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The, a wooden toolbox with a inlayed wooden interface covered in buttons, switches and knobs. The instrument appears to be almost keyboard-esque. It is resting on a wooden stand in the desert outside Palm Springs. In the distance you can see mountains and windmills

“The” is an instrument I created between 2016 and 2019 as a tool for performing music with my immense collection of field recordings. While my passion for field recording began decades ago in my teens, the field recordings I made between 2016 and 2019 took on a far different tone then ambient collection of sounds. Following the freak shooting that nearly killed my dad and the passing of my elderly friends Richard and Carol Wakeham, I began to feverishly record as a method for processing grief.

After Richard passed away in 2017, I realized that I had no recordings of his voice. I adored our conversations, and losing that memory was devastating. I attempted to replace it by going back through the years of field recordings I had made to transport myself back to moments during the six years I knew him. This inspired me to be more vigilant about capturing and organizing recordings that were important to me. Using his old woodshop, I built an instrument to re-animate my memories. I called it The, a nickname he had given himself.

My first album for this instrument came out in 10/11/19 and is entitled “Music for The.” It is dedicated to the memory of Richard and Carol and features five pieces the use field recordings to recreate five different memories from the years that I knew them.

An album cover for the album Music for The. It features a textured frame surrounding a old paper background, on which is an illustration of a train, a ufo, a tool, a plant, and a etching of Mithraeum The backside of the above cover, which features a track listing, an illustration of the, and some credits

My second album for The is in progress and will release sometime in 2025. So, stay tuned!

Below are some videos of performances and a music video I created that was installed in the CalArts WaveCave in May of 2017.