Happy, um, late January! / 2023 recap

Well, I definitely missed the boat on my usual year-end newsletter, but hope 2024 is off to a good start for you and yours.

Things are good here. Nicole and I hit the 9 year mark last fall, for one :) Also, she recently went from full-time to 4 days/week at her day job, and is thrilled to have more time for art, knitting, and general work/life balance.

I've been enjoying a Kurosawa kick, and have at long last returned to a daily music practice in the form of jazz piano lessons (shout out Open Studio). As much as I love computers, man it feels great to practice a non-virtual instrument. And there's some bonus synergy going on: jazz is such an unabashedly geeky genre in the music theory department I feel it's a cheat code for songwriting/composing/etc. in any style. I'm reminded of my first venture into jazz piano at the University of Iowa; the first time I realized practicing scales could be actually useful!

Career-wise, 2023 was mostly about leveling up: exciting new gear, intensive "cable management", and lots of learning. In addition to the piano, I've continued honing my mixing skills (perma-shout out Griffin Rodriguez). I did just finish another long-coming art pop EP but it'll probably take me a while to navigate the road of releasing and promoting the thing (how do I say the opposite of "my forte"?)

Anyway, some photo highlights from the year are below.

♥
Carl

Built my first portable recording rig, with my first pair of 1073 preamps (many recording engineers consider these their "desert island" pick!)

Got the piano tuned up (shout out David Mann) and did some recording tests — I'm lucky to have such a beautiful instrument (passed down from my Grandma Mary, and thanks to my parents for being kind enough to ship it to LA once I actually had room)

Sold/donated some of my earliest gear, like my first synth: the Alesis QS6.1; here I am playing it in 2006 with DIY electrified pants (mayyybe not the safest idea I’ve ever had)

Became a multi-hatphenate

Happy 2023! + a visitor 🦨

Happy New Year!

I hope you and your family enjoyed the break and stayed warm.

Nicole and I spent our rainy NYE cooking and then finally watched the terrific movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.

I've been keeping busy music-wise: I doubled my acoustic treatment (now maximally foam-ified), scored a new documentary this fall (more on that soon), and took some time to refine my mixing skills with an old friend (shout out to the legendary Griffin Rodriguez !).

Last but not least — a very special visitor dropped by the studio this year. Scroll down for the reveal!

All the best to you in 2023!

2 months in photos

It’s been a busy couple of months!  Some highlights in reverse order:

Composed a solo violin piece for an upcoming film by Jeff Lamb.  Here is the excellent violinist Barry Socher after our recording session.

Finally met VFX Wizard Mike Ritchie of Gloo Studios after five years of working together.  One of the nicest guys in the biz.

Found a new use for the first tie I ever owned: foley for an animation by Ahmad Al-Awadi celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid.

Rented some fancy API pre-amps…

and used them to record 7 songs in a single evening (!) with Brandon Dickert, a drummer of the highest caliber.

Recorded bass with Griffin Rodriguez - an inspiring engineer/producer/mixer (Icy Demons, Beirut, ..) and person.  He actually suffered traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident not 2 weeks later.  As I’ve been mentioning on facebook, you can help support him here.  Get well soon, Griffin!

Drove into the mountains on my birthday and bought a chromaharp from a nice banjo player named Dave.

Joined the cult of cast iron.

 

Recorded a song for The Pact II with Pat Horvath and Dallas Hallam (more on that in a future post!)

Found out I am KILLING IT in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Back in July I visited Chicago, caught up with a lot of old friends and did a bunch of recording (thanks to engineers Dan Smart and Max Crowe).  I am humbled to have some truly world-class musicians involved… 

Nicolae Feraru, a Romanian cimbalom player I’ve been a fan of for years.  This year he won a National Endowment for the Arts Lifetime Honor National Heritage Fellowship, our nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.  Though I am exhausted in this picture, I was extremely excited to collaborate with him.

Blagoj Lamnjov, a virtuoso clarinetist from Macedonia.  

Long-time collaborator Max Crowe on guitars & bass.  (photo: Mikel Pickett)

I also recorded more vocals with my favorite soul singer on the planet, Hawk Colman, but we forgot to take a picture!  I can’t wait to write & share more about the project all this recording was for :)

Before the recording kicked off, I also…

Did live sound at the Museum of Science and Industry for my friends Eric McCoy & Justus Meyer as they interviewed neuroscientist David Freedman about his work with “categorization”.  I had a fun chat with David about James Brown, and enjoyed working with our cinematography/lighting team Mike and Leland.

Saw David’s band FuzZz (which consisted of him on guitar, another neuroscientist on keyboards, and KILLER rhythm & horn sections) with my friend and colleague Paul Lazarre.  Paul is an entrepreneur and science enthusiast, and conceived of the interview video in the first place.

Before Chicago, my buddy Rebecca Berdel and I saw Jordan Vogt-Roberts film “Kings of Summer” - a great indie film worthy of your support.

I also saw some truly inspiring concerts..

The otherwordly Harry Partch Ensemble (featuring the talented Alex Wand).

My friend Gina and I saw Björk!  One of my creative heroes… an Artist with a capital “A”.  I feel bad haven taken a photo after she asked the audience not to, but I promise my flash was off as to not distract anyone from the fireballs!

How’s that for a blog post?  'til next time…