Monarch is my first release, written and recorded from ~Dec 2021 - Sept 2023 (almost 2 years!) between various bedrooms and quiet corners in Washington and Utrecht.

I wanted to go through every step of the process on my own as much as possible to ensure I really understand all the different pieces, and can refine this as I make and release more music. From composition, performance & recording, mixing, mastering, photography and 3D modeling for the album art, I'm proud to say this is the extent of my capabilities at the moment, and everything here was my work. Want to know more? Well...

I used Ableton Live 11 Intro- performing the drums, keys, strings, and harp on my Launchpad X at the fastest tempo I could play comfortably, with minimal quantization. This is the first time I'm playing these instruments in this manner, and it is a *lot* to get used to coming from guitar. VSTs are Addictive Keys Grand, Addictive Drums 2 modern jazz, Etherealwinds harp, and Sine Player's free strings orchestra. The guitar is my Agile Perihelion 8 string, running into Archetype Abasi for clean and rhythm sounds, and the bass is my friend Mae's Ibanez 5 string running into Ignite SHB1. For mixing and mastering, I watched a lot of You Suck at Producing and In The Mix, making the whole process pretty manageable, and I was a lot more satisfied with the end result than I expected, to be honest.

For the album art, I took various pictures at the Utrecht Science Park's butterfly area with my still-kicking Galaxy 8, and used Blender to... well, blend them all together in a vortex I envisioned from the early days of choosing the song's name and direction.