“It was once I created the single “FUK” that I realized everything I had created previously was completely beside the point of what I was trying to do. And I scrapped that entire album.”
D began writing and creating the single “FUK” about three years ago. At that point, they had completed a draft of the whole album, composed of 15 pieces, which they discarded when they finalized the single that changed their vision of the album as a whole. The song, which was “mostly just a mistake,” as they explained, led to profound revelations. “[I realized] that this is what I’m trying to communicate…I just felt very close to the language I [was] trying to create.”
“But this track really changed everything for me, because so much of this album was a learning curve of me just learning how to use digital production tools.”
This track was a turning point in D’s creative process in making the album. “I just felt inspired in a different way,” they explained. Throughout the album creation process, they began to move away from hardware production to digital, Ableton production. Their intentions also shifted: in the first version of the album, they said they felt that they were catering to some kind of audience or in a way they “had to,” so that it might appear more palatable.
But in creating “FUK,” they ruptured these mental standards. “[It] was a very pivotal moment, because it really showed me that it’s like, ‘okay, you can communicate.’” Going further, they explained that, as an artist, it is generally expected that you are “...reflecting on what perspective [you are] trying to communicate," or asking yourself why you are unique. Yet this kind of thinking doesn’t fit with their artistic process or experience. “This idea of creating a timeless work of art… I never cared about that. If my work doesn't necessarily age well within the broader cultural landscape, that's beside the point for me. I'm just trying to communicate something somehow.”
“Yeah, and “FUK” really just was like, holy shit. ‘I can do it.’ I think it was just really reaffirming…this track just embodies everything…I have something that I want to say and express.”
The creation is representative of a particular time – much of it was developed during the pandemic. The single–and, more broadly speaking, the album–seek to illustrate the complexity of desire, longing, and vulnerability within capitalist structures. On a more personal level, the works represented an exploration of a certain vulnerability they previously struggled to express.
Over a period of two years, D barely saw anyone – they said it was about eight months after they had burrowed themselves in their parents’ basement that they saw someone outside for the first time. And yet, this period of solitude was also a transformative moment for them: “The pandemic and this album was very much a metamorphosis for me, who I was when I made it.”
“[YOUR CHOICE is] about longing, it's about desires in the most primal sense, like sexual desire, physical desire […] I'm getting my head nailed into the wall.”
