First Single: Repress For Success

I’m in the middle of unpacking from my recent move, and I’m pretty sure I developed a hernia in the process, so I’m going to have to keep this brief so I can get back to dealing with all of that. I just want to drop some quick updates to let y’all know that I have released the first single, “Repress For Success”, featuring Megurine Luka & Dex, from my upcoming album, OMNIVERSE. You can check out my hand lettered lyric video now!

I wrote this track shortly after graduating with a B.S. in business administration, and feeling very lost. Despite having done well and accomplishing a lot, I felt like I really hadn’t learned what I set out to learn, and it definitely had nothing to do with who I am as a person, or my long-term goals. I was also struggling a lot with some very deep identity issues. I felt like I was presenting a different face to the world than the person I actually am inside. I still feel that way sometimes, and I think maybe that’s just something people feel from time to time, and I hope this song captures it well.

I feel like Luka lives in two worlds, being a primarily Japanese VOCALOID who also must sing in English when needed. She is probably embraced more by the English VOCALOID producers than most other Japanese VOCALOIDs, and so it seemed quite appropriate to me that she sing this song.

I’d like to give a quick shout out to all of the people who helped make this (and the soon-to-be-released album) happen: Space Robinhood for his awesome art, The Human @ Human Studios in Portland, Oregon, for his outstanding production work, support from Nathan Miller, Andrew & Michelle Haws, Stephen & Elizabeth Pate, my mom & brother, the folks on various Vocaloid groups and the Vocaloid Amino, and my local support team, Ann & her parents. Oh, and also Kirby, without whom I would still be able to find socks.

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Quick Update

Life got busy. Most of what has been keeping me busy has been very positive. I’m getting ready for another long visit to the Oregon Coast, and I’ve re-joined my raid team on Final Fantasy XIV after taking a long hiatus (mostly due to the fact that I didn’t like the raids in Heavensward, though that’s really a subject for my gaming blog…) The latter has lead to a few hours of extra work in game ‘gearing up’, studying a few raid videos, etc., while the former is really what this quick update is all about.

Normally, when someone drops a new album, like I just did with RePulse, they would promote like crazy. I’ve done some advertising, dropping links on Facebook and Twitter, but it’s been pretty limited. A lack of marketing budget means that all promotion has to be clever and/or time consuming. Since I am not particularly clever, that time factor is huge. Every piece of content I write to promote the album is time I’m not spending working on the next album, which really bring us directly to the point: Much as I love RePulse, and hope it finds its way to as big an audience as possible, I am taking the next few weeks before my next trip to get as much work done on the next project as I possibly can. I will be bringing all of my tools with me this time (my full computer, speakers, analog synth, etc.) so that I will be able to work as efficiently there as I do here, but I also know there will be downtime. Gear has to be set up and tested. Travel will happen. Gremlins will eat the most important cables. Because life. Also, my work with mixing/mastering maestro The Human is likely to be more efficient in person, so I’m hoping to cram as much of that in as possible before I go. Finally, there is a sort of ‘seasonal deadline’ for the next project anyway. Even if things hadn’t gotten busy for me, I might still feel the need to cram for this next project because it’s, shall we say, a time specific release.

So, if you haven’t listened to RePulse yet, go check it out! It’s in all the usual places: iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google Play, Groove, and my personal favorite: Bandcamp (where you can get exclusive extras like a 24-page digital booklet and a link to an album-length video for a complete audi0-visual experience!) If you love it, go ahead and share it with.. y’know… everyone! Y’all are basically my promotion team at this point. Nothing I say about it will mean half as much to your friends as what you say, so I greatly appreciate any and all efforts you guys can make!

And then stay tuned, because the next project is going to be (cue the ‘dad pun’ voice…) very merry!