October 28

The Process

Heavy and overdriven


October 27

The wildest place I know

A restrained simple thought of a song.


October 26

Squares are the future

I put together a kraftwerk-y ditty based on a kids drawing that you can see here.


October 22

virtual confetti

One great joy of MetaFilter is to read the thoughts of strangers, and to be caused to dream, from even just a few of their words, of their intellect, their talent, their wealth of experience and their great humanity. Of one of you dreamish strangers, I’d like to take the chance to say (well ... to warble, off-key): congratulations. On her upcoming wedding day. [more inside]


October 16

'Creep' cover on the OP-1

I think I'm getting the hang of this thing. I got most of the way through comping this out and writing a melody when I realized I liked this better. There's singing eventually. [more inside]


October 1

mineshaft

Happy Autumn


September 30

We Lose With Dignity

Riff rock and college football. [more inside]


SIM3

E-40 + Kamaiyah + MJ


September 29

The Flowers

A quick sketch 2-bar sample + noodling + multitracking [more inside]


September 24

Smoke

Pretty proud of the vocals. This is a weird one, but my most haunting song yet. I had an image of a supernatural, quiet kind of nightmare where the narrator has a horrible premonition that something is coming for her, tries to run away, but cannot get far enough.


September 23

flUke

I've had this descending chord progression stuck in my head for a few weeks so I decided to record it and cut it up. Another OP-1 jam. [more inside]


September 22

Perfect and Simple

Unassuming country ballad with high production values. [more inside]


September 18

Caroline

Folky, catchy murder ballad. [more inside]


Partial Photonic Boundary

Simple post rock instrumental. Guitars, programmed drums, crowd sample. [more inside]


September 17

Taxi in Cairo

New song for the album featuring guitar, horns, strings, piano, drums, crooning [more inside]


September 16

Tell Her I Love Her

An astronaut's lament [more inside]


September 11

Open to the Sky

Dark ambient "uneasy listening" from my new Bandcamp release, 11 Spells. Software and Eurorack synthesizers.


September 9

Big red sky

It's been a while since I posted any of my new songs here. What do you think of my kind of new direction (and quality of the recording)? Alternative folk-ish, acoustic song with clean vocals, guitar, mandolin, harmonies. Sounds happy but the lyrics are not. [more inside]


September 8

Ed Steamhams - Cooking Out Loud

Oh ye gods, Ed's song is ruined! But...what if I were to write parody lyrics and disguise them as his own songwriting? Oh ho ho ho, delightfully devilish, cortex! [more inside]


September 6

The Counterforce

I'm fairly sure when I picked up my guitar tonight I only intended to practise for a bit, not make a short garage instrumental called The Counterforce, yet here we are. [more inside]


September 5

Life, Alexander

I say that I wrote this song the day my son was born. What I mean is that sitting in a hospital room after a day full of chaos, with my partner asleep and safe for now, I opened my computer to stare at the screen and type out the few lines I had in me. I wrote what felt in that moment like advice--the only advice I had to offer to the tiny baby in an incubator in an adjacent wing. After an early morning of liver failure, pacing, sobbing, and an emergency C-section, I didn't have a lot left. [more inside]


September 3

Arps-speriment #3: Soothing Arps

Arpin' again


September 1

uke bass ditty bath

I played around with my uke bass tonight while keeping umbuzinho company as he splashed around in the bath.


August 28

Communion Prelude

Prelude played by flute with piano. Written by Charles Callahan for flute and organ. [more inside]


August 19

Arps-speriment #2

The Korg Monologue steps forward for a cheeky solo feature! [more inside]


August 15

Third King From the Sun

A cast-off 30-second demo of a Christmas tune you might recognize. [more inside]


August 13

Falling Awake (2)

Rerecording of Falling Awake. I'm recording an album (right now!) with a friend, which is very exciting. The direction is very different for me, a kind of uplifting take on my melancholy songs. This one builds, and is heavily indebted to Northern Sky by Nick Drake. Features guitalele, drums, harpsichord, organ, bass, piano, harmonies at the end. We're still recording and this hasn't really been mixed, so all thoughts welcome! [more inside]


Lark

From the Betty Mitchell Sessions!


August 12

Bluebird Wine plugs in

That is, I just got an electric guitar for the first time and it features heavily in my new song, "Georgia." Catchy, moody indie folk/folk rock tune.


August 10

wake up song (in D: for Dog, did he begin to pray?)

This is one of two plus songs written by mistake/default around iphone wake-up tones. Y'know, you wake up at some godawful hour with that godwaffle loop in your ear and eventually you're going to make something of it. I mean...you'd hope, Godwaffles. You'd hope. [more inside]


August 9

10 - vaporwave - vampire deer

and finally, the caution doors ends with a hazy sign off and a test pattern ... and lots of feedback [more inside]


August 7

Vibtone

A chill beat made with the op-1. [more inside]


August 6

09 - stop the whole damned train of the world

things seem to be getting crazier [more inside]


August 5

Florida Lee

Carbon 7 is an improvisational/experimental trio that creates spontaneous music at the moment it's recorded. I left a tad of dialog at the beginning, so you could here our "process." Dennis gives Ron a hard time about choosing a key, then I call out C# & start it off. Clocks in at a whopping 26.5 minutes, but it evolves slowly the entire way. [more inside]


08 - last all night - vampire deer

no, that's not what this song is about [more inside]


August 4

Magali

This song started as a joke and turned into something quite different. My friend and her husband have a lovely cat with an inspiring life story. During a recent visit, she said I should write a song about Magali, and after laughing about possible lyrics, it turned into a heartfelt song about the sweet, loving bond between a man and his cat. [more inside]


July 31

07 - dirge for briars

sometimes you just have to let go [more inside]


July 30

How Far I'll Go

I had the drums and amp mic'ed up anyway, so I decided to lay down this track from Moana.


July 29

beach week

Put together with my niece on a family reunion trip to Mission Bay. Lots of handclaps and arpeggiator (too many handclaps?) Another mostly op-1 track.


July 28

06 - the caution doors - vampire deer

sometimes i don't know what i'm writing about - sometimes i don't want to know [more inside]


« Older Songs | Newer Songs »