I felt like this one needed the extra time to unfold and develop in the direction it wanted to go, could be my longest solo piece yet! My songwriting process has moved almost entirely to Ableton Live and I'm find it to be such an inspiring workflow. This is yet another recent track where I'm having fun weaving in the guitar.

Cover image: Norman Zabusky/Hilary Shames (CC BY 3.0)

Time and Space

Dusted off the trusty old Volca Drum machine to create the beat for this one. In years past I used it quite a lot, including on many of the early Smoking Trout tracks, but it had been a little while. I'm also continuing to experiment with longer stretches of guitar, and incorporated most of the synth arsenal on this one. This was kind of inspired by reading the news here in the US, a strange mixture of depressing and ridiculous weirdness haha.

End Time Blues

@TexMex-Shaman and I are back in action once again with another heavier industrial track. This one is particularly uptempo, probably our fastest song yet. Stephen's guitarwork is next level on here! And he's got an especially cool part toward the end featuring the ebow.

Perceptual Window - A Texas Tea Production

Uncanny Valley

This is the third Eclectic Collective track that started with an idea of mine. Check out the others here, as well as one that I plugged a synth line into with this gang (and another one of those is coming soon):
https://soundcloud.com/tea_are_sea/sets/tea-r-sea-eclectic-collective

Josh, Ken, Stephen, and the whole Eclectic Collective are incredibly welcoming and a joy to work with. I'm really looking forward to more collaborations with these great guys in the future! 

Here is Josh's write-up with more info on this fun track:

 Cast of characters:
Tea R. Sea @tea_are_sea -- Terry – Synthesizers, Ibanez electric guitar, beats, composition, mix, and production
TexMex Shaman–@texmex-shaman –Stephen– Fender Acoustasonic acoustic guitar and e-bow
K2 and the Three [and the Four] -- @k2andthe3, @k2-kara –Ken–drums
Entheogenic Psychonaught (Josh Clary)– @josh-clary-1– Custom five-string fretless bass
Llanpsych–@llanpsych –Tez– Fender Stratocaster electric guitar
electric wah guitar
Cgmaness – @hiddenhands-760647700 – Chris – vocals, vocal harmonies, and lyrics

This song began its life as a skeleton of beats and synth created by Terry, who also added some crunchy electric guitar hits to it, too. Terry is a very skilled electronic music producer, and frequent collaborator with Stephen for a project they call Texas Tea. It's worth going to check out their other collabs, as well as Terry's solo projects on his and Stephen's page. 
  Even though Terry and Stephen work together frequently, Terry approached Josh with a couple of ideas, and Josh picked this one, so Terry started the project and invited the rest of the band to join in.
 
Stephen was the lead off hitter for this one, though, adding his magical and heavily processed acoustic guitar to the bridge in the middle, as well as textural guitar in the entire first half. He also added a couple of cool lines with his e-bow, which he used on his guitar. Ken was next up to bat, adding his always thrilling drums to compliment Terry's beats. Josh went to work next, now that he had a solid beat to work with, added his low-frequency five string fretless bass to it. Tez batted clean up, adding his thrillling Gilmore-esque guitar solo to the end of it. 

  Then, once the music was all finished, we turned it over to Chris so he could add his amazing, psychedelic vocals delivering his original lyrics throughout.
  Once we had everything recorded, we turned it over to Terry to mix, as it was his song to begin with. Terry is an excellent producer with a great ear. Stephen, who is our trained mixer gave him some key advice along the way, too, though.
  This is Eclectic Collective's third song with Terry, and we're always thrilled when he has something to offer us. He's a wonderful collaborator with tons of great songs on his page, that are all worth checking out. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed creating it.
  Oh, and it's worth mentioning that three of us on this have birthdays this week, too. Chris' was first, on Wednesday, Terry's was Thursday, and Josh's is Friday (today). So, this is an extra special celebratory song for all three of us. We're all so very grateful for our SoundCloud community, friends, and musical family. We appreciate all of you!

Original lyrics by Cgmaness:

Lost in inner space,
questions interlace,
often they're erased.
amnesia's saving grace.
...
Many rising up,
What do you think it means?
Anything at all?
Anything?
....................
Wonder if you feel,
any of this truth?
Root systems occur,
we are one from birth.
we are one.
....
Slow to realize,
something is in the skies.
I cannot be wise.
We are lied to.
Realize, it's all a ruse.
but, we ripple on.
we ripple on.
we are one.
...
And that's when we fell back into,
a very familiar feel.
but I know.
Just pinholes,
just pinholes. 
....
Many rising up,
what do you think it means?
....
Sometimes we have to let go!

Koala Tea

On this page you'll find music from me as well as the collaborative SoundCloud band, The Smoking Trout.

Genre influences include electronic, downtempo, lofi, experimental, rock, blues, indie, prog, post rock, ambient, synthwave, trip hop, and hip hop. I make tracks primarily with Cubasis and Korg Gadget (iOS); Ableton Live; Korg and Moog softsynths, Volca Drum, Minilogue XD, Arturia Microfreak, Arturia Pigments, and the FabFilter Pro suite of effects and production tools.

My sound has been inspired by Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, DJ Shadow, Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, the Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, M83, Godspeed you Black Emperor!, Mogwai, Pink Floyd, Animal Collective, Nicolas Jaar, Dirty Projectors, Massive Attack, Björk, Dan the Automator, Del, the Gorillaz, Reggie Watts, Ween, Neon Indian, Tycho, Ott, Shpongle, Danger Mouse, Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo, Velvet Underground, My Bloody Valentine, Modest Mouse, Tool, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix, the Books, and too many others to list here.

Hope you will check out some of my collaborators:

@user-911083679 - STONERJAZZ
@user-455619833 - Uziel
@texmex-shaman
@sonic-textures
@grevusanjl
@enigmacurry
@mralchemy
@blackmarketbrains
@dough-factory
@winkandwoo
@jerome-hearn-994307260
@dubman-9
@archmageband2
@tot-beat
@ipg1
@zed4209819
@lala-land-361191160 - E.P. Beats
@llanpsych
@ruizzoidman21centurions
@Ladyofire
@josh-clary-1 Entheogenic Psychonaught
@themysteriousdecibel 
@k2andthe3
@cerulean_ascent
@nic_nic_nic
@nadiaselvaggi
@chefboyextreme
@scilentsymphony
@azealotrous
@noxpox13 
@pablomoretti
@prof-oddfellow - Neons Gone a Mad
GMO / Green Mercurial Owl 

Thanks so much for stopping by and listening!

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Other tracks from Tea R. Sea