Had a great time playing Treehouse, the terrific music and art pop-up put on by Alex Wisner. Thanks so much to Alex for having me and to Devin Huynh for the great pics of the night. Big love to the audience and the other performers that night—y’all were wonderful!
Just wrapped the score to a really fun project called Murder Camp. Will share more details later, but here’s a little sneak peak at the score!
Kili Big, Ida Joglar’s beautiful documentary feature that I scored, is now available to stream on the Crackle app, available free on most smart TVs and online. So glad this film is now so widely available!
Howdy! I’m playing my first live solo set in about a million years (okay, 5, but feels like a million). Chris Rolontz is joining on upright bass, and having my mom guest on violin on a song as well. Super stoked to share new tunes, and the rest of the night is a stacked bill of great bands. Hope to see you there!
Kili Big is finally available to stream via the Chicken Soup For the Soul network. Congrats to Ida, Sam and the whole team, and the Curvy Kili Crew!
I’ve been really been enjoying playing a lots of shows recently, the most I’ve done in years actually. Have done short stints on keys with Marmalade Mountain & guitar with Sister Gemini, and then a few shows with my old pals in Frith where I play keys/samples/guitar. No proper photos, sadly, just tons of bad iphone vids for the stories—such are the times, haha. Go follow me on Instagram if that sounds like something you want in your life.
I’ve also been doing a lot of songwriting thanks to some big inspiration from School of Song, an online songwriting school that offers workshops with lots of amazing artists. Have recently done workshops with Luke Temple, Ellen Kempner (Palehound), Courtney Marie Andrews, Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes) & Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors). I’ve gotten so much out of them and written a ton of new songs over the past year that I’m really excited about. I’m going to start putting some tunes out next year, but for now here’s a demo of a song I wrote in Robin Pecknold’s workshop:
Kili Big, Ida Joglar’s documentary feature I scored last year, continues to be featured and win win awards at film festivals around the country. Excitingly, it’s also looking like it will be more broadly available this fall on some streaming services. Will share more soon!
The theater company I’m part of, Public Assembly, finally came out of forced hibernation for another show. Our members have all gotten pretty busy in the intervening months, so this might be the last one for awhile, but it was a blast to get the band back together and put on another gloriously weird night of guerrilla theater. As always, huge thanks to our amazing audience.
I did the interstitials, with help from Chris Rolontz, Travis Warner and Chris Null. Music befitting of the theme “Filth,” replete with grimy drum machines, screeching synths, feedback, and vomit samples time-stretched into oblivion.
Here’s a little video of one of our interstitials from the night. Excuse the noisy (excited!) crowd and dark video. We played in between each of the 3 one act plays, and kept lighting to a minimal so they could reset the stage in darkness.
Ahhhh!! Kili Big just won best documentary at the Bentonville Film Festival!! Wish I could have been there for the screening, but so proud of Ida & the whole team!!!
Kili Big, a beautiful feature length doc I scored about a group of plus-sized woman who set out to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, is having it’s world premiere in August at the Bentonville Film Festival. The film was directed by Ida Joglar, a dream of a collaborator. She has impeccable instincts as a filmmaker, and her vision for what was needed from the score was clear, while still leaving enough space for me to play and find my own way into the score. Her notes were always spot on, helpful and encouraging. I am so proud of the music that I discovered in the process and of the whole film. Congrats to Ida on the festival, hope you all can see it soon!
Cori Elliott’s fantastic EP Between Two Places is out today on the usual digital suspects. Go check it out on Spotify, iTunes or Bandcamp.
Cori and I have been friends for some years now, and have been talking about working together on something for almost as long. She has a truly singular voice, both as a singer and writer, and this batch of songs finally felt like the right project for us to collaborate on. We did most of it at my studio and had the time to really stretch out and experiment with each song. There was no preconception about what things should sound like other than the guiding principle that it should be different from anything Cori had done before. This freedom was SUPER exciting as a producer. We poked around a lot to find the right direction for each song and tried not to be afraid of dead ends. ‘Cause there are always dead ends. For example, we recorded two totally different versions of Lie to Me before scapping everything and starting fresh with a drum beat made from various environmental samples (stones clinking together, a crackling fire, cabbage being chopped, etc) that ended up being the key to unlocking the rest of the arrangement. It was often like that—we’d come up with one little hook or idea (the marxophone riff on True or the VHS-inspired synth drones on Lucky) that would break the whole thing open. In some cases, things would stall again and we’d have to find another little key to unlock the next section (like coming up with the idea to change up the chord progression on the second chorus of Crutch). Sometimes when you’re stuck, the client can get panicky that things aren’t going well, but through it all, Cori never lost sight that we’d find the way through. That patience really helped foster an environment of joyous creativity and led to what feels like some of the most interesting production work I’ve done so far.
We had lots of musical allies, as one does, while working on this:
-Kyle Crane played drums on all the songs but Lie to Me. I’ve worked with him a lot, and, as always, he killed. Even though many of the tracks were in a strange, half-finished state when he recorded, he found the perfect parts for these tunes.
-Chris Rolontz played upright bass on Too Far Gone, another terrific musician I’ve worked with a lot who knocked it out of the park.
-Jane Grondin (yup, my freaking mom) played the gorgeously evil-sounding strings on Lie to Me (including playing some layers at double speed so we could slow the tape down half-speed and get that deep, murky atmosphere from them).
