2010 is going to be an exciting year for Progtronica. I am nearing the compleation of compiling all the tracks for my debut solo release “Progtronica-Live from Nowhere” The raw version of all the performances have been featured an all my recent videos. The next step is mixing, mastering and arraigning them into album form. Recently I have added 2 brand new performances featured on this page: “Rolling with Strings” and “Drum n’ Bass for a Rainy Day” both featuring my new (awesome) piece of gear, the Novation ZeRO SL Mk II midi controller, which has tons of faders and knobs etc. Partnered with my beloved Novation Launchpad and Ableton Live Suite 8 things are getting really crazy here in my studio. 2010 is going to be the year of Progtronica!
Also check out the new “Progtronica Live for No One” channel on Vimeo.

It has been a little over a year now since I picked everything up and moved my family 3000 miles away from our familiar east coast roots to chase after the California dream that so many before us have sought after. When we arrived, we had really no idea where we were, just that it would be warm all the time, some of our extended family would be a little bit closer, and that our vague idea of the California “vibe” was the antidote we needed to alleviate some of the stresses and problems that had come with our new life as a family. Since then so much has been a blur of hard work, parenting, and for me a little break from the artistic bug that had always been pushing at my soul to create…something.

Before I knew it last spring, life was blowing up around me and nothing of which I had recently become accustomed to was as concrete as I had been blindly assuming. Major life upheaval soon ensued and what followed was some of the most eye opening and life changing self reflections I had had since early adulthood/adolescence (the line between these 2 seem to be blurred for most people I know these days). The result, although scary has been amazing. I had found myself paralyzed by the weight of my “responsibilities” and no longer had the ability to see these for what they were, and how much of myself had been sacrificed out of the fear of doing everything that needed to be done. This wasn’t good for anyone around me, especially those most important to me.

Rather rapidly however something clicked and my old self came back to me at the beginning of the summer. I was more present in every way and I had suddenly found my artistic drive again as though it had been lost under the couch and I found it one day while cleaning. As a lot of you have seen I have been pouring most of my creative energy into solo music and making mini music films. The one thing missing in the transformation however was our place or residence. We had been living in Huntington Beach, basically the first town south of Los Angeles, since our arrival and although parts of it are great, it was clear from the beginning that this was not the town for us. So the decision was made, we needed to move…again.

Since 1998 I have now lived in 10 different apartments. You’d think that after moving that many times it would get easier every time and in certain ways it has. Samantha and I have gotten the packing, apartment hunt, utility transfers, and moving arrangements down to a science at this point. This move was different for me then any of the others though. I feel like it was the final step in ending a difficult emotional chapter of my life, finally starting completely fresh. That being said there was a weird sadness to closing the door on the old place for the last time. The feeling of moving all of our stuff to a new location one day, then coming back to the skeleton of where I used to spend so many of my hours the next to clean it out is a profoundly disturbing experience for some reason. I guess even tough times are difficult to let go of, that is why so many of us get caught in our ruts and never get out of them.

I am completely and utterly exhausted at this point and don’t know what to think. The new place is filled with boxes and I have no idea where I can find any matching pairs of socks. My new studio however is set up (as you can see in the picture) and when I wake up from this haze a lot of new stuff is ready to pour out of me. I can’t wait to show it to all of you.

Thank you to everyone who has remained close to me for all your support. I am eternally grateful.

A polyrhythmic farewell to my place of residence of the last 12 months. Huntington Beach is a city of amazing contrasts. A beautiful shoreline with the best surfing in the country littered with aging offshore oil wells. Cookie cutter housing developments side by side with rusty oil drills. Opulent wealth next to abject poverty. Almost as though you mixed Ohio, Texas, and Hawaii into one city. I love California but Orange County, it turns out, is not the place for me. It was good while it lasted….Off to Long Beach!
All the music was recorded with live performed v-drums, cut up, and edited using Ableton Live 8, then mapped to my MPC style controller and triggered in real time along with loops.

A video tribute to Luke Vibert, JoJo Mayer, KJ Sakwa, and the health care reform debate insanity. This is a
live drum n’ bass performance video from Nigel Sifantus’ upcoming solo ep. Like a line of dominos, The sounds are set up and then knocked down using digital V-drums, nobs, sliders and effects. Prepare to be transfixed!

Listen:

Sitting in with Robert Mullins