Channel Zero (2022) is my second collaboration with Pittsburgh band Mt Juno. Initially, they wanted me to sing on and help produce a couple songs on what was their album. To make a long story short, my perfectionism and interest in the material took over, and it turned into a whole collaborative album! This is in some ways a continuation of the themes on Forest for the Trees, with songs featuring often humorous, satirical themes of a retrofuturist, hyper-consumerist dystopia saturated with old-school TV and radio.
Musically, the album features even more lush, maximalist production than my previous work, taking Mt Juno's rock instrumentation and augmenting it with layers of drum machines, synthesizers, vocal harmonies, and retro video game instruments. I remastered the album in 2026 to make everything pop just a little more, and finished the visuals for the YouTube uploads.
After various scattered singles and covers, my first EP Forest for the Trees (2021) came together as my capstone project for my senior year of high school.
I wanted to make a statement that fit my state of mind and the pandemic-ridden, politically toxic state of the world in 2021. From out of my eternally-huge backlog of halfway-finished songs, I chose several that shared themes of satirical conspiracy theories and mental health, then narrowed it down to four final tracks. After a month or so of work, I finished the writing, recording, and producing of the project.
Musically, the album is a hybrid of rock and electronic styles, with lush production benefiting from my skill in Logic Pro.
Two tracks ("Forest for the Trees" and "Swarm") feature extensive collaborative contributions from the Pittsburgh music project Mt Juno. We met online during the early pandemic and shared many musical ideas with one another, before and after this project. I love getting input and collaboration with people who have different skillsets and viewpoints than mine.