Nearly finished with Synthetic Bones Volume II (reposted from Facebook)

Over the summer, I worked on an EP that consisted of one remake from my BLEACHED BONES OF TITANS album from last year (“Long May You Run”), and three new songs (“The Mountebank Parade,” “The Last Refuge of Scoundrels,” and “Beach on the Moon.”). The sonic palette was a deliberate throwback to the synth pop of my 1980s youth and the EP titled “Synthetic Bones Volume I.”

It’s now the tail end of autumn. The days are shorter and cooler; the air is crisp; the leaves crunch underfoot. I am nearing completion of the second set of songs in the same vein. Once again, I’ve re-imagined a BLEACHED BONES track (“Affected Disaffection,” the new version of which you can hear by clicking on this text) and composed three new pieces (“Bread and Circus,” “The Politics of Pleasure,” and “The Courage of Cowardice”), although technically the new songs were written back in March along with the new tracks for Volume I.

This morning I got to listen to a fantastic bass track for “Bread and Circus” provided to me by Dan Lewis of The Tomorrow File, who also worked with me on “Beach on the Moon” last time around. The bass line gave that song the oomph it needed, so now I merely need to add a few musical accents here and there for texture, and then do the same with “Politics of Pleasure,” and then I’ll be done.

Like Volume I, Volume II of “Synthetic Bones” will be a digital-only release. (You can hear a medley of the songs BY CLICKING ON THIS TEXT.) However, upon completing Volume III (which hopefully will be in another couple of months), I’ll combine them all for a hard release. (I’ve even got the artwork already, once again an amazing bit of creation from artist Mark Paich, who also provided artwork for the BLEACHED BONES album.) In the interim, though, if you’d LIKE to buy the four new tracks, contact me privately and we’ll work on a digital exchange of music for money... I’ll keep track of anybody who purchases directly through me (rather than iTunes, CDBaby, Amazon, eMusic, etc., although those platforms will be carrying the songs within the next week or two) and, should you wish to buy a hard copy of the final product when it’s available, discount you for your advance digital purchases.

Incidentally, because the music on the “Synthetic Bones” projects is so different from the typical singer-songwriter folk-rock I normally create, the compiled hard copy will technically be released under a pseudonym of THE GENERAL ELECTORATE, which will also allow me to feature my collaborators on the different tracks as band members should we find success with the music; it will also allow my other projects (the CAPITAL IDEA double album I’ve been working on in England with Adam Silverstein and the JABBERWALRUS project I’ve been working on with bandmates Tom Briant, Paul Galiszewski, Adam Silverstein, and Jacque Jobes under the guidance of Steve Jankowski) to more naturally evolve into the existing sonic palettes we’ve been exploring in prior projects.