September 18
Caroline
Partial Photonic Boundary
September 17
Taxi in Cairo
September 16
Tell Her I Love Her
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.
"Most important: learn yourself"
I put it away and forgot about it for months. Then this music happened along and the two fit together.
"Find your thoughts inside your head / make them your own, we'll bend"
That once-tiny baby will be six in just a couple months. Sometimes I hold him so close that he winces and wriggles from my grasp. Someday sooner than I'm ready for, he'll understand what all these things mean.
"You will amaze us / learn to amaze yourself"
Recorded this in my living room with a borrowed Music Man amp and my Tele with a 58 on the cab (I think) and for some reason a shotgun mic a few feet away from my face, sort of aimed down at me and at the amp. I'd eventually like to do this with a full band, but I think it works like this for now.
September 3
Arps-speriment #3: Soothing Arps
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
August 19
Arps-speriment #2
August 15
Third King From the Sun
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
August 12
Georgia St.
A crazy cross-collab that took place in late 2011 with the help of my unreal pals, Warren and Danye. Big ups to Dan for finding this one on his laptop! [more inside]
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
August 6
09 - stop the whole damned train of the world
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
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
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
Destination
July 27
05 - may is tumbling over - vampire deer
July 26
to the wolves
This is the only advice I have for new parents these days.
Had to salvage this song from a lost-when-near completed track, so the mixing is what I could work with, but I'm pretty happy with it. Enjoy! [more inside]
July 24
04 - angel sinister - vampire deer
July 23
Don't Be Afraid
Hi All,
Been awhile (years?) since I posted some music here. Wondering what folks might think of the current kind of thing I've been working on. Thank you.
July 22
03 - 6 crows and a pink flamingo
i was driving in almena township and someone had 6 crows surrounding a pink flamingo on their front lawn [more inside]
July 21
Curriculum Vibe
Almost ten years old: Came across one of my favorite songs from my band Big Ghost. One of our first attempts at home recording with drums. It's about backyard baseball, magic tricks, social anxiety and flirting. [more inside]
Citypages
A song about surviving a pretty wild and punk rock youth. I wrote and recorded this under the name Dame Kraft. It will be cleaned up and made better and eventually released.