Percolating retro-minimalism in the vein of Terry Riley and Steve Reich was not necessarily my goal when I began working with the Hologram Microcosm in June of 2022. (If anything, the Microcosm has a reputation for specializing in more ambient, textural, cinematic, soundscape-y territories.) But as I’ve spent time learning and practicing with it, I’ve found myself seduced by the more angular, hyper-rhythmic possibilities it contains, which this release focuses on (to what is, perhaps, an absurdly tightly-focused degree).

As with all “Six-String Mixtape” releases, these are all live, in-studio, guitar + electronics solo performances.

Most of the individual tracks are excerpts of longer takes. Sometimes the beginning and/or end has been edited for creative reasons, and other times it’s simply because I didn’t start recording until the performance was already underway.

“Intersection One,” as it appears here, has a few excessively meandering measures chopped out, but that’s the only mid-track tweak on the album. (The full, unedited performance of “Intersection One” can be seen and heard at youtu.be/czENIgW9l_k.)

Aside from the Microcosm (and a bit of reverb in the amp simulator I ran my guitar through), there are no other effects or looping devices being used in these performances. There's standard-issue EQ/compression/saturation added in the mixing and mastering, to sweeten the overall picture, and the stereo image has been enhanced after the fact. But the fundamental sound is what went down live.

As always, thank you for tuning in.