more about chesapeake bike circuit

the album art for chesapeake bike circuit. it’s a two color riso print with a mono-color riso print photoshopped on top, all done by me.

the moment everything changed was when i got that bike in november of 2020. i called six or seven bike shops during the bike shortage and lucked into the mountain bike of my dreams that someone had returned only the day before. it was the ultimate cure to my early-midlife crisis of turning 30 in a few months. it helped me feel alive.

the bike also helped me love the area i live in now. i had always considered myself a houstonian away from home, but now i’m loving the DC/MD/VA area. i found myself loving the nature here, and this now feels like home.

i wanted to make music inspired by Rush 2, the 90’s driving game for the nintendo 64. i found a bass similar to its iconic wub-dub sound. i made the drums really wet and noisy like they are in music from the late 90’s - not just Rush 2, but also destiny’s child and britney spears. the high hats are just dripping with reverb like before the 2010’s made every snare drum sound like it was being hit in an abandoned K-Mart. i left everything uncompressed.

i redid indefinite infinity to be a more upbeat song with very different instruments to mark my new change in mind, heart, and home.

the tracks are a little witchy, but not churchy. i was a little out of my comfort zone in that music from this era and genre really focuses on the drums and i generally don’t spend much energy there.

i spend a lot of time on the 7 and 9 notes like i do in my previous two albums, however. i’ve come to love doing that. the eerie bells are a lot of my own and not very 90’s sounding.

the album art was a lot of fun. it’s a two-color riso print (burgundy and yellow) with a teal riso print photoshopped on top of it. the burgundy and yellow are a photobash-then-drawn art of various trails i’ve biked near me. the teal on top is photos i’ve taken of my bike on the trails. i love that thing.