"off the rails" a live album, out now in select places!

This past spring, I went on a 2 week long tour of the east coast, by train. Along the way, I performed several shows and live recorded them using a single microphone; Ear Trumpet Labs, Myrtle for any audio nerds out there. I've been sprinkling these recordings out over the last few months, and I'm about ready to release them as an album.

The recordings are done! But I've been dragging my feet on this last step of releasing them, because I haven't wanted to play into the whole music industry game. It fills me with dread! I want people to have these songs, but why should I drive myself crazy trying to beg people for a scrap of their attention to go and listen to it on spotify? What does that do to benefit me in the long run? Streaming is the standard, but it doesn't pay artists, at least not at my level. Why should I drive myself crazy to fit inside the mold of the machine?

In the age of AI, it has never been easier to make recorded music that sounds technically perfect. The creation process gets faster and faster and easier and easier, but at what cost? What are we running towards? Isn't the process, the experience that makes it art? Do we lose our humanity in the race? These are all questions I find myself chewing on constantly.

This next release of mine aims to recon with those questions. I don't proclaim to have "the answer", but I can at least respond and sit with you in the pondering. This release is all live recordings, simple as it gets with recording setup. I think it's perfectly imperfect and human. It's a portrait of this musical moment, I'm giving it to you all on Patreon, Bandcamp, and CD starting today! Maybe eventually I'll put it on streaming services, but that's now the afterthought, not the standard I aspire to.

I present to you, "off the rails".