I've made substantial strides on the next full-length, which is a concept album, if only loosely. It is typical of me, though, after leaping forward, to reflect a bit. At the moment my retrospection is fixed on the piece of music I'm most proud of from my last album. It's actually part five of five... Continue Reading →
My old classmate Brooke*, a visual art major, painted and pasteled the wings of fantastical butterflies. Exalted Tree of Life circulatory systems. Her own conventionally beautiful visage in buoyant soap-shimmering orbs. Her rainbow-age was as extra as Lisa Frank's, but more graceful. All of this was both her great endowment and her great curse."I'm trying... Continue Reading →
Somewhere in the middle of my elementary school years, I was leafing through one of my mother's Famous Artists volumes and stumbled upon The Persistence of Memory. My eyes moved across it with dread as its sinister furnishings revealed themselves. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. "Is that...? It can't be. Why is there...... Continue Reading →
Steeped in classic poetry, teenage me automatically wrote about everyday things in high-flung terms. It was the language that felt most available and came most naturally. It never occurred to me NOT to display naked longing, but my indulgences were confined to my imagination or written in controlled forms, which felt safe and dignified. I... Continue Reading →
My holiday project last year was a cover of a song from a seasonal musical that meant a lot to me as a kid. I am really pleased with how that one turned out. I didn’t have any particular ideas for this year… that is, until this past weekend, when a notion started to take... Continue Reading →
I started writing music at around age 12. Inspired by Suzanne Ciani and, yes, the man himself, Yanni (we watched a LOT of PBS music programming), much of my early output were instrumentals. Given these formative influences, my compositions of the time were rather new-agey; but upon revisiting I found a few parts to be... Continue Reading →
Since the last substantial update, my first serious boss who gave me a start in my field almost 15 years ago has unexpectedly left the company; another close colleague retired earlier than planned; and the sign out in front of our old operations center building has been removed. I was too late to get a... Continue Reading →
My last album, Best Dead Masterpiece, treats nostalgia as a largely positive thing. A thing that is prized and hoarded. A shard of personal history, of individuality, stubbornly preserved. A robust and colorful way of seeing, the absence of which makes someone appear small-minded and dull. As is typical of me, I am now beginning... Continue Reading →
Here are three videos I made this weekend. They are all dark cautionary tales, though two are by Poe and rather grandiose, while the third is by me and so relatively unassuming.All of these songs are previously unrecorded, unless you count very rough demos. Two I wrote in high school while in an independent study... Continue Reading →
The Sold Kingdom 