My debut CD, UnCaged Toy Piano, was recently reviewed in the All Music Guide,a comprehensive online music review site. This is the first time my CD was praised for its production sensibility, which I’m proud to say was done in my apartment by my partner, Rob.
I recorded the CD at the Bunker Studio in Brooklyn over the span of 3 half-day sessions. The versatility that Dave Lewis praises in this review is partially the result of the toy pianos I chose to use for the recording. Â I used three toy pianos for my CD and one of them was not even mine. On my first recording day, the engineers told me that they found a toy piano (very similar to mine) on the street side in Williamsburg. The toy piano was a 2 and a half octave baby grand piano (one where the lid doesn’t open) and has a really sweet ringing tone for that model. Â I recorded The Memoirist part 1 on this piano because I thought the sound would go well with the music box. To record this piece, we had to put saran wrap around the microphone next to the frying pan. Aaron, the recording engineer, wanted to get a close mic on the frying of the egg, but also wanted to protect the microphone. Apparently some engineers use condoms as a protection for their microphones in situations like this.
The other two toy pianos used were my upright Schoenhut and my 3-octave grand that is so beat up now, I use it only as a prepared toy piano. Rob and I spent about 2 days re-mastering the tracks.  It was interesting to ponder what a controlled environment a recording studio has become–it is just an imaginary space for music. There are no music halls that would sound like it and are capable of shifting spaces from piece to piece. For example, I wanted the John Cage suite to sound closely mic-ed, almost as if the listener was inside of the toy piano, but I wanted Mirabella to be heard farther away in a small-sized concert hall.  Now with recording technology, the “hall” is really reflected in a lot of the re-mastering stage and also the quality of your headphones or sound system.
Last night 
Joanna Newsom, American singer-songwriter/harpist/pianist really out-does herself on her newly released 3-CD album, Have One On Me. I have fallen in love with Joanna’s music since discovering her debut album Milk-Eyed Mender. This 2-hour journey really allowed me to get lost in her world of epic fairy tales and logic-bending storytelling. There is a slightly different sultry and pure quality to her voice in this album. Though she uses a lot of additional musicians in some of the tracks, some of my most favorite moments are still solo tracks of Joanna singing and playing her harp (such as the song ’81 that tells her story in the Garden of Eden). There is a romantic imagination to her songs that inhabits such a unique world. Really, there are no good words to describe this album… but just listening to the CD at home, I would venture to say that this is one of the most memorable musical moments I’ve had recently.
While being back in Bloomington (IN) to fulfill some of my doctoral obligations, I noticed there are many things about Bloomington that makes this place very live-able, such as the good air quality, organic foods, close hiking trails, good coffee shops and laid back sort of feeling. (It’s a shame that many of these things become harder to appreciate as an anxious graduate student.) However, I would say that one of the best things about Bloomington is the radio stations. I use to be an experimental music DJ for the school radio station WIUX that plays a good bunch of Indie-rock, and there is of course WFMT Classical Radio. Every time I drive into Bloomington the first thing I do is look for