Solar Bloom On the Making Of “This Tiny World”
Can you share any interesting or unique stories or perspectives in "This Tiny World?"
“This Tiny World” is about the non-verbal ways people connect with each other and express affection for each other. Around the time I was writing the song, I was sitting with my cat and thought to myself, "Despite not being able to communicate with this little creature I feel like we each understand each other. What's up with that?" This thought evolved into the message of “This Tiny World.” So much expression and affection between people is done non-verbally and those little gestures and subtleties can build into the glue that holds people (or people and their pets) together.
How did you work with the producer or engineers to bring your vision for "This Tiny World?"
After a few trial and error runs, me and my producer buddy, Joey Papa from Sonoma Beach Studios may have finally perfected our recording process. I recorded most of the song at my house and did as much production on it as I could in order to get across the idea of what I wanted it to sound like. I brought that demo to Joey and after a few re-recordings, he masterfully molded the song into something much better than the demo I came up with. He has a special talent of knowing what I want and having better ideas of how to achieve that sound.
What has been one of your favorite memories along the path to making "This Tiny World?"
Both a favorite and one that irks me a bit, I almost didn't push forward with the song. I had a demo idea in the works years ago and decided it wasn't really working at the time and nearly abandoned it. After coming back to it several years later I suddenly knew exactly what I needed to do to achieve what I wanted from it. After coming back to it the whole process of writing and recording this song ran exceptionally smoothly for me. Everything really fell into place.
How has your music evolved since you started as a singer-songwriter? What have been some key milestones in your artistic journey?
Absolutely! My music used to be much more guitar-focused since guitar is my main instrument. In 2017 I got a KingKORG synthesizer and that changed the way I was writing. Now my music has become a mix between my guitar-based influences and some more electronic-leaning artists that I admire, particularly the artist Tycho. This song is probably my most electronically influenced track to date but I did make sure to get in some notable guitar parts.
How do you approach collaborations with other musicians and maintain creative synergy?
That's something I'm still figuring out. I spend so much time writing on my own that I have my own internal understanding of what I want and sometimes that's hard to communicate. I did have the good fortune to collaborate with the band Human Zoo recently in a really exciting 12-hour song-writing experiment where we started with only the vaguest sense of an idea and ended with a fully recorded track. One of the biggest things I learned from that experience was how much of a killer creativity overthinking is. The time constraints forced us to really communicate and commit to ideas and the song (Incognito Eyes by Human Zoo) wound up coming out sounding great! I hope to apply a lot of the techniques I learned from them to songs in the future.
