Album Notes

Engulfed
The New CD

It started as a stream of conscious and quickly developed as a bunch of inside jokes that made literal sense based on introspection and observation of the society and culture. While writing the record Mark and myself were conscious of building a collection of songs. We wrote about 20 songs together and others I pulled out of the archives that I felt had merit and were worth rebuilding.
I would describe the new CD as more of a indie project than commercial. To me commercial music is made to sell products. Indie or independent music is anti-commercial or commerce no rules and no format to comply with which is freeing for a artist. I write pop songs but not necessarily in a commercial format. For me “pop” meaning popular is music that keeps playing long after listening, it lingers somewhere in the back of your mind there is something contagious, melodic, inspiring, haunting, and infectious.
We first titled the new collection of songs “Racing to the Dawn.” After listening and re-listening to it we felt stuck. The title wasn’t working and the sequencing seemed off, disconnected, and not making sense. After throwing it on the table we had a collection of 12 songs that had no through lines. This inspired 4 more songs that were actually musical transition pieces. When we infused the new tracks into the grouping of songs and it finally made sense. At that point we had taken issue with the title as well. The idea of "Racing to the Dawn” was very forward moving, however the songs that we chose were very in the moment. After a epiphany we re-named it “Engulfed” it seemed very of and in the moment and felt that the songs should and will steep the listener inside the music.
Musically, I believe that I retraced my steps back to my original roots. I really love much of the Nu-Romantic bands from the 80’s one of my most favorite records of all times is “Power, Corruption, and Lies” by New Order. It is brilliant, listening to them transitioning between the raw, dark sound of the original band Joy Division and segue way into what made them the God fathers of electronica. I think that art and music is most provocative while transitioning because we are listening to something that is somewhat experimental and raw and I find it exciting.
Vocally, I used different parts of my voice to lend different and unique textures and recorded a bunch of spoken word as well. I felt that I had a great experience working on this record because it was very awarding to have the ability to explore a different side of songwriting and had the freedom to use my original inspirations as the stepping off point to exploration.