Now & Upcoming

When you enter your email address above you will be sent a link to download an unreleased track, "Hitching a Ride On a Sailboat".

January 15, 2012

I've been doing more writing, which is helping immensely with working on a new sound piece, which could be done before winter's end. New Untitled Folding painting versions coming soon as well.

January 2, 2012

Untitled Folding #10, 11, 12 are ready.

Admittedly, the photos are not completely reflecting the dimensions of them, the wood material, but for the moment they will do.

December 27, 2011

I put up an image of Untitled Folding #9.

December 8, 2011

I'm beginning to do one-on-one lessons, tutoring, personal workshops in music production, from a conceptual and cultural perspective. This is less about helping one to set up their audio workstation and more about what to do with it once it is set up.

My general perspective is geared towards simplicity and utilizing the tools at your disposal to their fullest, searching for originality and finding a place for it in an exceedingly cluttered landscape. All sound can be organized into music. That is the key principle from which everything progresses.

If you're in the New York City area, or are open to having sessions over Skype from any geographic location, please do get in touch. Competitive rates, with a first session discount.

November 5, 2011

I just finished two more paintings in the Unititled Folding Live recording release series. One more coming in the next couple days.

October 16

I put together a sampling of seven tracks from different albums, including one from a compilation, in this sampler pack at a reduced price of $3, in your choice of aif, mp3, or flac.

Purchase Sampler Pack for $3

track listing:
Broken Marching Band
Transportation Application
Concrete And Plastic
Homemade Debris
Focused Distraction
Removed Images and the Eventual Wall
Displacement

September 16

I have two gigs coming up in the next couple weeks. In Brooklyn on Friday, September 23rd I'm playing alongside Praveen at Devotion Gallery (54 Maujer St.) for a live drawing show with David Last, Sougwen, and Margaret Schedel.

On Saturday, October 1st I'm playing at Equinoxygen, a one day all out festival of experimental sound and visual, presented by Darren Bergstein, the man behind One Thousand Pulses. Taylore Deupree and Marcus Fisher, Stephen Vitiello, Richard Lainhart, and many others... 11AM-9PM at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack, NJ. Full details here.

August 3, 2011 - The End Is Important In All Things

A common saying, which has been attributed to a number of different people, is that one doesn't finish a work of art, but merely abandons it. This trope points to the simple fact that the idea of completion is a grey area and is surrounded by ambivalence. After much energy and time is poured into something we want it to be done, but we also want to keep at it. To finish is essentially to abandon a relationship that you've built up with the work at hand. How do you just walk away, and yet without walking away it never becomes anything other than a practice area. Practice areas have value, but if the intention is to exhibit something to others, the abandonment point is necessary, which becomes the point of finishing, a more positive term.

The psychology of finishing is integral. It requires one to stop working, to let go, which is counterintuitive in a sense because isn't the work a constant process? If things are practiced correctly, one recognizes that you are never actually done, because the point isn't to finish, but to develop. The approach of an idea ends up branching out into a myriad of other ideas, rethinking the original intent and refining it, so how can one simply stop and say this is now ready?

This is bound up with the element of exposure. To finish usually involves some sort of releasing of the work into another place, where it is no longer protected from the perception of others, where it is essentially no longer under your control. A listener is required to close the circuit, but that also changes the circuit. Perhaps intentions aren't communicated exactly as you hoped. Perhaps the listener hears it "wrong" or perhaps they just don't like it very much. The lack of concrete results leaves a world of possibilities, even though logically, none of those positive possibilities can come to fruition without the finished, concrete, defined work. I am writing this on the principle that putting something in to the world is a form of finishing, whether you intend that to be the case or not. Exposing it to another brings it to a different place automatically.

Personally, I have always consoled myself with the concept that no one piece of work can be everything that you want to communicate. It can satisfy itself within itself, but there should always be room left for something else to happen, for another direction, another idea. If that is so, then there is no need to feel pressured to make this one thing perfect or fill the entirety of what one wants to put into the universe. It can only be what it is. Perfection is simply the closest approximation of the thing to its chosen identity. It can leave space for more to happen and still fulfill its potential.

Ideally, your work is constantly in motion. When one arrives at a certain style, it is a means of working through something, but exploring different directions in which it can go. In many ways, this is a work-around for the finishing question. When a track is done (or painting, or screenplay, etc.), it can be less that it is done, and more that it allows a pause in the larger work of a certain style. You don't have to be done. You can do it all over again. You can break it up into pieces over time and finish the pieces. The accumulation of them can go on and on and add more meaning and development to the body of work, which can in many cases be seen as one piece of material with many facets to it, many wrinkles that act as the means of exploring everything you want to do in one track, but simply can't.

This is such a personal topic, since everyone has one's own moment of recognizing, or accepting, that something is done. It is as much a part of one's individual creative process, of one's mythology, as choosing which sounds to work with. It needs to be developed over time. The way something is mixed, the amount of closure or strands left undone, the way sounds are edited, and every other decision that happens is both part of one's general style and one's approach to finishing. Perhaps it doesn't need to be stated explicitly, but nonetheless: each moment adds up towards the whole and what is completion if not some sort of resolution to that whole.

