This instrumental project, a.k.a. #disconnectionproject on Instagram, is a product of a little over a year of exploring my sound. I think it's a fair claim to say that every track on this album is unique - each with its own flavor. There's certainly something here for everyone in the metal / hard rock community.

The concept of this instrumental album is disconnection from the world to recharge, or even minimize your digital footprint - restoring physical footprints and relationships with people in the real world, rather than those in the virtual. There were a few years that I had a basic phone - mainly to save money. What I found was that everyone was looking at their phones in public and not talking to each other. I did enjoy the break from a screen in my pocket. Now that I have a smartphone again, I find myself guilty of the same thing I observed others doing. But I do try to make the effort in keeping my phone put away when I should otherwise be socializing with friends or family.

At the very end of the project, I decided I would write a short story about the character in the album. Since this is a concept album, I liked the idea of a backstory to my project. It can be read in the lyrics of each song here on Bandcamp, even though it's actually instrumental.

I took a break from YouTube uploads to write this album. I'm blessed to have an understanding audience, and I hope the wait has been worth it. I'm thankful for those who have stuck around, and hopefully I will see some old faces when I start uploading videos again. I feel the break from YouTube has been great for me. But now that I'm finished writing an entire album, I now feel drained musically. I'm looking forward to taking a break from the grind of writing and mixing - but just listening to good music in my car on the way to work - and not my own mixes from the Dropbox app on my phone.

This album has undergone many changes and tweaks throughout the year. I miss some of the old mixes I did, which even though they weren't very good in the beginning, you kinda get attached to how the track first sounded. I hope you guys like the mixes. I'm using Joey Sturgis' ToneForge "Misha Mansoor" amp tones - which was a recent change to the sound. Pretty cool stuff, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with it more on future mixes. (I'm not getting paid to say that.)

If you wonder which song is my favorite on this album, I would say Flawed by Design. That song was an experiment and an accident. I have my coworker to thank for the inspiration on the ending. Flawed by Design was a song I thought was going to be ... well ... flawed by design. It is so different from what I have written ever before, and I, at first, didn't feel the transitions were natural. I also put it off until nearly the end of this whole project because I dreaded trying to finish it. But after putting it away for months - perhaps a half year - I was once again inspired and was able to make the transitions work as I wanted. I think it was tweaking the drum patterns.

This is my first full album released that is all my own original material and with me as the sole musician on the project. I set out to achieve such a goal in late 2017. Through many hours after work and on weekends, I have written and recorded what I feel has turned out to be the best project I have published to date. I'm excited for what is to come.