A lush, downtempo melodic approach to instrumental electronica.
James Kirsch (or JimmyK) studied himself some e-lectronic music at a small liberal arts school called Oberlin. It\s in Ohio, near Cleveland. Where the rock and roll hall of fame is. And a super good donut shop.
One day, a small yet innovative company named Propellerheads came up with a stellar piece of music software called Reason. It basically allowed me to have a modular studio like I did at school, only all I needed was a computer and a MIDI keyboard. Which it turned out, I already had. So I started tooling around with the software and got mightily inspired. So much, that I made an album, called General Fuzz. People of all ages seemed to really dig it. I was all, "whoohoo!" At that time I released my music under the musical moniker "DJMessy", because my nickname at Oberlin was "Mr. Messy" (people called me mess), and I wanted to give it a musical edge.
A year passed. I wrote some music, but not too much. Then I got engaged to my long time "partner in bed" Stina. So I figured "what better time then now?" to write a second album, with all the wedding planning that was going on. And write it I did. Inner Sunset (my second album) was all about me stretching my musical wings, trying to go in many different directions. I\m quite proud of this one, even if it isn\t as accessible as the first one was. The last three tracks are all acoustic, very personal songs. Friday on Thursday (track 9) was the processional to my wedding.
Between album 2 and 3, I discovered a new piece of software called Live, created by the good people at Ableton. This software integrated a interesting musical technology called VST Instruments, which allowed me to create all sorts of sounds I previously couldn\t. Live also allowed me to start having my friends (who are quite musically talented ) come over and work on stuff collaboratively in my studio. I also decided at this time to change my musical moniker to General Fuzz. People would ask me "where do you spin?", which is a fair question if I\m introducing myself as DJMessy. I didn\t like answering that question. Thus the name change.
I finished up Messy\s Pace just in time for Burning Man 2005 (my fourth year in a row). I went up, had a fantastic time, and gifted 500 copies of it to unsuspecting people. In the months that followed I got a bunch of emails from people who really enjoyed it. That was most encouraging.
This year, I’ve been hard at work on the unnamed fourth album. I enjoyed the collaborative process so much working on Messy’s Pace that I’ve started working with a vast array of different musicians on new songs. I also had an amazing opportunity to play a gig at Spectraball. It whetted my appetite for live performance, which is something that will hopefully start to play a larger role in the months to come.
Take care, and be well.
Oh, and spread the word. Pretty please.
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