Babies Everywhere

Since the last time I posted, I have now become a dad. It is an entirely overwhelming experience that I won’t even try to blab about publicly on here for fear of sounding like an overly emotional burn-out psudo-guru. But yeah, last week marks a major change in my life. Additionally, my album with Chico Mann was finally released yesterday! This is another milestone many months in the works and I am feeling extremely happy to finally be letting this other baby out into the world. We’ve been having great luck with interviews and features, which have given us the chance to share how we first met, what our work process was like, why we chose the nocturnal theme and more. But I wanted to share a few more personal thoughts quickly on here about what this collection of songs means to me, and if you think that will detract in some way from the magic of your listening experience, then by all means read no further, just skip ahead and press play!

Despite already having made a couple collaborative songs together through the internet, Marcos (Chico Mann) and I had never been in the studio together when we decided to make this album together. He had just moved to LA from the East Coast and was just getting used to traffic and constant sunshine, I had just returned from 3 months traveling around Asia. We were both a little bit discombobulated, not sure what the next step was, but both confident that working together was a good idea. It happened really naturally, the music flowed out, egos didn’t really get in the way, songs came out freely and took shape quickly without any bickering between us! This is more rare than you might think. My love of the latest global electronic music trends seemed perfectly balanced by Marcos’ complete lack of concern for nearly all music recorded after the 80’s. I learned that my wife was pregnant about half way into making the record, which warped my whole sense of the future and filled me with excitement and hope. On the other hand, the changing political climate around us made us both feel much more anxiety and fear about the direction the world seems to be headed. Somehow, the simple fact of singing in Spanish seemed more political than usual. Songs emerged about refugees, breaking walls, going to battle. All bouncing lightly over the dance beats I was cooking up. Potent messages sitting clandestine alongside love songs, longing songs, party songs, and melancholy songs about loss. There was darkness, but we were persistently fighting our way towards the light. I hope some of this comes through when you press play. The reason I make music, and share music on here, is because I believe it has tremendous power. My hope is that the music on Night Visions will move you, inside and out, because we all really need it, now and always.

Now go support if you dig! Tell your friends, bump the album at parties, at BBQ’s, and while you’re cooking dinner. If you’re a nerd like me then you know vinyl is always best…