my goal, musically, was to combine dramatic, romantic neoclassical elements with goth, grunge, and thrash metal influences. the album received mixed reviews in the metal world, with critics who celebrated "letting go of what was limiting about metal" to other critics who called it "unlistenable... real crap." in any case, it became clear to me in the months that followed the release of this album that most people didn't understand what i was trying to do. shortly after cutting a second album, silence, in 2004, i decided infinite singularity was a failure and, with the exception of a few solo synth gigs over the years, largely abandoned the project until the summer of 2022.

My favorite thing over the past year has been “organic” engagement, building my own playlists, finding and networking with other artists, creators, and people with whom I relate as an artist. I have met some talented people and made a good friend or two along the way. This year I have resolved to avoid the temptation to find cheap, easy results. But you have to know what feels right to you and what your goals are.

So, in the end, I have this cold, bleak song about loving the winter, an unrequited love directed toward something that is utterly without mercy. The cold and dark that awaits at the end of the year and the end of the journey and the end of the world. And embracing it, even learning to feel warmly toward it, because the solitude and wonder and icy stillness is part of the journey too… and reminds me to make the most out of all of it.

This isn’t just a blog entry; it’s a new year’s resolution. On Friday, January 5, 20 years from the release of the second infinite singularity album “silence,” I have scheduled the release of “a forgotten name,” which is about the closest thing to an enduring “hit song” I’ve made. It will be available in both the fully professionally mastered version and the “rough mix” version (what I did in my own studio, untouched by any other hands), and the original album version (recorded/mastered in 2003 and released the following year, but not remastered like the silence re-release early this year). I want to see how different they really are. But I am much more interested in how you, the listener, experiences them, and welcome your thoughts.

In the end, I want to release the most honest, best quality music I can, while also considering that I’m a broke independent artist, so that I can hopefully find my people, build momentum, and continue to do this for many years to come.

where physics meets philosophy lives an idea: everything that can happen, actually does. every decision leads to the creation of alternate or parallel universes. it’s called the many worlds theory or hypothesis; an interesting, if disturbing, thought. getting older, it’s probably common to question what might be, or could have been, had you made a different decision and a different world unfolded around you. in many ways that’s what the new single is about; creating an alternate sonic universe within infinite singularity.

I used to joke that if you walked into a philosophy department and started asking philosophers if they believed in God, they wouldn’t say yes or no right away, but would ask: “what do you mean by God?” I wrote a song called monolith in 2001 (original version here), a metal epic that clocked in at just over nine minutes. This was actually the short version—I started recording the Infinite Singularity album Ruins with a metronome and then struggled with getting the timing right, so I ended up ditching the metronome and letting the drums carry the timing. For the new release, Ruins Revisited: 20 Years Later, I recorded a version with exactly the same riffs in the same order, but consistently timed with a metronome throughout; it’s just over 11 and a half minutes long.

songs are funny things. sometimes the songs come together in a really short time, and other times they…don’t. the ones that don’t often come in and out of focus for years, are abandoned, forgotten, and picked up again later. get a nice melody, a catchy riff, a hook, a bass lick or a drum pattern that doesn’t go anywhere right away, and it gets stored in the back on the brain meats for a while, to re-emerge when the time is right.

the dictionary definition of the word desolation is either a state of complete emptiness or destruction; or: anguished misery or loneliness. after a couple of entries that amount to throat-clearing overtures, leading to the decision to re-launch infinite singularity, i was trying to come up with a starting point for this blog series, someplace back in time that would help to make sense of it all, especially what it is that still attracts me to music after everything. i wavered back and forth when it came to connecting infinite singularity to my other career and creative pursuits but have, for mostly practical reasons, decided that this should be something separate.

a few months ago i was musing about music, and i since tentatively concluded: i hate music. i’ve spent tens of thousands of hours playing, and listening to, music, so it’s not as though i reached that conclusion out of ignorance. music is not fun for me. it does not make me happy. it has often felt like an insect bite that itches and itches that you can’t stop scratching, and the more you scratch it, the more it itches, and the more other insects bite you in the same place…

I got the amps working again, dusted off the keyboards, plugged in the PA and hooked up the computer. The drums are within reach and the mixer is warming up. Now to see whether anything truly cathartic happens.