Stepping in the Same Loop Twice?

There’s something really deceptive about loops.

They promise repetition. Return. The same thing, over and over. Guaranteed.

But of course, the loop just doesn’t deliver.

The trouble is, nothing repeats. Not exactly, anyway.

Heraclitus said you can’t step into the same river twice. Which is awkward news for anyone making loop-based music.

There’s a Jamune experience, released today; hyper-minimal, a clear demonstration of what I’m talking about … All it is is an increasingly long audio-visual loop of a crinkling shopping bag (from ASMayR). Couldn’t be simpler.  But just see/hear how hypnotic it is! 😵‍💫

The more ‘musical’ grewve started as a loop in Endlesss on my phone — one of those accidental little grooves that catches on itself and keeps going. Then it got pulled into Ableton, stretched, nudged, bent out of shape.

The thing about loops is that even when they circle back, they’ve changed. A modulation here. A layer drops out. Something shifts. Tiny mutations accumulating, intentional or not.

A groove can easily become a rut if you’re not careful.

Groundhog Day understood this: repetition isn’t stasis, it’s pressure. Live the same thing enough times and eventually something gives.

We change too … but let’s not even go there.

Sisyphus knew something about repetition as well. Though he probably got the rough end of that particular metaphor.

The video for grewve ended up circling — maybe looping — this same idea.

A stick figure walks along. A wall drops into their path. They do what most of us do: flail around, looping, trying to force it away. Eventually it explodes. They continue.

Reset.

Again.

And again.

Spoiler alert: until the last time.

This time, they wait.

And the wall simply lifts on its own.

That felt right.

I’m definitely not implying that patience solves everything. But sometimes our “solution” is the very thing keeping the loop alive.

Push hard enough and you can become part of the mechanism. It’s a subtle trap.

Wait long enough and conditions change.

Buddhist thought, at least as far as I understand it, leans heavily on this. Impermanence isn’t just a nice idea — it’s the structure of things. Everything moves. Everything shifts. Every groove grows into something else.

Even the weirdly spelled ones.

Maybe we’re all growing grooves.

grewve lands this Friday - streaming on Spotify etc. and video will be on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel — the first of four Friday drops over the next few weeks.

Same loop.

Different river.

I’m also dedicating this to an old friend, who died suddenly on Monday.

He was a force of nature. Kind and creative.

This one’s for you, Tony.