The Heart of the Machine

With this EP I've tried my hardest to make music in a way I'd never heard before. I love acoustic music, and I thought it would be interesting to add soft dance and world music beats to play over. I downloaded a lot of royalty-free dance beats, adjusted the tone, and turned them down about twenty decibels. I draw a lot of inspiration from Elliott Smith. Years ago when I heard the subtle, high frequency drone in the beginning of Angeles, I fell in love. Recently I recalled this sound, and I play similar drones throughout The Heart of the Machine. For the songs "A Light" and "Dusk", I use a Tibetan singing bowl to get this drone-y effect, but for "Melatonin" and "Your New Name (Phoenix)", I use computer synthesizers. I have Mediterranean and Eastern European roots, so growing up I listened to a lot of rhythmic music from those regions. I decided to spice up the beats by adding some loops of darbuka, dumbek, and camel bells. I also love Indian music, so there's some tabla in there too. Thanks for listening! -Jon