Part 2

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

Well for many years I sold and designed high end lighting. Over the pandemic, I lost my job and now I work for Herman Miller furniture.

I travel from my home in Baltimore Md to Washington DC everyday. I have been doing that for 18 years. I love to walk and listen to music. I don't have a big actual record collection because I'm always walking so the digital file is more practical for me.

I get up, have coffee, and walk to the train. Ride the train for an hour. Get off the train, walk to work. do it in the reverse 8 hours later. I get so much music done walking and riding on the train. That's where it really happens

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

I have another new LP called The Ektachrome Dawn and there is a track called “While Mapping Mountains”. That track is so special to me as it was the first really good track I came up with using Ableton.



I love to sample and I'm oddly good at it. For the first year of my music making “career” I spent a whole year listening to my records and making loops. I learned how Ableton worked and it really allows the loop to take center stage. The way the software works means I can compartmentalize different sections and compose in a way that was totally unknown to me.

Early on I learned the Sitar and I have always been influenced by Hindustani classical. My music is often linear and in the same key. With the way Ableton works, it allowed me to stage my music in a different way and for the first time in my life I felt like a “musician”. That was the first thing I have done (and one of the last) that has a more song based structure.

I'm so glad its coming out now. Its maybe the one piece im the proudest of and its something that doesnt sound like me, but is in fact very me if you know what I mean.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

I hate that it's so solitary for me. I have never been in a band my whole life. It's one of my great regrets.

My music kind of exists in my own little environment and I think that it makes it special but the interaction with other musicians is something I really want to pursue and it has found that hard because I don't know too many people in my area I can play with. Most of the people my age are just not playing at all or they have lives that do not permit it.

I'm not part of a scene and I don't go out to shows so I'm my own little island. Even if I have to do it via file share, that's something I really want and need to explore. So much is possible when you connect with others.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

To be honest, I tend to not spend a whole lot of time thinking about that aspect. I'm very insular as I'm making music.

I do radio shows so I can share different music that means something to me with others. Music makes me just so very happy and anything that brings joy is worth the time and effort. I have met so many people now that are so truly obsessed and committed to music that when I share with them something new that resonates with them, it's an amazing feeling.

To me, sharing music and enriching people's outlooks like that is a key part of who I am. The connection I make with others is the payoff as far as my music career is concerned. I know so many people now all over the world and I'm truly blessed to be able to say that. But the larger part of how it relates to society is above my paygrade as they say.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

I may sound shallow, but I don't look at music through those lenses typically. For me it tends to be a purely sonic experience. The music I love tends to be about sound, not the song. Some passages of music bring me to tears so it's not like music doesnt move me emotionally.

I make purely instrumental music. Lyrics don't interest me and most of the music that means something to me is purely instrumental. My experience is just that, mine. Other people have a different relationship to music and I feel like for many it helps them make sense of pain, loss, love, ect. It's just not my personal path. Film used to fill that role in my life much more than music to be honest.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

It's funny, I never thought of myself as scientifically minded until I got involved in the world of lighting and eventually I became exceedingly technically inclined. I love using new technology to shape sound but I am absolutely terrible about reading manuals and learning how anything works. I get overwhelmed with it quickly.

Probably a lot of your interviews have people that are engaged in the scientific world as it relates to music. There are some really interesting things going on, but I'm not someone like Holly Herdon or Björk. They really see these as intertwined and their music reflects that.

For me, I have a hard time answering this question. I don't find them superlinked in my personal work if I'm honest.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

That's a good question actually! I think that musicians like to elevate it because it makes them feel better but no, I dont think it's that far removed from cooking a great meal, making a great cup of coffee, making clothes or knitting, repairing cars, gardening or working with wood.

I think having a creative outlet is key to happiness. I think one of the great issues today is that people feel like they lack purpose. Starting to make music later in my life has taught me how important a creative outlet can be. And if making a fantastic espresso is how you choose to spend your time and talent, I'm all for that. I don't think musicians have any monopoly on creativity.

In my work, because as I discussed before, I'm personally not dealing with the “big” subjects, Life, love, loss, death … I just make music that I find pleasing that takes me out of the day to day and transports me to a world I love to inhabit.

For me I'm glad some people are wrestling with the big questions, but if I had a fantastic garden I was proud of, I'm not sure it would be that different.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

Nope. Other than if there is such a thing as magic, I feel like music gets as close to that as one can. I think about that a lot actually. All I can say is that it's really magic. It shouldn't be as powerful as it is but there is no denying its effect.

One of the things that helps to convince me there is a higher power out there is music and its effect on myself and others.