Greetings, and thanks for visiting my music website...
I’ve been writing and recording songs for over 20 years, but I’ve become more serious about it in the last 10 years or so. By ‘serious’, I mean that I’m always making the effort to improve my songs, my lyrics, my playing, and my engineering/mixing skills. I live for this! And, thanks to the Internet, I'm now pleased to have listeners all over the world.
My songs - written in locations such as Helsinki, Seattle, Brisbane, Bangalore, Moscow, and Boise - run the gamut from electric folk to psychedelic rock to acoustic pop. They often make use of lush, heavily-layered soundscapes with lots of sonic 'ambiance'. In this regard, I've been heavily influenced by artists such as Daniel Lanois, Radiohead, Talk Talk, Sigur Ros, and The Flaming Lips. I play guitars, bass, drums, percussion, and keyboards on my songs - and all the singing. I tend to use the studio as an 'instrument' in and of itself (my late-Beatles influence showing through). I actually enjoy producing, mixing, and manipulating sound as much as songwriting itself - probably more.
Lyrically, my songs tend to be introspective, from personal experience, with generally bittersweet themes. Nature has also been a common topic, though I never know what I'm going to write about next. Of course, there’s also the occasional bizarre experiment - I rather like using the studio as a 'sound laboratory' from time to time, and I listen to everything from Sun Ra to Neil Diamond to Black Moth Super Rainbow.
I hope you find something here that catches your ear. And, if you have the luxury of time to invest, I also hope that you might be able to listen to my musical progression through the many years I've been doing this... THERE'S ALMOST 5 HOURS OF MUSIC ON THIS SITE!!
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Make no mistake about it, this is a brave site. Rather than putting up only my most polished music, I'm archiving - for posterity - the entire trajectory of my craft. Starting all the way back during my childhood in Canada during the 80's, it's all represented here: the GOOD & BAD, the EMBARRASSING & SUBLIME.
After all, what is life without progression?
Thanks for listening...
JSR