On the Eve of a New Release: What the Music Gives Back

This morning began with nothing remarkable.

I washed my face, put on my headphones, and started taking care of ordinary things around the house - folding laundry, putting everything back in its place, moving through the familiar rhythm of another morning.

First, I played the Russian version of my new song. Then the English one.

And suddenly, the morning was no longer ordinary.

The room had not changed. The work waiting for me had not disappeared. None of life’s problems had magically been solved. They were all still there, exactly where I had left them.

But for those few minutes, they stopped occupying all the space inside me.

The music took over.

It created a feeling that is difficult to describe. It was something like flight, although not the physical sensation of leaving the ground on a mountain bike. This was a different kind of elevation - an internal surge of energy, freedom, and movement. It felt as though something that had lived silently inside me had finally found its own form and returned to speak to me.

I have spent so much time inside this project that it gradually became a collection of decisions: words, versions, arrangements, edits, artwork, and an music video that continues to grow scene by scene.

When you work that closely on something, it is easy to begin hearing only the details that still need attention. You stop listening to the whole and start listening for imperfections. You notice every transition, every sound, every frame that could still be changed.

But this morning, I stopped listening as an editor.

I simply listened.

And the work began giving something back to me.

That may be one of the most powerful moments in any creative process: when the thing you have been building stops feeling like a task and becomes an experience of its own. It no longer needs your constant assistance. It stands up, begins moving, and carries you somewhere.

This song began on the long road home after five days of mountain biking in Deer Valley. The mountains were gradually disappearing behind me, but internally I had not left them. The trails, the speed, the morning conversations, the exhaustion, the laughter, and the presence of a close friend were all still alive inside me.

The song grew from that exact feeling.

None of my songs comes from nowhere.

Each one begins somewhere inside - sometimes with a memory, sometimes with a question, sometimes with pain, movement, love, uncertainty, or a moment I do not want to lose. I do not want to manufacture an emotion simply because I think it will be effective. I want to begin with something I have genuinely felt.

Every time I create a song, I try to place part of myself inside it.

Not someone else’s experience. Not an emotion borrowed because it sounds impressive. Not an imitation of what I believe people expect to hear.

My own inner experience.

That does not mean the listener must feel exactly what I felt. In fact, I hope the opposite happens.

I hope that when someone hears one of my songs, they find something of their own inside it.

They may not know the road I was driving or the mountains I was leaving behind. They may never have ridden those trails. They may not understand every word or share the specific memories that created the song.

But perhaps they have their own road home.

Their own place that remains inside them long after they have left.

Their own friend who made a difficult path feel easier.

Their own moment when life became so vivid that they wanted to hold on to it for just a little longer.

I do not want to dictate what another person should feel. I want to communicate my own experience honestly enough that it awakens something equally real in them.

That is the connection I am looking for.

Of course, I want people to enjoy what I create. Every artist wants to feel that connection. We want our work to reach someone, awaken an emotion, bring back a memory, or simply make another person feel more alive for a few minutes.

Support matters. A thoughtful comment matters. Knowing that someone understood what you were trying to express matters.

I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But there is an important difference between needing outside approval to justify the work and wanting to share something that has already given you joy.

What the Music Gives Back

This song has already given me that joy.

What the music gives back is not an escape from reality, but energy, perspective, and the desire to keep creating.

Before the first official stream, before the numbers, reactions, or opinions, it transformed an ordinary morning. It reminded me why I keep creating even when the process becomes exhausting, complicated, and far longer than expected.

The problems of life are still real. Music does not erase them. But sometimes it changes their scale. It reminds us that our difficulties are not the only things living inside us.

There is also imagination.

There is movement.

There is friendship, memory, and the ability to transform an experience into something that did not exist before.

Perhaps that is the real magic of creating.

You place something deeply personal into the work. You give it your time, attention, doubts, memories, and energy. Then, one unexpected morning, it returns that energy to you.

On the eve of this release, I am not thinking only about sending a new song into the world.

I am thinking about the strange and beautiful exchange that has already taken place.

I gave the music a part of myself.

And this morning, it gave something back.

If another person eventually hears it and discovers a piece of their own life inside it, then the circle will become even wider.

But today, standing in an ordinary room with headphones on and laundry in my hands, I already felt it begin.

The Music Behind These Words

The music I was listening to that morning lives in two versions of the same story.

“ЕЩЁ ОДИН СПУСК”, the Russian version, will be released on Friday, September 25.

“One More Run”, the English version, will follow on Friday, October 16.

Both songs were born from the same five days in Deer Valley, but each carries the experience in its own voice. One arrives tomorrow. The other will follow three weeks later, carrying the same memories into the world in a different language.

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Alexei Bautin

Filmmaker. Photographer. Songwriter.

Some stories need a voice.