The Stinking Rose Waltz

Brian Eno is apparently my spirit animal this month. He has, of course, been a huge influence on my ambient compositions, but he has also been a source of inspiration and motivation in my musical and creative world in a much more general way. In 1975, Eno teamed up with Peter Schmidt and created a deck of cards, each with a single sentence crafted to inspire creativity and shake up the reader’s approach. They named … Continue reading

Mushroom Tea

In stark contrast to yesterday’s celebration of excess, today’s track is a good example of me knowing when to say “when.” It’s a simple track, focused more on emotion and vibe than melody or technical production. It’s muzak of a sort, I suppose, but still a style I enjoy writing and listening to. Things started off with me firing up some of the hardware synths to try and shake up my workflow a bit. It’s … Continue reading

A Completely Successful Exercise in Planning and Self-Restraint

Sometimes my songs are mercurial and hard to pin down, even to me. Other times, I think I’m being more cagey and subtle than I actually am. And then there are times like this. The title of this song is about as plain as it gets, and completely accurate. This is a “Truth in Advertising” track! As has been par for the course so far this month, I started very late, and finished far later. … Continue reading

A Tiny Thing

Clearly, my mood had shifted from yesterday’s production. Despite setting the project tempo at 132, thinking maybe I had another upbeat song in me, my initial exploration of sounds and drums had me quickly dropping into half-time mode. This is one of those weird times where I’ll open a project later and see that the tempo is double what I identify it as, but it ends up being six of one, a half-dozen of the … Continue reading

Nothing in the Universe

Well, isn’t this a surprise‽ Another day of intense procrastination, but as I sat down in front of the computer and put my hands on the synth, ready to delve further into the ambient world, the first line of the song popped into my head, mostly talking to myself. But all of a sudden the rest of the song popped in and I fired up the text editor. I would estimate that the entire lyrical … Continue reading