If you don’t believe climate change is real, look no further than the September Christmas displays in your local Walgreens

Every independent artist is promoting their music so I’m going to stand out by not

Shame on everyone who didn’t remind me that Rob Thomas - Lonely No More is an absolutely perfect pop production

I’m millennial enough to admit that what’s now called “cringe” was always a quality I felt I needed to overcome rather than to avoid, and I guess the tide is turning with younger folks who realize how self-limiting self-consciousness can be in a creative economy

My show is continuous solo playback so I try to plan for every imaginable failure—CPU overload, IEM cutouts, missed cues—and it’s always something totally stupid like leaving the tuner on or forgetting a lyric

I’m playing Norfolk VA this Fri 8/1 and it’ll be my 1st show in my hometown in a loooong time. Like, 2007 long. Better believe I will channel every ounce of Virginia pride into this one—a solo set of dystopian pop & escape pod funk originals Supporting local artists Bennett Wales / 95Leo!

¿ We’re calling AI music “Bot Pop” right ?

I thought Tate McRae and Addison Rae were the same person until today

¡ Fans of indie music in Hampton Roads aka The 757 ! I’m playing a (very slick, very solo) homecoming live show at The Annex in Norfolk on August 1st 🌊 Supporting local VA artists Bennett Wales and 95Leo, so if you dig spacey alt-pop and agree to wear orange, do teleport over! 🖖🏽

THE best = YOUR favorite

Being a childfree artist doesn’t mean I’m less sleep deprived, just means instead of a crying baby, I hear my own thoughts screaming at 3AM

¡ Today’s Album ! Thom Brennan - Mountains (1987) Like looking out from atop a vast expanse shrouded in ancient mystery, the passage of deep time washing over in successive waves of melancholy, leaving a rich record of a primitive sensation with the available digital tools of the time

¡ 2Day’s LP ! Seba - Producer 06 (2003) Aqueous breaks cool my 90° F summer walk as I imagine a smooth highway connecting 2 cities floating in the clouds. Crisp DnB w/ neo-soul sensuality, like the nonexistent lounge party on alc commercials where everyone is ageless, sexy, and not actually drunk

“My team” = me writing from an additional Google email address that costs $7 / month

The Hampton University radio station 88.1 WHOV just played Dexter Wansel and Alphonse Mouzon so I will be listening to nothing else while I’m home

¡ 2Day’s LP ! yeule - Evangelic Girl is a Gun (2025) Sloshy breaks and gritty production frame this sonic world melding 90s psych, lo-fi, trip-hop, and rave elements into something extremely present and pretty singular. Left field pop that’s self-aware and innovative with watertight world-building

¡ 2Day’s LP ! Yaya Bey - do it afraid (2025) Starts in loose, minimal soul territory and keeps leaning further left as the album goes deeper into pop, hip-hop, and electronic experiments. Playful and adventurous, she really shows off a versatility with signs pointing to any number of genre worlds

Can someone find me a good video of a southern marching band playing Everybody Wants To Rule The World

I think what we call “experimental pop” is just experimental music that has a single instance of a really great hook or riff that the artist refuses to repeat out of spite

This is Lily

¡ 2Day’s LP ! Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH (2025) Thrashy riffs + gang vox breathe with chewy chorus guitars + bubbly synths, perfectly straddling the pop - rock divide, never too hard or too soft for a fan on either side. Put this on to pump up your HIIT workout like I did

¡ 2Day’s LP ! HAIM - I quit (2025) Expectedly sophisticated hour of sun-baked pop production and some enjoyable breakbeat and 90s psych ear candy. Songs come so easy to them that the writing might feel a little too breezy at times, but I’ll take effortless cool over maximalist effort

The NBA has me paranoid about my Achilles every time I play pickup ball

¡ 2Day’s LP ! Anita Baker - Rapture (1983) First listen in full and I know all these songs—the slash chords, the glassy DX7s, the jazzy turnarounds. Had to be the soundtrack to every office building & waiting room I visited with my parents in the 1990s, and boy was she a subconscious influence

¡ 2Day’s Lp! Sophia Zhuravkova - Unseen (2020) From one of my favorite NTS Radio hosts, this blend of drifting synths, field recordings, and incidental dialogue is both melancholic and peaceful. I feel like I’m searching a dim forest for something that I’ll only remember once I see it again.

a nation on edge holds its breath as the former host of celebrity apprentice huddles with his advisors, the wrestlemania ceo and the former co-host of fox & friends weekends

¡ 2Day’s LP ! The Orb - COW, Chill Out World! (2016) On 5th Dimensions, orchestral soul loops fade in from whirring mechanical rotations like a cool workshop on a misty morning. On 4am, a dusty, chugging MPC-style groove emerges from a ghostly landscape. A calming yet fascinating ambient trip.

I give this breakbeat revival trend another year

Sly and Bri in one week, damn. These guys blew the doors open for pop music, inventing whole new genres by applying futuristic vision to traditional mastery. Both pushed the album format as far as it could go with dense, spiritual, existential explorations that challenged before being canonized.

AI vocal tuning will incite a trend of intentionally pitchy singers before evolving into microtonality in pop music before popularizing underrepresented non-western music

I’ve lived in the UK for almost 5 years and I’ve finally given up on all formatting—I switched my thermometers back to Fahrenheit, my week starts on Sunday, and I will never ever again “Hope you’re well”

¡ Today’s Album ! Deepchord - Echospace: Liumin (2010) Fuck your focus playlist and put this on. Minimal dub techno that’s an after party for your screen-burned occipital lobe, deep and swinging with the industrial atmospheres of a dusky warehouse far from your office.

I have a beautiful Martin OM-21 called Sienna and on a warm day with the windows open in my studio she sounds so good

¡ Today’s Album ! Jadu Heart - POST HEAVEN (2025) Immersive, bold production and moving lyricism stand out in contrast to other trending 00s nostalgia that can sometimes feel lazily referential. Appreciate the sample clearance crediting Satyajit Ray as songwriter on “Shake Your Ass”

When you’re writing with an ambient NTS mix in the background and they slip in a track with vocals

Prolificness comes from recognizing that the idea that I have right now is unique to this moment, and then honoring it. The more I can capture the “right now,” the more I can evolve and add to a body of work

I respect all the “self-help for creators” nuggets out here but most artists don’t need to be reminded, they just need some money

All my eggs are in one basket, and occasionally I take one out to fry, poach, or soft-boil. But never to move to another basket.

¡ Today’s Album ! Thom Brennan - Mountains (1987) Like looking out from atop a vast expanse shrouded in ancient mystery, the passage of deep time washing over in successive waves of melancholy, leaving a rich record of a primitive sensation with the available digital tools of the time

¡ Today’s Album ! The Mars Volta - Lucro sucio; los ojos del vacío (2025) TMV have been a 20+ year creative beacon, reminding that complex and challenging music can have soul & sensitivity. The tonal clarity & minimalist palette leave room for emotional weight / textural depth in vox & instruments

¡ Today’s Album ! Joni Mitchell - Court & Spark (1974) If I could bathe in an album, this would be the one. It’s under 40 minutes long, yet it feels like an hour or more—Joni really has a way of using all of the harmonic, melodic, and lyrical tools at her disposal to build a singular musical world

¡ Today’s Album ! John Martyn - One World (1977) The jazz / R&B / experimental sounds on this album are such a far cry from his (overstated, IMO) folky roots. The synth solo on Small Hours could have easily been an extended P-Funk excursion, and Smiling Stranger has Sly Stone written all over it

With new musical / visual / performance ideas I’m working out, I tell only 1 or 2 people, and those are usually contributors or collaborators on the concept. Otherwise I end up talking an idea out of existence as it gets filtered through the language part of my brain and edited by others’ opinions

Got a response to a pitch that said: “We will keep you in mind for future projects.” …which directly translates to: “We hope to forget you ever contacted us, so please do not email again. Our future projects will not be suitable for you.”

¡ My EP NOT THE FUTURE turns 1 year old today ! These songs were my way of turning the pangs of future shock ↯ into the bangers of tomorrow ➔ & for only 10 mins / .16 hrs / .006 days of your time, you’ll receive these genres and my gratitude: alt pop indie funk electro soul #musicsky #blacksky

Being a childfree artist doesn’t mean I’m less sleep deprived, just means instead of a crying baby, I hear my own thoughts screaming at 3AM

You can pretty much always substitute “the best” with “my favorite” in any situation where there’s no definitive, objective way to compare two or more things

¡ Today’s Album ! JEMS! - GEMS IN THE CORNERSTORE II (2024) Feels like a cassette mixtape spliced together from college radio shows on a low frequency band. Actual “vibes” in the truest sense. I love the roomy drum reverb against the dry demo-style vox and stereo swerving guitars

👁️ started a new Substack to speak more personally to my creative process + for longer writings that don’t feel quite right on Patreon. It’s called Intl.Orange and I’ll be posting bi-weekly reflections to complement the larger Ru-niverse. ¡ Everything will be free for a while, so hop in !