Jukebox

The long-awaited sequel to Falling in Love to Voices, featuring fragments of songs recorded on my phone. Only this time, we’re going electric (because I live in a home without an acoustic piano). Even though the sounds are fake, there’s something nice about hearing the physical keys move.

I tried to include every audio recording since I released my last lo-fi album, but realized I missed several years of voice memos from an older phone. If this is Soup Sounds, what comes next?

What happened during the four year gap between this album and the previous one? I went to grad school! If 2018–21 pretty much everything represents my life prior to grad school, 2021–25 EVEN MORE NO ONE ASKED FOR represents my life as a result of grad school. I (think I) got much better at producing music, even if I had nothing to produce music for since I was studying graphic design, not theater. I also began composing music in a new way — by creating websites! The site you’re currently on is a direct product of this time period, where I acquired the skill sets to not just create art, but to develop tools and platforms for creating and sharing art. Fun!

Also on this album: snippets of remixed songs from an album I wrote but never released: Finnegan WIP. Maybe someday it’ll see the light.

As I got closer to graduating college, I began creating music for no particular purpose. Many of these tracks ended up in my senior thesis, No Replica, and many were just ways to kill time. Speaking of time, I didn’t have the time (nor the reason) to put together a new album from these fragments, so I just decided to release them all at once, using the names I gave the original files — a date, followed by something descriptive.

Compositions for Wilson Lai’s similarly-titled senior thesis film at Wesleyan University.

Sound design for Wesleyan University's production of Eurydice, written by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Corey Sorenson, and mounted at the CFA Theater.

There are a couple of featured samples in the mix:

“Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree” by Glenn Miller.
“La Vie en rose” (a MIDI file I found).
“String Quartet in F Major” by Ravel.
“A New Satiesfaction” by Made in Berlin string quartet.

Sound design for Jordan Tragash’s production of the play Rhinoceros, written by Eugène Ionesco. The play was produced by Second Stage at Wesleyan University and mounted in the Patricelli ’92 Theater during the spring 2018 semester.

For the show’s music, I settled on a mix of genres that juxtapose classical orchestrations with electronic/pop songs to reflect the play’s themes of absurdity and confusion. The score gradually devolves into an amalgamation of rhinoceros sounds, which I produced by pitching down human grunts (you’ll hear my friends in the mix). For the production’s sound system, I placed subwoofers under the audience’s seating such that the aforementioned rhino sounds would vibrate the entire floor of the theater.

Sound design for Eva Yichen Lou's senior thesis production of 99 Histories, written by Julia Cho, mounted at Wesleyan University, with cello performed by Aïli Niimura and featuring a rendition of the Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.1 in G.

This album took me too long to finished, so it’s half-finished really. When I was re-recording To Home as Time Passes (that’s a confusing sentence), I decided I wanted to compose in-between songs to transition from one track to another. I grew sick of both projects, so I finished Time Passes and then sat on the transition tracks. Whereas Time Passes consists almost exclusively of piano instrumentals, Moonbug gave me a chance to experiment with other production techniques. Some of those experiments were fruitful, so I quickly wrapped up the project at some point and here it is. (Fun fact: this album predates my cat Moonbug, and has no association with the company behind that baby TV show.)

I write songs much faster than I can produce them. That’s what happens when you learn piano by exclusively improvising instead of playing other people’s music. Whenever a new song emerged, I would record it on my phone. I once heard that the voice memos app is a place where ideas go to die. That’s no fun! This is not a graveyard!

Time Passes is a remake of my first album, To Home, only this time shorter and different. I tried to make it better, but I really just made it shorter and different. Ah well. The lyrics are often embarrassing, but I suppose that’s what happens when you dwell on the past. (Also let’s cut me some slack, I was still a kid!)

A string quartet adapted from a synthesizer piece. I wrote the original synthesizer piece for my composition class, and my teacher asked me if I ever wanted anyone to perform it. I said sure, and he said that in that case I’d need to re-write it for a string quartet. I listened to him, and here it is.

