I first met Kaylin in 2012 while working on the play Garden of Delights by Fernando Arrabal and directed by the intrepid Ildiko Nemeth and her New Stage theater company. In addition to doing some sound design, I ended up being the pre-recorded voice of a radio talk show host on the phone with Kaylin's character throughout the play, so, technically, we didn’t actually work “together”, but seeing the play felt like we had. When we eventually got to collaborate, it was for the album SMELL THE SUN by The Good Hard - which I've been a contributing producer, arranger and musician for since its inception in 2015. Our next collaboration was for a theater piece about a future apocalypse (from what I remember) that required remakes of popular songs from the present. She had a choice between a few songs and we picked “Midnight City” by M83. A beautiful song in its own right, but what Kaylin did with it was special. Her gift for multi-track a cappella singing is exceptional (as is evident in her vocal arrangement on the song "One of a Kinda Luv" by The Good Hard). With just a clap track from me, Kaylin did her thing, and we were on our way. 

Our next collaboration would be inspired by a string quartet loop I was playing around with. I had the good fortune to have each of the four instruments on a different track so I could mix them as I heard them, and manipulate them in terms of timing and placement. It left me with a beautiful arrangement, but that was it. It was clear it needed something – or someone – to bring it to life, and the choice was immediate, and obvious. Kaylin’s ability to connect with a piece of music and come up with a melody (and lyrics) always amazes me – not only because it’s so beautiful, but because it is so far (in the very best of ways) from what I imagined it would or could be… if I imagined anything… which is sort of the point. I send these pieces to Kaylin when, for whatever reason, I can’t hear what is inherently waiting to be brought out by that particular piece. 

Thankfully, she does. 

This is "Everybody". 

Fast forward about ten years. After taking a break from making music in general, of any kind, I found myself in a position to do it again - writing and recording music for the audiobook series of the plays of Kirk Wood Bromley. In addition to writing and recording the scores for these plays,  I began, with fresh and rested ears, to explore a different kind of composing… more organic, free flowing, in the moment. Not “writing” so much as allowing. Following. No rush to get anywhere, and no idea where the next moment would  take me. Just hearing and feeling my way through it. It wasn’t that unlike how I had written music in the past, but these were different in that they were one take all the way through with no desire to make them anything else. Just allowing them to be what they were. It was very freeing in many ways, but also incomplete in a way... they were “songs” that weren’t songs yet... until I sent them to Kaylin. The trust I had in her at this point knew no bounds and since there was nothing to lose, there was everything to gain. I had no clue, however, just how much. As usual, what she sent back to me was so good, so in touch with what I had sent her, that it sounded like a song that had already been written by someone else... because what she brought to it turned it into something else... something that existed fully and completely. 

This is "The Three of Us".

The next experiment of this nature had a similar process on my end, and a similar result after Kaylin got a hold of it and responded as she does with sensitivity and a depth that surpasses my expectation and imagination every time. 

This is “Under the Moon”.