OKC’s exmaxhina, whose brand of chilled-out, atmospheric beatmaking is often heavily chopped and deconstructed, drawing attention to the sounds, samples, and sonic building blocks that seem to almost arrange themselves throughout his songs.
But he also invites listeners into that creative process along with him, encouraging fans to engage with his tracks on dynamically limited tapes and degradable media, inviting open collaborations and remixes, and often deconstructing and rearranging his own pieces on the fly in performances.
For the man behind exmaxhina, producer, songwriter, and visual artist Arman Sikder, that process of creating consistently and openly is the goal, just as important as the final work itself.
Arman Sikder: I just enjoy creating.
I think there's a difference in life when you ask yourself every day, “do you want to consume, or do you want to create?” And that is something that I ask myself every morning.
So it's just like things like that that kind of feed the hunger.
Brett Fieldcamp: That hunger, he says, is how he’s turned out such a prolific and near-constant body of work over just the past few years, releasing five full albums and at least a dozen singles and mixtapes since just 2021.
With a day job that keeps him travelling for much of the year, Sikder says that he passes his hours on planes and in hotel rooms producing and developing new music almost daily, letting himself be inspired by the endless transitions and shifting environments to create the deconstructed, electronic style that he’s deemed “dark lo-fi glitch.”
Arman Sikder: It definitely evolved over time. After I dropped my first two albums, I was like, “Okay, I like the chill stuff, but it's just not hitting for me.” Like there's just some aspect of it that just wasn't hitting for me, and I think that was when I really took the time to kind of break down my process.
Because in the end, your style is really a culmination of the decisions you like making, and so that's what makes your style. And so there were these choices that I made in each production which kind of made it cohesive.
And I started to expand on that.
Brett Fieldcamp: That expansion would develop into the sprawling Distant Ether Records, Sikder’s own digital umbrella under which he’s cataloged his extensive collection of releases and lo-fi cassette tapes, showcased his recent foray into cyber-psychedelic visual arts, laid the groundwork for an original sci-fi narrative inspired by his music, and released each and every exmaxhina release for free through Bandcamp.
But even that evolution throughout his time as exmaxhina has been an extension of a much longer, ongoing artistic process, one that grew out of his first steps into music and creation that taught him the importance of committing to the process when he needed it most.
Arman Sikder: About 2012, I think, is when I started producing music.
In 2012 my mom actually passed from cancer, and so that that kind of left a void in my time, but also just like my everyday life, because I was taking care of her as much as we could. But really, once that happened, I just tried to see if there was, like, a way I could fill the void.
And I was able to get myself together, really, and then ever since then, I was like, “Okay, I need to chill out and I need to focus on something.”
And that was kind of what music was for me
Brett Fieldcamp: Since then, Sikder says that it’s that continuous creative process that keeps him grounded no matter where he is, not just producing new material, but consistently reconsidering and recontextualizing existing tracks and elements to find new avenues to explore and new ways to mix, arrange, and manipulate his works through heavily improvised live performances in arts spaces like OKC’s Mycelium Gallery.
There he partnered to launch the regular Mycelium Sessions series, inviting artists of all kinds to engage even more directly with that creative process by working on their own projects and pieces as exmaxhina deconstructs and remixes his songs in real time.
It’s that kind of hands-on, human touch that gives the music of exmaxhina its heart and its mystery when so much electronic music can come across as cold or mechanical.
As ever, it’s just about making decisions and trusting the process, no matter how long it might take.
Arman Sikder: If you really listen to the music out right now, like AI music or generic stuff that you hear on Spotify, you can tell there's no soul in a lot of it, right?
And I feel like soul comes from those little decisions that you make, right? You're building this track over thousands of small decisions.
It's almost like a science. There's a certain process, but once you learn the rules, you can break it. And that's essentially kind of what you want to do, is you want to be able to learn the rules to the point where you can break them.
Brett Fieldcamp: You can check out all of the creative processes and pursuits of exmaxhina at distantether.com and on Bandcamp, where you can listen to and download all of his releases for free.
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