The International House of Dancakes

This is just me playing with some sounds in Bitwig. The progression is fun because when it sounds like it's looping back to the beginning it's actually a step lower than it started out (hence the name). The other neat thing about this one is that the super funky electric piano bit that starts at 1:30 is just running the same chords through two different arpeggiators - it happened entirely on accid...

This is a completely ridiculous little thing that I wrote many, many, MANY years ago that just suddenly came back to my mind the other day. For some reason the thing that brought it back to me was that I remembered playing it for Jon Mooneyham and him being incredulous that I had name-dropped Clarence Clemons. Anyway, it's a very stupid song and now a bad recording of it is on Soundcloud forever....

This is just a little thing where I was playing with odd time signatures and trying to follow along on my Wavedrum.

This is just a snippet of music I came up with years ago, completely forgot, and then stumbled across this morning while looking for something else. I don't know that I'll ever do anything more with it, but I do think it's kinda pretty.

You are walking through the woods when you stumble across a robot church group baptizing one of their own children in a stream. Two robot children are singing a song to mark the event. Includes a field recording by Nick Friedman.

Okay it's been way too damn long since I've uploaded anything so here's this. It's just an instrumental demo for a new take on an old song of mine.

Yet another ambient-ish track, but this one morphs into more of an actual song as it goes on.

Another drone track, this one just built with an acoustic guitar and a buttload of effects.

This is just me learning how to use the automation in Arturia Pigments, and throwing out some massive brraaaaaams in the process. This whole track is one chord, and the rest of it is just delays, reverbs, and distortions with a bunch of interacting automation.

Okay this is a demo of a short (or half finished, depending) track that sort of straddles the line between depressing metaphor and "oh maybe there are actual zombies in this song", which is a pretty funny concept to me. Very rough recording, just using my ipad mic in the kitchen the other morning. Lyrics: Some people die with their eyes open And just keep walking around They learn to smile with th...

This is an old demo for a song from about 2010 that I just never got around to polishing up. Lyrics I only wanna be on your good side But I give too much away Trying to make things right in all the wrong ways I only wanna be on the inside wherever you are Stand and press my face against the bars I am an awkward silence Waiting to be broken on your tongue I'm a contented sigh that's still to come I...

This is just a super-rough demo recorded on my phone, for a song currently (but not necessarily permanently) called "You'll Know". Mostly I recorded this so I wouldn't forget the lyrics I've come up with, but I also think the song is going in a really good direction so I wanted to share it. Lyrics (as of today): When the time has come for you, you'll know While we wonder what to do, you'll know Wh...

And so we hold tight to a lone mote of dust in the infinite night straining ourselves just to cling to the surface our singular purpose to stay side by side and what does it mean that they could have used fear or almost anything but love is lever they've chosen to move us to shape and improve us to keep our lives evergreen? Does that make us survival machines connected like mother and child each n...

I can't describe What I see in this light With my eyes wide open Almost divine So real and so right So loud, unspoken Falls on me Soft Like a frosty morning And blurs the outline It's too close to be seen Like the act of blinking Hard to define It's just a thing that you are Without even thinking You'll always be What I need Be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love But you make...

Maybe we never made it home Maybe we swerved across the center line You know that bridge we crossed that seemed to just go on forever? Maybe that’s what death was like But then if you and I are ghosts We get to spend the afterlife Two drunken poltergeists that haunt this old decaying empire Dancing every night And we’ll be saved like flies in amber Perfect and pristine Dancing through each coming...

I know your face From some other place But this can’t be real, just can’t be real Too clean, too bright To be quite right This can’t be real, this can’t be real I know, oh I know But then I see you now, a perfect point of light So small and yet so bright Reaching out to comfort me Wake up superman Do what love demands Seize eternity I sense you there In empty air But this can’t be real, just can’t...

Brittle fragment of a memory Still and silent over centuries Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, and never never go again Do not forsake me Love, do not forsake me Awaken to me Take a breath now Hesitation is the enemy Every instant is a victory Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, I swear it I swear it can be Everything you wanted Everything forever Forever's not so long Forever's no...

Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? When the time has come to pick a side, will you simply refuse and say there's nothing you can do, when you know that it's not true? You defined yourself with things that you consume With your wine, your wealth, your car and your perfume So when someone bought the same things and that person...

Oh you temporary thing departing since the moment you arrived you know you can't survive this on your own you solitary thing now reaching out in hopes that you will find that another of your kind is reaching too Some signal in the static peeking through; there's something out there looking out for you and hey, you know it might be true You ordinary thing, less different than you want to believe ye...

Who are you now, when all your fear is stripped away? Who are you now? What do you remember from the day? What did you surrender to get away? Hey, are you all right? Are you going to be all right? You seem to have forgotten how to breathe, or lost the urge for quite a while.

It’s quiet out here Look for the sun, I can’t find it out here And all that dumb shit that they told us about our manifest destiny Is gone and forgotten now And sure, our goals are pure What good does that do out here? I’m not sure And looking back now at that comic book future we used to believe in So foolish in hindsight, I see We’re only survival machines Connected like mother and child Each ne...

I feel like I'm finally nearing the end of production on my album Evergreen; everything is recorded, and now it's just a question of final mixing and mastering. Here's a more or less final version of the song that started it all, Sail or Anchor. Fun fact: much of the percussion is recordings of Ann Druyan's brain waves from the Voyager golden record, combined with tiny ( < 1 second) snippets of AS...

This is a very rough demo of a song I've been working on. I recorded it on my iPhone, playing the piano that I learned on as a child. It's in bad repair these days and sounds like it, but it has a special place in my heart. The song is about the aftermath of an alien abduction where a couple have had something installed in them that will record their thoughts and memories, and that in some strange...

This is not really meant to be a track per se, just demonstrating a proof of concept. This is essentially taking the idea behind Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" and faking it by chaining the same reverb over and over again instead of repeated recordings in a real space. Then I'm basically turning those reverbs on and off rhythmically while running a drum loop through them. https://www.yout...

Okay this is a sad one. I wrote this song about four years ago when I was approaching the end of a postdoc fellowship and didn't yet have another job lined up, and was contemplating what to do if I wasn't able to continue my academic career. At the same time I was talking to my family back home about how my brother's health was failing, and the abysmal quality of care he was receiving because he h...