Origin Story

I had no intention of writing another album at this time, especially having just released Embers in January of this year. Even now, Original Miles continues to be streamed on Spotify in numbers that none of my other songs have ever seen. I also know that if I wanted to maximize my [insert marketing lingo here], then it would make sense to ride this out for now, only to then promote another song from that same album. 

Mixtape, anyone?

Back in March, I was practicing guitar and came up with a power chord progression that was fun to play. As I was rocking out on acoustic guitar, I starting singing along as if the words were already in my head. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to get a pretty good sense of the song. After that, it was just a matter of writing it, which came together in about an hour. I later went back and revised it slightly. 

For the next few days, I had this new song bouncing around in my head, such that I was literally waking up with the chorus on repeat. It seemed that I had no choice but to record it, if only to exorcise this thing from my brain.

About a month later, I wrote two more songs in the same week, both of which happened to have seven-letter titles that started with H. At that point, I figured that I might as well write another album. If not now, then when? I wanted to capture these songs while I was still excited about them, and it seemed like maybe I had tapped into something. 

Over the next couple of months, I wrote eight more songs. In most cases, I recorded the entire "song skeleton" and then set out to figure out the lyrics. The only difference in this from my usual process is that ordinarily, this phase takes place almost entirely with acoustic guitar or piano accompaniment in real-time. 

This time, I listened to these simple instrumental versions of these songs until I came up with lyrics that fit the feel of the song, as well as the framework that I had already provided. There was one week in particular when I wrote four songs through the use of this process, one right after the other, like it was my job.  

The last two songs that I composed were tracks one and track eleven, respectively. In fact, if you look at my ReverbNation page, the order that they are listed in is the opposite order in which I wrote them. 

In total, this album took about three months to go from song stuck in my head to album with a bunch of tracks that I really like. If I wasn't proud of my work, I wouldn't release it. I hope you like it, too.

Petrichor will soon be available wherever you get your music. For now, you can hear low-resolution versions through the embedded the link below. Thanks for listening. 

Groundhog Day

Happy Friday to my fans, friends, listeners and random stumblers upon this site. Once again, I have spent the majority of the day mixing and mastering. The goal has been to get the mixing so close to done that I have to do very little mastering, because that's when it starts to feel processed and artificial, like Velveeta. 

I seek for my music to avoid any comparisons to cheese-like substances. 

Speaking of which, when I was riding my bike yesterday, somebody at the skate park was blasting Kenny G like it was in style. These kids today and their light adult contemporary jazz-like substances.

Petrichor might actually be done, and I think that maybe I really mean it this time. 

Every day, when I sit down to work on this, it's kind of like the movie Groundhog Day. Basically, I start with the raw AIFF files every day, but as I am mastering these tracks, I also refer to notes and such in terms of what worked and what did not on my previous attempts. Then I minimize the process to its essentials. 

I am a scientist, damn it.

To date, I have made at least twenty or so shitty versions of each of these songs, but I think that I have almost polished out everything that I did not like. We'll see how I feel about it tomorrow. Once I can listen to these songs without being compelled to change something, that's when I know it's done. 

When writing, I sometimes export to PDFs for the same reason--so that I can read without the ability to edit. It forces a certain degree of objectivity. 

You can listen to the new songs through the same links as always, and you can find my other five albums wherever you get your music. 

Thanks for listening to my music and checking out my blog.

 

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

My general rule when it comes to editing is that once I get to a point where my revisions involve going back to a previous version, then it's probably time to walk away. I find that this is true whether discussing music or any other form of writing.

It's kind of like tuning a guitar, where I steadily add tension to the string until it passes the note that I'm trying to reach, then I slowly ease it back into place. It's a good way to get precision, which is kind of important when tuning. 

I mention all of this because for the past couple of weeks, I've been doing a lot of mastering and equalizing, trying to get my newest batch of songs to sound as good as I can through the various speakers that I have at my disposal. Lately, I've been discovering that my early versions sometimes sound better, depending on which speakers I happen to be listening to them through. This can be a little frustrating at times. 

Don't be surprised if these songs once again sound slightly different by the end of the day.

[They do.]

This is the part where I usually audition some of the many versions of each of these songs and figure out if there is one that sounds better than the others on a variety of speakers. Ideally, all of the songs that I end up going with will come from the same batch, too, but that's not always the case.

It's getting close. Pretty soon, I will have completed my sixth full-length album to be released in the past four years. That's sixty-five songs in total (plus a few throwaway tracks that I never published.) My goal is to write at least as many songs as Shakespeare wrote sonnets, because I don't just like to swing for the fences; I'm going for the parking lot down the street. The trick is to lean into it and use the momentum of your own weight. 

Enjoy the music. For now, these songs are exclusively available here. You're that cool. 

The Equalizer

I don't know if that was the name of a 1980s action movie, but if not, it probably should have been. I can imagine Chuck Norris or Sylvester Stallone on the poster, possibly holding a rocket launcher or a machine gun--basically, an undercover commercial for the NRA and "Big Stick" diplomacy. 

I also wonder if the screenwriter of this hypothetical movie looked up the word "level" in a thesaurus, as in to level a building with a single shot and ended up going with "The Equalizer" in an attempt to appeal to the high-brow crowd, while also in a frenzied rush to get back to his crippling cocaine addiction. 

Once again, I've spent all day equalizing, uploading, listening, etc. I can't even tell you how many different versions of these songs I made today, but it was a lot. 

You can hear the (almost done) new album by following the link in the post below.

It will soon be available to stream or purchase wherever you get your music. 

Thank you for supporting independent art. 

Cohesion

Petrichor is nearly done. All but a few of the songs have passed the "car stereo with the windows down" test. At this point, I think it's mostly just a matter of fine-tuning the equalization on the songs.

You can hear the new album in its entirety below. Until I finish it and officially release it, all eleven of these songs are exclusively available here.

Thanks for listening.