The Collective Eye - May 2021

The Collective Eye is on...

WHAT SHOULD THE WORLD KNOW ABOUT YOU?

First and foremost, that this music is for me. I created it because I’ve always wanted to make music and because I have things inside me that I feel I need to release into the world. I am someone who consistently asks the same question: What’s this (*waves arms*) all about? Is it about anything at all? I don’t have an answer, but the music is an exploration of the question.

Some of the feedback I’ve received on this body of work is that it’s dark. But it simply has to be that way. I’ll talk more about that in a minute, but what I want people to know is that while it’s true that the music may feel or sound bleak, there’s always an element of hope weaving through it for me. There’s always hope because that’s what keeps us moving forward. How could we keep going without hope?

Much of what I do comes from places in me I can’t identify or describe, and I don’t set out to create a narrative: My job as an artist is actually to interpret the narrative. We are on a journey together, the listener and I. The music I make is fairly linear in that we are taking a journey from point to point. But how we interpret the ride is different based on our own experiences and identities. The overall concept is really a question about mortality.

It’s age-old among artists, I know, but I think my approach to exploring the question is unique and quirky and interesting. It’s not for everyone, but it reflects our unique journeys as we all sort it out one way or another: What IS it all about?

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC?

It’s a soundtrack for what I’m feeling at any given moment. I explore concepts that I don’t necessarily know I’m exploring until after the fact, but as I mentioned, mortality rises to the top. When people are plugging into an album or a collection, they’re invited into whatever existential crisis I’m going through at the time. Some people really feel it at a very deep level. Others just go along for the ride and enjoy it. Some people just can’t. It depends on how you’re feeling that day or where you are in your life.

When I’m thinking about mortality, it’s not just my own. It’s everyone I’ve ever known or loved -- humans and pets alike -- plus dreams, ideas, plans, and notions. I can’t predict where it’s going to go, and even after listening to it, I find myself surprised by the path it has taken.

Part of the structure of the music itself reflects the complexity of the question and the fact that we’ll never really know. We’ll never really know what it’s all about, so I’m really just toying with the exploration of the question.

It’s difficult to place this music into some existing genre, but if I had to classify it, I would call it experimental, which I know is a lazy answer because it’s so broad. At the end of it, I would say that this music is for people who delight in unexpected things, who have patience and tolerance for mathematical deviation, and who aren’t afraid to feel things that maybe they didn’t realize exist inside them.

WHO OR WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START CREATING MUSIC?

It has always been a dream of mine. I started making music when I was 19 in a band called Men with Guns. The truth of the matter is that what pushed me back into this mode of creation was a series of events that rendered me feeling big feelings that needed outlets. The central inspiration was a way to help focus the pain of all of that, to give it voice and to free it.

Not every track is dripping with that, but the impetus was really about needing this release. I think everyone needs that, in some fashion. Artists are a weird bunch in that we translate universal human experiences into any infinite number of artistic possibilities. This is my contribution to that conversation.

So much of this process is about dealing with grief. I do feel that the music is cathartic, but even beyond that, it feels like a tribute to my father. That tale is a long and tragic one, but at the end of it is my feeling a connection to him through this music in ways that defy even my own logic. I can’t explain or describe it adequately, but a thread that weaves through this body of work is my wanting to honor what he was and what he could have been had the circumstances been different.

I think that thread is braided with the thread of hope because what I’m doing now is what he would have done if he could.

WHAT ARE 5 OF YOUR FAVORITE ALBUMS?

Today I would list the following, but ask me tomorrow and I might have different answers.

Poe, Haunted

Concrete Blonde, Bloodletting

Mansun, Six

Pink Floyd, The Final Cut

Alan Parsons Project, Turn of a Friendly Card

Honorable Mentions:

Sinoia Caves, Beyond the Black Rainbow Soundtrack

Allison Kraus & The Union Station, So Long, So Wrong

IF YOU WERE A MICROWAVABLE, BITE-SIZE SNACK, WHICH PIZZA INGREDIENTS WOULD YOU BE STUFFED WITH & WHY?

I’m definitely not for everyone, so I think I’d be a pineapple pizza-stuffed snack. If people want to debate the merits of my music as hotly as they debate the presence of pineapple on pizza, I’m down for that.

For surreal, otherworldly, thought-provoking soundscapes, explore & follow...