I’ve been playing with sound since as far back as I remember. I was quite taken to keys without benefit of learning notation. I was all about the sound. I didn’t really learn much in school about music, though I had taken up the viola and the alto horn. When I was a young teen I took lessons on an electric organ from a Lowrey Organ store, on what I think was the Lowrey Coronation model. The lessons were in “Jazz Vamping”. That’s all there was with schooling. I never did learn to read music. I see it as sound in time.
About ten years later I purchased a Yamaha PortaSound, a Casio SK-1, and a few used tape decks. I traded one of my own original oil paintings to a friend, for a new EQ and tape deck. I picked up a delay for a guitar. I set up a “ghosting studio”. I couldn’t afford a 4-track, so I had a really great upright cassette deck; a Teac Stereo Mixer Cassette Deck, which allowed me to record one side, plus play a side and merge them, and have volume and output controls. This recorded to another deck. So one deck fed a sound, an instrument was played, they merged in the Teac and got recorded in another cassette deck. Then, the tape was handed to the play deck and another instrument was added. This was done on a home stereo system with benefit of EQ, recorded to metal tape and copied. I used this method from 1988 to 1994. I made only a little music from here until 1998. This changed when we acquired our first computer. A few years back my equipment evolved and I added some instruments.
So this new stuff is a bit more to the point. I still take samples and slow them down or speed them up. I don’t need to ghost. I’ve had many lanes at my disposal. And, I have digital control which is something I didn’t have in the early years and my effects were limited to a delay.
My work reflects my interests in music, which are varied from meditative to energetic. I have a Spotify Playlist which narrows it down. It represents some of the music that has been dear to me over the years.
I would say my music is somewhere between meditative and energetic. Or is that too broad?
I enjoy Vaporwave quite a bit. I like using old public domain sources. I have taken field recordings too. One thing I really like is taking normal sounds and slowing them way down, creating drones and interweaving one-another. Beats can be downloaded and changed or I can make them up. I have thousands of instruments at my disposal and hundreds of effects. And, I can play with video.
This is from the new Album. It features excerpts from “122 Eyes”, “Responsibilities of American Citizenship”, and “Japanese Relocation”, all of which are in the public domain.
The Album “OFM” will be released on Friday, May 28th, 2021. It contains ten songs and will be available at most music services.
Three other videos will be released in the coming weeks. “Working Men of all Countries Unite,” “Dim-1219-AC,” and “Prepare for Danger.”
A visual artist, I also am responsible for the graphics. I enjoy making cover art. There is really no one else that is a part of my process other than the only other person in my world, my partner, H. Maxwell.