this ravine where i loved you...

a little more than 11 years ago, i began a journey that continues to this day; into the world of digital music recording. in 2001, i got my very own computer (previously in my life it had always been the family computer or a friend’s computer), and began recording albums and releasing them for free on the internet.

i’ve been recording music in one way or another since around 1996, but 2001 was a paradigm shift; i was suddenly able to produce layered, multi-tracked, complex compositions, with multiple instruments and samples, all by myself without leaving my bedroom. i think at the time, that was basically my idea of heaven.

the first thing that was borne of this new found heaven was this collection of heady, fuzzy, off-kilter, shoegaze-y tracks that i appropriately titled slumber (download the whole album now).

at the time, i was listening to a lot of shoegaze, lo-fi, wall-of-noise, and garage-glitch stuff like Hood, Four Tet, The For Carnation, Yo La Tengo, MBV, SIANspheric, early Treble Charger, and Rose Chronicles, and i definitely think that influenced my early sound.

the teaser track streaming in this post, “moebius” is probably pretty representative of slumber on a whole, though the album does jump around a lot between lo-fi guitar tracks and breakbeat glitch. the songs of slumber are mostly what i consider to be “outtakes” from the tigers album, which i actually released as a CD in 2002.

slumber contains alternate versions (and/or remixes) of tracks that appeared on tigers, such as “24 views of mount fuji” (which i later re-recorded again in 2007) and “athoos”. i think at one point i also intended to include an overdriven acoustic version of “gills” on slumber, but i think that recording is lost somewhere in the digital aether.

altogether, this album represents my earliest musical fumblings. it even includes “midnite on the lake”, a reworking of a track that i originally recorded in 1999 on a tascam porta-studio 4-track. i haven’t gone back and remastered the tracks, and i’m not overly proud of them, but i still find them entertaining, with one or two moments of genuine inspiration coming through the noisy fog.

enjoy.

tracklist:

1. good morning

2. athoos (remix)

3. afternoon

4. concorde

5. rising shine

6. moebius

7. midnite on the lake

8. all our problems

9. blushing

10. trembull

11. 24 views of mount fuji (remix)

12. goodnight (instrumental)