Music

Music by Eric

I did the music for this award-winning indie animated series

The first episode of Paradise Lost, a new indie animated series by Chicken Dynasty (aka Michael), won Best Animated Film at the GenCon 2022 Film Festival. So that’s awesome. Also awesome is that I created the score and music for the show, including the opening and closing themes. It’s been a fun project and I’m grateful that my odd ambient experiments caught Michael’s ear. I’ve seen the first four episodes so far and am happy to report that he’s building some good drama here. Take a look at the first episode:

Broken Staircases, a new post-rock sonic experiment for your listening pleasure

This one has been in gestation for a while, much of it pre-Covid, from the time I was recording Empty Nest. Took a while for it to come into shape in my head, to realize what the record was trying to be, but I think it got there. This is an instrumental post-rock record, largely improvised, with a greater focus on electronic drums than I usually have. It’s meant to be a journey; a series of rises and falls and lulls and crescendos. It’s about looking back for so long, you forget to look forward until it’s too late. Recommended if you like Ride (but instrumental), Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You Black Emperor, etc., though I don’t claim for a moment it actually sounds…
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Finally finishing a music project feels great! (m2 – Passageways to the Ever)

It feels like forever since I finished a music project. That’s because it’s been since pre-pandemic since I finished anything, and pandemic time has been an eternity. I do music because it gets something out of my system. If I go too long without creating some sounds, I get antsy. So I’m glad to have finally finished something. Granted, all of this material was recorded pre-Covid. It just took me that long to put it all together — not because it was difficult, but because my head just wasn’t in it. Such has been Covid life. But it’s finished, and I’m happy with it. These are guitar soundscapes and ambient drones, meant for the background or, if you just want to clear your head, for…
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“It’s Nice to Eat the King” is my first new music recording in a year

Recording music was an escape for me. My focus on big, layered sonics, ambiance and sometimes even downright noise came in no small part because I can get lost in all that sound. It’s meditative. Relaxing. Soothing despite the noise. But for some reason, the pandemic has coincided with the longest musical dry spell I’ve experienced in years. Aside from some digital music created last year for a project I will post about another time, I haven’t created anything. Nothing at all. Hell, I went nearly a year without even picking up the guitar, much less writing something on it. Until last night. That’s when a sonic jam accidentally spilled out while testing some equipment. And damn, it felt good to create again. It’s a…
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28 Songs that Changed My Life: Aretha Franklin, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (10 of 28)

Penned by the incredible Carole King and her husband, Gerry Goffin, this is one of those old classics that I’d have scoffed at in my youth. Too much shmaltz, too much romance, too much like the music my mother liked. I wanted something edgy and challenging, right? But a funny thing happened on the way to adulthood: One day I found a cassette of Aretha Franklin’s greatest hits. I have no recollection of where it came from or where I got it, but in a fit of boredom and curiosity, I gave it a spin and decided to pretend I was into it. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: That voice. That voice. WOW. How had I not sat up and paid…
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