EEP

My latest release entitled ‘EEP’ is a culmination of the various techniques and styles that I have used in the past to manifest my narrative method of composition.

The EP is a fusion of electronic and acoustic textures blended into an instrumental landscape that extends seamlessly from a dark metropolis to the pastoral hinterlands. At its core the album embodies the human struggle for self actualization by creative and romantic means.

EEP_Draft3

The main thing I wanted to explore with this EP is having a constant note (E) droning throughout an eclectic collection of songs. Like many of my previous releases, many of the collaborations were done over the internet with friends in Chicago, Boston, and New York City.

’EEP’ features the talents of Mike Walker (Nature’s Neighbor), Knyves Escobar, Jed Lingat (Rosco the Wolf), Perry Cowdery (Fatkid), Radhika Bhatt, and Phil Schoof. Mastered by Seth Engel (Lifted Bells, Coaster, Options) at Pallet Sound in Chicago, IL.

The 9-track EP is available for pre-order on Bandcamp until it’s release on Friday, September 13.

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Album: Trying Times

I’ve been working on this project for the past year and I’m sharing it with all of you now on my Bandcamp. It’s called Trying Times, and for obvious reasons. Without getting into detail, many of these songs are responses to personal challenges. Some are inexplicit reactions to the political and social issues that we have witnessed since I began producing it in August of 2016.

I find it difficult to adequately express what this collection of songs means to me because for so long it has felt like a parasite that I have been unable to remove from my body, and it doesn’t feel the same as it did when I began. I release it now as a manifestation of the hope I have for people to heal, and to find creative ways of coping with fear. I feel very fortunate to have collaborated with so many friends on this album, and grateful for everything that I have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy.

TryingTimes Cover

Album: Vein Matter

I am especially excited to announce the latest Nature’s Neighbor release, Vein Matter.

Front man Mike Walker, Brandon Studer (aka Wren Smiles), and I started this album seven months ago via email and kept bouncing ideas off each other. It was like piecing together Frankenstein’s creature for its reanimation, and we were mad scientists at work. Then things eventually came to a slow stop sometime in May, and the three or four tracks we had produced with began to gather digital dust. You know how it goes.

Fast forward a few months to this August when Radhika Bhatt and I set out on a trip to Chicago in a car packed to the brim with musical instruments (plus we kidnapped Zachary Klaus on the way) to stay with Mike Walker and Cheer Zhao. I had left the city over a year ago and it was my first time coming back. During that trip we all reconnected, reveled, and recorded five of the nine tracks that are on this album. Also featured is Austin Thomasson (aka Austin James Christ) who provided vocals and guitar during an all day recording session at his place in Logan Square. We had regained our momentum and set out to finish what we had started.

Inside COVA

To me, Vein Matter encapsulates many of our collective dreams and feelings of Chicago, and of leaving something we love so much behind us as we continually venture onward into the next chapter of our lives. As such, I am happy to leave this behind for you all as I make my way across the globe to live in India for eight months. Cheers!

Big thanks to everyone who helped this creature walk on two feet, and Will Killingsworth for mastering the album so quickly.

Scene: Earth Woman

Very proud to have provided the original score for Alexandra Dietz latest project, Your Way Back to Me, which premiers this Sunday.

Album: Progeny (unmastered)

Finally adding this to the online catalog. It’s been a while since I’ve visited these songs, but I’m proud to release the unmastered compositions from Sara Mast’s ‘Soundings’ entitled Progeny (unmastered). These seven tracks are my contribution to a collaborative multimedia project that explores the construction of shared identity within four generations of our own family through the lens of my grandfather’s legacy. Gifford Morrison Mast (1914-1972) was an early pioneer of American industrial design, an inventor, a physicist, and an optics expert with a particular interest in stereo optics. progeny-coverDuring a trip to Bozeman, MT in 2013 I composed these seven pieces of music using recorded interviews of my family members. The central character of these stories is my late grandmother, Beth Mast, who shared with us many memories and stories of my grandfather. Although many of the pieces are abstract representations of the time I spent with my family uncovering these stories some of the pieces are more explicit and paint a picture of my grandfather that I hadn’t seen before.