Unfortunately, I do not know who performed the piece. I remember that only two of the musicians had met before the recording session, and that those two were married.

After we read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in high school, I wanted to turn it into a movie. I had never made a movie before, besides a few sketches for YouTube that no one saw. While I was writing the script, I also began composing the film’s score. A score to a film that doesn’t exist. Does that still make it a score?

Granola is an experimental pop album created in NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music during the 2014 Summer High School program. The album is credited to Lola, a group that consisted of myself, Joaquin Friedman, Pavlina Osta, and Jourdan Kelli.

I had a big ego (maybe I still do?) and ended up taking control over the album. Everything’s by me, except for the following credits:

“Dirk Diggler” features guitar by Will Adler.
“Empty Bowl” features percussion by a NYC street drummer.
“The Outsider” features production by Joaquin Friedman.

OK, technically I released this album 2021 December 28. I love my first album, To Home, but I was really not a good singer when I recorded it, which makes it hard for me (and probably anyone) to listen to. After I released it, my brother asked me if I would consider releasing it as an instrumental album, because it would be easier to study to. It was probably a slight dig at my voice, but I forgive you!

Anyway, it’s long after the release of the album, and I still had all the production files, so I went ahead and saved the instrumentals before anything could happen to them. I originally released this re-release under the name “To Home?? To Home!!” but it’s not a real new album so it doesn’t deserve a real title. I did throw on a few more tracks of songs I wrote and recorded but never did anything with, and I’ve spared you from my childhood singing voice.

To Home is concept album about a failing relationship between two people named Mason and Erin. The story is told from Mason’s perspective and is arranged in five acts that span eighteen songs, plus an EP of four additional songs.

I wrote this in high school with a high schooler’s brain. As most things a high schooler dreams of, this album is naive and makes me wince to listen to, but I’m a staunch archivist so I’ve preserved it here nonetheless. In the spirit of conservation, here are my original descriptions of the album’s story, presented here exactly as I wrote them back in 2014:

ONE — in which we see the emotional distance between Mason and Erin — “Mason the Killer” — Erin begs for Mason’s attention — “Through the Eyes of a Vacationer” — Mason mindlessly stays mute — “Wouldn’t Know” — Mason blames Erin for not communicating with him.

TWO — in which Mason obsesses over his isolation and expresses theoretical love for Erin — “Forever” — he sees Erin leaving him, but he only thinks and does not act — “Boxfish, or, How Could I See This in a Different Light?” — he feels that he does not know himself — “A Complex of Noise” — his thoughts bring him no conclusions, and he is overwhelmed with confusion.

THREE — in which Mason expresses his distaste for love and eventually for himself — “To Home” — he feels that he was unfairly separated from the relationship — “In a Cloud” — he blames Erin for making him doubt himself — “Estate” — he aims to find what makes him act as he does — “Atlanta” — he fears a world without Erin.

FOUR — in which Mason’s anger settles into sadness — “Life is a Nervous Twitch” — his anger distills into self-loathing — “My Happiest Days Are Filled with Noise” — he tries to define himself by his actions — “Planet, Maybe” — he loses hope and falls into a depression — “O, Isn’t It Fantastic?” — time moves past him.

FIVE — in which Mason finds false hope — “Flourish” — he redefines himself and looks towards the future — “A Low-Hung Head” — he dismisses his failed relationship and blames its failure on Erin — “Grizzly Bear” — one final moment of thought — “Decider” — he decides that he never loved Erin and that the last five years did not happen.

MORE — songs written while recording To Home — “Where I Better Last!” — finding ourselves out of place in society — “Sure” — the ambiguity of language — “More” — the irrelevance of excess — “Mushroom” — a kid’s final efforts to live before he loses his senses.

While in high school, I self-produced a small run of physical copies that featured 2 CDs and additional artwork. I also created a digital lyrics booklet, which featured the (semi-)original typeface Boxfish Political (I designed it by modifying all of the letters in another font). I was very proud of all of this at the time. I still am!