"The Gravity of Desire on a Burning River"
COMING SOON
I've just signed with Arthropoda Music in Granada, Spain for a new EP of binaual electronic music!
The ability to immerse listeners fully in the music has always been a goal of mine. On The Gravity of Desire on a Burning River, immersion is woven into the DNA of the music from the outset. The spatial relationships are integral to the compositions, bringing out connections, contrasts, and juxtapositions among the diverse sonic elements. Intense times foster intense music, and I hope these pieces reflect that through unexpected combinations of sounds, textures, and musical influences. The Gravity of Desire on a Burning River entangles one’s emotions in these heightened times.
Although I compose and produce using an Atmos workflow, I currently distribute the music as binaural stereo mixes. The reality is that most people, whether listening to conventional stereo or immersive music, do so through headphones. Binaural rendering allows me to preserve the spatial dimension of the original conception in a format accessible to headphone listeners, without some of the technical and delivery constraints associated with commercial Atmos distribution. LUFS, anyone?
One more distinction: none of the music on this recording was created using generative AI. All sounds, compositions, and musical decisions originate in my own creative process and my desire to make a more human music.
Special thanks to Art Uro and Arthropoda Music for their support in releasing this music!
Tangled Roots Project
I grew up surrounded by distinctly American music—jazz, blues, rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B. Though these influences have always shaped my work in electronic and electroacoustic music, I’d never intentionally written in those genres. This project deliberately explores that tangled mix of roots—outside my usual compositional comfort zone—mainly because it sounded like it would be fun while challenging.
I began each piece by writing charts and entering them into PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box (BiaB), using it to audition and export stems for drums, bass, rhythm, etc. Then came the deeper work: importing everything into Logic Pro, cutting and comping bars and phrases to shape coherent performances. I often worked in circular fashion, refining parts in response to others already in place. Some tracks include added loops or percussion; one replaces all BiaB parts with sample-based rhythm.
Everything was mixed and mastered in Logic. Three tracks—“Moving On,” “Canon of Flowers,” and “She Looked Back” (with keys and solo by Adam Holzman)—were previously released in different mixes.
Every track involved hands-on editing and decision-making. BiaB doesn’t write music—it translates ideas into sound. The artistry comes from the choices made along the way. It felt much like producing a traditional session, only with virtual players.
To enhance the experience, I had Chris Perry in Toronto create immersive Atmos mixes and binauralize them. The spatial clarity makes each instrument more clearly distinct and brings out their interplay—another plug for Atmos for music! I think the project hangs together well, even as each track branches off into a different direction. And yes—it was fun!