THE MIX

Source after source,

layer upon layer,

are woven into one track.

We call this density music.

Sometimes, well-intentioned engineers

lost in the act of bringing

so many disparate elements

together in one place

mistake distortion for harmonics,

merger for marriage.

There is no fixing a mix like this

when every sound

is wedded to every other sound

and is overwrought

and can’t be uncoupled.

The only thing to do is to start over,

to scrub the tracks clean

and return to the source material,

to the native sounds

before they were married,

before their essence

got lost in the mix.