Skytree - Harmonic Residents (2023)

Harmonic Residents grew in parallel with 2022's all-ambient album Forest Family and went well beyond in depth. With new tools in a rebuilt studio, the detail in this project crystallized over several years - a culmination of hardware sessions and lessons, mix-downs and experiments.

Initial sketches were created without a desktop or laptop, and beats were layered by hand on an MPC. Physical instruments - penny whistle, piano and guitar - formed the melodic backbones. Weird and novel approaches to modular synthesis, radio, tape manipulation and field recordings drove the sound design foundations.

Harmonic Residents is familiar but fresh, deeper into the woods, a little off the beaten path into a neighboring land...perhaps well into an old growth forest, and from there into a crystal cave. It explores a similar bearing as 2011's Crystal Consciousness, but much farther down the trail...

My sincere gratitude goes to my collaborators Adam Coleman (aka Enigmada) for his beautiful work on Airglow, Brandon Abley for his pro concert flute work on Drumlin Fields, Bobby West (aka Erothyme) for all of the heady listening notes and mix tips, Matt Humble for all the media juggling and decade-long support, and Shawn Rybacki for sharing creative space every day. And of course, thank you to all who listen and support.