SOLO PIANO 2 is out

I know, I know, I just released a whole album. But this came together super quickly:

• On Monday night, I was noodling on the piano as my daughter winded down before bedtime, and I found myself playing quiet reduction versions of the songs off INFINITE NORMAL. They sounded quite good and chilled my whole family out, and so I thought I’d record the ones that worked.
• On Tuesday night, I recorded said piano reductions in one take. (I later went back and re-recorded 2 or 3 of them, and updated the mix of a previous improv performance I’d recorded back in 2017 that fit in with the set – more on that below.)
• I mixed and mastered them quickly and organized them in a folder, which I promptly uploaded to my new Faircamp site, the Cult of Lightbulbs.

And so it’s here – a second album of piano music. You can listen to it at the above link, or right here:

I had initially thought about this being a nice surprise release for the next Bandcamp Friday in December, but this new Faircamp-powered music site is turning my whole thinking about release music upside down a bit. With zero fees or strings or weird network effects in play, I can just impulsively upload an album of piano music I impulsively recorded and people can just listen to it. I can just… do the thing, and tell people about it… And i don’t need to worry about marketing or fees or optimizing my release schedule for either, unlike what I would have done if this was a Bandcamp Friday release: sit on it, sort of build some minimal hype, push it hard on my socials for a single day, and hope for the best. Instead it’s just there.

Anyway, about this release: Most pieces are deconstructions or reinterpretations of songs from that last album of mine, INFINITE NORMAL, though a few go back further:

• “crawl in" is a reduction of “womb”
• “my skin, my words" is a rearrangement of “i stood in the rain part 1”
• “nocturne 1" was written in ~2017
• “seabreeze" was written in ~2009 and served as the base for “never know” – here’s a bit of lore on that one
• “backwoods" is a reduction of “poor man’s version”
• “intimacy" is a reduction of “i made a totem” (from RUINED CASTLE)
• “skyscrapers" is a short piece from 2022 that inspired “stay awake”
• “moonlighting" is an improvisation based on “performance”
• “the best i can" is a reduction of “arrangement” (from THROW MYSELF INTO THE BAY)
• “a break" is a reduction of “nostalgia”
• “nocturne 2" was written in ~2017 and served as the base for - “precariat"
• “post-midnight" is an improvisation from ~2016 which inspired elements of “precariat” and “i stood in the rain part 2”

I hope you enjoy.