darren r hill

the creative minimalist

  • God in Hell: An Easter Narrative

    A short exploration of Easter Saturday, weaving a narrative and basking in the ifs of who and what takes place between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

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  • Time for a Fresh Look! 🚀

    The site needs a bit of a refresh, so as they used to say it is under construction. As such things might not look right, work right, or even feel right. But only until everything is new and shiny. After that… who knows.

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  • Creating amongst the Chaos – Creative Field Notes

    This month has been productive despite global chaos, and I have noticed the importance of maintaining a positive and intentional creative practice.

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  • Mid to End Feb Creative Field Notes

    This week’s creative field notes include how I am keeping up with February Album Writing Month and coming up with a few other creative ideas.

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  • Imbolc: Creative New Starts

    January has been a difficult month for this creative minimalist. However, the festival of Imbolc is as good a time as any to make a creative new start. This week’s vlog explores recent creative highs and lows.

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  • My current journal set-up

    As we begin the new year of 2025, I’m excited to share my collection of journals with you in this week’s vlog. I have a new daily planner, as well as music and fiction journals, and various vocabulary notebooks.

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  • Lockdown Beltane Mixtape

    I made a mixtape of songs that have been bouncing between my ears recently. They all have a vague link, in my head, with the current lockdown and Beltane, which has just passed. It’s just under 40 minutes long, so if you want to have a musical meander for a bit, scroll down.

    The mixtape starts with wanting to be somewhere else and in love, onto trying to sort out life, via a dose of immortality and then getting a bit hippie and new age with Marc Bolan. To balance things out, for those who are not new age, it ends with a little witch burning. I like to please everyone. (Actually, please don’t burn witches, it’s not big or clever. Don’t bow to Hansel and Gretel’s peer pressure.*)

    *Actually, Gretel pushed the old woman into an oven so technically it wasn’t a witch-burning as such. However, unless someone came and let the old lady out she would have burnt like anything left in an oven for too long.

    Apart from that, and just like a FaceBook meme, I’m not going to say anything about the individual tracks. They are simply tracks that are hanging out with me at the current moment.

    You can listen to the Lockdown Beltane Mixtape on

    Apple Music

    or Spotify

    Or watch the individual videos of the tracks below…

    Heavenly

    Cigarettes After Sex

    https://youtu.be/6LmzF7-8flk

    Congregation

    Low

    Or a version using footage from Devs

    Fixture Picture

    Aldous Harding

    Diary

    Weyes Blood

    Exhibition

    Gary Numan

    Immortals

    Jean-Michel Jarre & F&%k Buttons

    Ride a White Swan

    T. Rex

    Burn the Witch

    Radiohead

    I hope you enjoyed the Lockdown Beltane Mixtape, and remember mixtapes are not just for lockdown but for the whole year x

    Original tape image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

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  • Proto music

    I have moments of lucidity. These moments concern all sorts of things. I once had one such moment concerning this blog. In it, I thought of writing posts that related to the day. Saturday could be about stationery, Sunday spirituality and so on. Monday was to be about music.

    Lucidity doesn’t last for long. Plans for this blog don’t tend to last long either. However, I find myself here on a Monday about to talk about music. In particular, some music that I have written and have recorded.

    This afternoon I have been mixing and putting some final touches to three new pieces. They will be part of an EP that I’ll soon be sharing. All three tracks are inspired and influenced by three artists who I loved as a young teen… and still enjoy listening to today. John Foxx, Thomas Dolby and Gary Numan are the inspiration. Originally I had planned to record a collection of ten or more tracks. However, that moment of lucidity disappeared as well.

    The EP will be called Protomatic Renaissance and all being well will be on all the major streaming platforms. I’ll let you have a sneak peek, or listen, in the next few days but didn’t want to miss the opportunity of actually sharing something on Music Monday.

    As long as my lucid moments continue I’ll be sharing what I am creating here with a little more regularity than I have been. But that’s the problem with lucidity, it comes and goes… just like the creative muse.

    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

    Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest

  • Hello, my name is Darren

    Welcome to my website. I am Darren, the creative minimalist. I have archived the previous iteration of this site.

    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

    Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest