Matthew Papich!

This second post is about my good friend Matt Papich. I met him at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Matt is a very jovial, intense and intelligent character. When Yutaka left to go an exchange program in France I started playing music with Matt. The way he strummed and played the guitar was as if he was constantly in fast forward. He definitely woke my sleeping rapid strumming spirit. It was interesting to see the differences between Onsen and Ecstatic Sunshine. Onsen being relatively relaxed and Ecstatic Sunshine being very energetic which is quite different for a guitar duo. Just like the way he strummed he listened to music intensely. I could see his fast strumming transforming into rapid research taking him further in to the new age. Matt sent me some absolutely amazing work recently for his upcoming album. The sounds that he emulates De-constructed imagined spaces, and sublime beauty. He was also part of the deathset for a while and works on an awesome record label called wildfire wildfire. He's also releasing a split 7" with Lucky Dragons, its really good!

wave_chop_early_version - Ecstatic Sunshine

This is an early version of wave chop that Matt and I were working on before we recorded Freckle Wars. We really tried to go at it strumming as fast as we can!

Felt Flag - Ecstatic Sunshine

Felt flag was part of the Living EP and the sound was shifting to a more expansive sound working with the actual room, delay and reverb.

Herrons - Ecstatic Sunshine

Herons was a track from the album WAY which was the one song I was not a part of. Listen to how he has shifted his song structure from a horizontal structure to a more vertical structure. Using sound as a jet pack to fly higher in to space.

Dunk - Ecstatic Sunshine

This is from his latest work that'll be released soon, which is going to be called Yesterday's Work. I was blown away when he sent me his rough mixes and he told me it was okay for me to have one track on this post. It sounds like he is back on the ground searching intently for something more specific, micro and beautiful. I'm really excited about his new musical direction.

Yutaka Houlette!

Yutaka Houlette is my first post and first person I would like to share to anyone and everyone who sees this. He's a really close friend and a real inspiration to me. We went to school together most of elementary, middle, high and college. He has an incredible sensibility for poetry and sublime wit. His music and art pieces reflected his personality and ideas so well. We played music together and we started a guitar duo in college around 2002 and that is pretty much how I learned how to play guitar and write songs. We would gruel and gruel to get to a place we would both commonly agreed to. It was a wonderful experience. We called our duo "Onsen" which means hot spring in Japanese. It was kind of an idea of tourists from countries from all over the world sharing a bath mixing their sweat in to a literal melting pot. We wanted our music to sound like that. I want to share some of his beautiful music and some things we did as onsen. Right now Yutaka is getting a masters degree in teaching art to middle - high school kids. I think he's going to be an amazing teacher.
Yutaka was also the drummer for Tall Grass for a little bit. I'll talk about tall grass in a post in the future!

This is a song he sent me pretty recently its really beautiful. I can hear the moisture.

biking in the rain - yutaka
here are a couple of Onsen songs we wrote together

08enkai - onsen

08sauna mizuburo - onsen

This is a jam yutaka and I did last year in June. there is a telephone ringing during the jam, just to let you know, its not your phone!

june jam - Yutaka and dustin