I've been writing songs for many years, but very few of them have been immortalized in the recorded format. At some point I realized that I am a finite, mortal being, so I decided to start recording with a manageable, modest first project (in many years) of material that I've written - two or three songs, even currently unfinished ones, just see it through to the end for once, for Christ's sake.

I chose three songs, some of which were a couple years old by then - old enough to be high priority to be saved from the degradation of forgetting, but new enough that I still identified with them sufficiently and felt that they were musically interesting enough to build upon.

When the pandemic (and the ill-fated response to the pandemic) took hold, this became one of the things that I worked. I often worked very slowly, sometimes very sporadically, taking weeks off at a time before returning to it, but always working/playing with great care.

These three songs had occupied my head for long enough that I already heard a large percentage of the instrumentation and vocal harmonies in the imagination. One of my commitments was to be as uncompromising as possible in ensuring that the finished product was faithful to those imaginings. This meant recording full instrumentation - guitars (on which these songs were written), bass, keys/synths, violin - whatever was asking to be included. I invested extra hours to find the exact synth plugin or the exact guitar tone that I needed, recording a ridiculous amount of material and not using most of it, obtaining and learning how to use new software, etc. Without studio time constraints, left to my own devices, and doing everything by myself from start to finish, I spent a *considerable* amount of time and energy on about fifteen minutes of music.

I finished almost all of the recording in 2021, but I invested as much or more time working, sometimes agonizingly, at getting a mix I liked - again, working in fits and starts while I juggled everything else in life. The mixing phase was a project in its own right. Never before had I put as much attention into doing it "right", so there was a learning curve I had to contend with.

And then, for some reason, I sat on the material (or rather, it sat on my hard drive) for well over a year, tweaking the masters occasionally. Maybe I wanted to see if I would start to hate it. As it turns out, I feel pretty good about it. I feel that I fulfilled my promise to the spirits that brought me these songs.

This recording is but a very narrow selection of the kinds of musical directions I can go in, but that is just all the more reason to continue the journey. Now I'm free to continue toward whichever directions I am called.

So given my satisfaction, I now bring you, dear listener, my modest offering; this short EP, if you will; this small 15-minute-sized slice of my soul that has been rescued from the depths. I hope it does good for you.

The music is available for no cost. Because, really - who the hell am I? More than that, I want money to be no obstacle to hearing it. However, if you find value in what I'm doing, if you want to help me continue to feed myself and keep my instruments working and maybe get some new socks without holes in them while I continue to dedicate myself to learning and creating music until the day that my body gives out, well, you're welcome to pay for a song or three. Any little bit of monetary help is sincerely and heartily appreciated.

This EP is dedicated to three friends of mine who have gone away:
Kasey Fusco (who always used to say he was waiting for me to record something of my own), Aaron Pollard, and Tonee Turner.