Boss Battles Vol. 1

I’ve wanted to write this EP for a very long time. Here’s my life in music (very condensed): I grew up playing and loving the music of Japanese role playing games, then was obsessed with prog rock in high school, jazz in undergrad, and then wrote a number of original albums for live groups, including the chamber music albums for Nine Worlds Ensemble and worked as a performer in a variety of ensembles, all bringing with them their own lessons, insights and experiences.

This EP is a synthesis of all of that, a blend of all of those styles into something new. This is the kind of music I really want to compose, full stop. Much of the time I’ve written music due to the availability of musicians or due to project demands, which is great, but this project was written purely because I wanted it to exist and wanted to grow and learn from the experience. Ultimately it took much longer to produce because of that, but it was well worth it.

I wrote and arranged all of the music, played drums, sang on one of the tracks, and produced it. I’ve always been very involved in my original work, but this one went deeper.

Bringing these tracks to the next level I had the help of a few phenomenal musicians that lent their skills to this project. Thanks so much to Miguel Chavez, Ray Casarez, Cole Masaitis on guitars and Sly Young on acoustic and electric violin for joining me on this. You all brought these songs to life!

This album is also available on Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube Music. Thank you so much for listening!