As you finish more pieces you realize what your work sounds like when it's at that point, and what you want it to sound like in order to be deemed so. I suppose it's a feedback loop because the goal of completion helps to bring about a definition of it, which makes it more likely to happen, which reinforces the definition, and so on... You begin to develop a means of arriving at that place over time, through trial, error, observation, experimentation. It never becomes a rote process, hopefully, but perhaps can become more obvious, more understandable that something is completed, that it has reached a suitable end.

July 25, 2011

I recently put a bandcamp page, to add to the myriad of ways to find things. I hope you enjoy, streaming in full, and flexible pricing.

July 9, 2011

This Thursday, July 14, I'm playing at LACE, in Los Angeles, on a bill including Steve Roden and Infinite Body.

June 25, 2011

I'm putting together a handmade package of my live set from the release event for Folding In On Itself, recorded in New York City on May 12, 2011. I'm making a painting on wood as the 'cover'. Limited to 99, though they are going to all be individual to themselves. More info here.

June 20, 2011

I'm playing this Saturday night, June 25, at the second in a series of events called Auditorium. Should be amazing sound, on an eight-channel system. Loads of interesting performers leaning towards the electroacoustic, adventurous end of the spectrum. Here are details.

June 14, 2011

New review of Folding In On Itself in FACT Mag.

Put up a new page for the Macrofun Series, which was released on Microcosm in 2005/2006. It includes a streaming player of the whole series for anyone who hasn't heard it; adventurous, quirky house and techno and some more mellow warmers. Felt like a specific moment at the time, of this music all congealing with the right people. A good experience to put together a specific, finite body of work with a bunch of artists on a similar wavelength and in a different visual direction than the label had in place, while still fitting in to the overall.

June 4, 2011

I'm playing on Percussion Lab radio on Monday evening, June 6.

May 26, 2011

Love from Exclaim! and a new interview with Listgeeks, a socially oriented site for making lists. Cool and addictive idea.

May 22, 2011

Two new deluxe packages of releases, on vinyl and CD, in the shop.
Only a handful of each of these available at the moment.

More limited editions on the way shortly. New tracks, live recordings, and more.

May 15, 2011

Listen to and read about the album on the Type site. I also put up a short post on this site about some of the ideas behind it.

Interview on Artcards.

May 13, 2011

I have a few copies of my new album, Folding In On Itself, for sale on CD. It is also available at your favorite shop.

May 9, 2011

I curated the music on The Orbit radio show tonight, a mix of tracks from the Anticipate and Microcosm catalogs. There will be short interviews strewn in between the musical offerings. Tune in at http://tinyurl.com/theorbit913 or on WXOI 91.3FM if you're near enough to the Catskills region of NY state.

New interview on Artcards.

May 5, 2011

Listen to and read about the album on the Type site.

April 28, 2011

Textura did an interview with me about the new record.

April 24, 2011

Folding In On Itself is out now on 12" vinyl on Type Records. CD and digital release can be pre-ordered as well, and will be out May 11. Limited vinyl release can be found at Boomkat and your other favorite shops.

Please join us May 12 for the release event, at Littlefield, with Xela, Borne, Honig and visuals by Joshue Ott. Details and advance tickets.

April 16, 2011

Updated the shop page a bit. Will be adding even more goodies soon, but for the moment it is cleaner and simpler and easy to use.

April 14, 2011

To celebrate the May 11 release of my album, Folding In On Itself on Type Records, we are putting together a release party on Thursday, May 12 at Littlefield, here in Brooklyn. Xela, Borne and myself will all be playing and it will be a great time for anyone who joins us.

Here are all the details.

You can pre-order the record on 12" vinyl or CD now at some of your favorite shops (Norman, Insound, etc).

April 13, 2011

The fine folks at Kompakt have assembled a massive 34 track compilation (for an inexpensive price) to help raise funds for the benefit of the people of Japan. It includes contributions from several of the labels in their distribution family and music across a range of electronic styles both beatless and club oriented. You can find it at several retailers but the easiest may be Bandcamp. Here's more details, as listed by Kompakt.

Bandcamp: 100% of proceeds will be sent to the Red Cross. (You also have the option to pay more than the set price as an extra donation)
Other Music: 100% of proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross.
Beatport
Boomkat
Trackitdown
Juno Download
iTunes USA
iTunes UK
iTunes Germany
iTunes Japan

March 14, 2011

I recently released Sven Laux's Homesickness or Nostalgia album on my Microcosm label.

February 28, 2011

I have a track on a new Fenou digital comp, entitled Fenou Bouquet Vol. 1. The track is called "Fractures and Fissures pt. 3," being a reworking of elements from the first two parts (from my Scattered Practices album). Names aside, the comp is out now and features tracks by many great artists and a mix of the tunes by Marcel Knopf. You can find it in your favorite digital shop.

REDEEM