Gemini - November Mixes

Distracted

Written and released in collaboration with COPILOT Music + Sound, featuring "Together," the music behind World Wildlife Fund's award-winning iPad app of the same name, "Underneath The Wild Blue Light," the music behind their subsequent "Explore!" eBook, and a brand new song "Endangered."

Underneath

Together

Endangered

Sun & Air

Middle age, which is scary, but brings a whole lot of wisdom. Becoming a parent gives you a completely new perspective on your own parents and your childhood, and all the things like birth order, or how your parents communicated (or didn’t communicate) that turned you into what you are now. But the flip side is that you can get to this point in your life and have all the same insecurities and fears that you had as a kid. Writing and singing my own songs without a band, in secret, was where I started, in middle and high school. Before I even had a four track cassette studio, I was overdubbing on a double cassette boombox. Returning to this kind of writing, I felt like I was having a conversation with that kid, checking in, seeing what had changed and what had stayed the same. And it’s interesting because the lyrics came after the music, and were somewhat inspired by how I put that track together. My daughter Willa had gotten this toy Barbie guitar that played chords and riffs depending on which button you hit. I was sitting in her room one morning just playing a little sequence of chords and I was like… wait…that’s a song. So I went upstairs and recorded the chords, pitched them correctly (they were a little flat for some reason), chopped them up and resampled them. I eventually got Willa to add some children’s chorus at the very end. I just wanted the song to really feel like this conversation between adult and kid versions of me.

Half Life

The Portfolio Composer, is a longer and more in-depth look at how composers build careers. I spoke alot about building relationships as an introvert. It was great. Cathartic in fact.

The Portfolio Composer

Ep 130-Ravi Krishnaswami on Building a Relational Career

I was born from a south Indian father and jewish mother. They named me after Ravi Shankar.

I learned guitar by playing along to Cure, R.E.M. and Smiths cassettes. I spent my high school years writing and recording terrible songs on a Yamaha four-track recorder. In college I started an indie-pop band called Charming. We made three records on a couple of great labels. 

Then I moved to NYC and started writing music for ads, films and video games. Millions heard my music but never saw my face, and rarely heard my voice or knew my name. I missed playing onstage so I formed a Smiths tribute band called The Sons & Heirs. I learned deep secrets from songs I loved and got better on guitar while playing pipe dream stages like the Bowery Ballroom and the Avalon. I also started teaching music composition at VCFA, where I even lectured once on songwriting.

I've spent a lifetime telling other people's stories. Hybird is where I tell my stories.   

Some things that interest me lyrically: the space between technology and nature; truth in a post-truth world; mundane personal mythologies.

Hybird

Popular tracks