-Chris Infusino played some tasty marching snares on Lie to Me.
-Boogie Jones ripped it on the saxophones on Lucky.
-Jason Soda did some engineering for us at Palomino Sound (the tones he get as an engineer are gorgeous and need next to no post processing, and his space is vibey and full of great gear—it’s where we recorded drums, mellotron & some other odds & ends).
-Cassidy Turbin did the fantastic mix and put up with my pickiness. Cass is a legit human angel and superb collaborator who is a dream to work with.
-Adam Haggar at Mount Olympia Mastering did the master. He made it all shine and truly gave a shit about this project (which doesn’t always happen when you get something mastered). For example, we approved the master of Eyes and the next day Adam sent us another pass of it because he just thought he could get even more out of it. What mastering engineer does that?? None, that’s freaking who. Go Adam!
Alright, that’s all I’ll be rambling about this one for now. Go check the EP out! Congrats to Cori, and bless u if you’ve read all this.
Another tune I produced with Cori Elliott is out, this one called “Too Far Gone.” Once again, a joy to help this song find it’s way with Cori. She sang lead vocals and loads of harmonies (big inspiration from the Jellyfish track “Hush” for the swelling vocal layers we did on the bridge). Chris Rolontz played upright bass. Kyle Crane played drums, which were recorded by Jason Soda at Palomino Sound. I played the other instruments and did programming. Mixed by Cassidy Turbin. Mastered by Adam Haggar at Mount Olympia Mastering.
Cori also made a killer music video to go with it that captures the moodiness of the song perfectly. Read an article about it here or just watch below.
Had a helluva time producing Cori Elliott for her upcoming EP Between Two Places. She just dropped her first single “Eyes”. Read about it on Buzzbands LA or just listen here:
Thanks to Kyle Crane on drums, Jason Soda at Palomino Sound, Cassidy Turbin on the mix, Adam Haggar on the master! All fantastic people and great collaborators.
Here’s a lil’ behind-the-scenes vid Cori did of me producing this absolute BOP and (mostly) looking like a huge dork (though scratching X-files samples on a Califone Cardmaster was honestly a musical highlight of my life). Watch to learn all my secrets! (hint: they are mostly about using an unsettling amount of hand gestures)
We here at Public Assembly have wrapped on our second edition of radio plays and this batch IS. A. DOOZY! This month’s theme (suggested, as always, by our audience—for the radio shows via instagram) is “To The Moon.” I made our brand new theme song and did the mix, and lots of very talented people wrote and acted and directed and sound designed things! Once again, you can click through to soundcloud for the full list of credits.
As a little bonus, you can download the theme song for free by clicking here. Hope you enjoy the episode and stay safe, y’all!
Errol Flynn, a short I scored about a drifter Mormon who hitches a very eventful ride with a trucker one night, is going to be playing next month at the Maryland Virtual Film Festival. Had a lot of fun on this one. Luke Baybak (who wrote, directed and acted in this, and killed it on all counts) was a delightful collaborator and we had a great time discussing how best to musically shape Errol’s strange world. Go check out the details here!
Like so many people and groups, my dear theater company Public Assembly has had to make some big adjustments during these strange times. Our usual monthly live show was clearly off the table for the forseeable future but the itch to create was still present. Thus was born—Public Assembly Radio! It’s something of an audio approximation of our live show. 3-4 short audio plays centered around a common theme that was suggested by our audience, this first one being “Butt Stuff.” (hehe) I did our theme music, sound design for “Feral” & “The Lobby Wake” & mixed the show. I also… may… be making …. my audio acting debut.. in “The Lobby Wake” (EEEEEKKK). Listen to the show below. The pool of talented creatives involved in bringing this puppy to life was vast, so please click through to soundcloud and check out the full credits.
Go peep some nice things people are saying about Alice in Wonderland over at Stage Scene LA & Stage and Cinema. And for goodness sakes, go get your tickets!
photo by Craig Schwartz
Alice in Wonderland opens today and I am so excited for people to see it. The amount of work and collaboration and artistry that was poured into this show from so many talented departments was staggering. The finished product is magical, and I’m thrilled at having gotten to make music (and do the sound design) for this incredible world. You can get tickets for the show here!
As a little sneak peek, I’m posting “The Boat Song” below. This is the opening song of the show and Alice’s theme. The lyrics are part of the original script, but have been set to a new melody and arrangement. It’s sung by an amazing singer (and my dear friend) Gabbi McPhee with violins by Jane Grondin (my mom!). Hope you enjoy!
Did a short little Q & A about working on Alice—go peep it over here. Also, to further whet your whistle, here’s a sneak peek at one of the cues for Alice!
I am scoring and sound designing an upcoming production of Alice in Wonderland at the incredible theater A Noise Within! This is my first large-scale foray into a full-length theatrical work and I. AM. PUMPED. I’ve been having lots inspiring conversations with the director of the play, Stephanie Shroyer. She is a warm and generous collaborator, and she knows this story DEEP. She is really digging to create new depth of emotion in a piece that most people are already familiar with. So far, I’ve been working on the a sound palette for the world and coming up with initial themes.
We also just had our first read through of the play with the whole cast and they are in-cred-i-ble. Even just seated, reading the characters, the voice work alone is astounding. Can’t wait to see it all come together. If you want to read a little bit about our first rehearsal click here and if you live in the Los Angeles area, go grab tickets here!