Until 2022, I was a visual artist.

While I enjoyed drawing and had a lot of skill, I grew frustrated with the art form. I disliked how people consumed and "understood" my work in an instant. While this is the power of visual art—fast content transmission—I put so much detail in my work I hated having it all skimmed over. I figured getting into comics might force people to spend more time absorbing my work and taking in the moods and stories I was trying to convey.

It was soon after that point I had the harebrained idea to compose scores for the stories I wanted to tell. Several false-starts and low-cost but terrible DAWs down the line, I was introduced to Reaper in mid-2022 and experienced music production as a revelation: I could make an art that forced slower engagement. I quickly abandoned visual art.

After half a year of learning the software and creating "baby's first electronica", in January 2023 I felt it was time to try my hand at a first real project, something that I felt good enough about to release. So I began production on what would become this EP.

I designed the sound of MP3 Compressed Memories to express my internal state this year: dissociation, depression, loneliness, terror, grief, abandonment, mania, and hope. I tried to arrange, either sequentially or simultaneously, the abrasive with the beautiful. I also tried to create the feeling of the songs getting destroyed by their own intensity. Both of these serve as sonic allegory for living with "high emotion" mental illness.

Limbic Hijack in particular I intend to feel like a flashback. Lisa Bufano is about a lot of things, but at its core lies the concept of "many selves". The song itself, of course, I named after the incredible performance artist Lisa Bufano, who committed suicide in 2013. I sampled an obituary-like piece her brother wrote on her, something that deeply moved me.

Both American Hemorrhage and Thoughts and Prayers I made more overtly political (but they do share similar themes of extreme emotion). American Hemorrhage samples the 2021 January 6th Capitol riots (and its full explanation can be found on its single page), while Thoughts and Prayers samples a compilation of politicians offering "thoughts and prayers" to school shooting victims without legislative action, juxtaposed with racist news coverage of Ukrainian war refugees and Joe Biden perpetuating atrocity propaganda (to justify the ongoing Palestinian genocide). Both songs are about the selective and preformative empathy of states.

I believe this EP falls variably into the conventions of atmospheric drum and bass, deconstructed club, and epic collage. That said, I use the self-made term "dissociative electronic" to describe my music. Not a genre per say, but a guiding idea.

I hope to continue to improve at music and use it as a self-expression vector. I want to listen to MP3 Compressed Memories in a few years and hear all the things that could've been better as evidence of progress. That said, I hope it still shines.

To the listener: if you enjoy, please feel free to toss me some money or share my work around. It helps a great deal.

And to those who have supported me through the creation of this project, both online and off: a deep well of gratitude. You know who you are. Thank you.