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A major highlight for me was recording my debut album “Get Up Or Cry” in late 2019. In that session, I allowed myself to be as crazy and exploratory as I wanted. I wrote music for the musicians in my project with the goal of having them play outside of what they normally play. In the mixing stage, our aim was to push the band sound into something that felt produced yet organic. We experimented with effects, samples, and automation. The result is an album that has the urgency and authenticity of jazz with the gloss and experimentation of synth pop, psychedelic, prog, and more.
I’m also really excited about two albums that I co-produced, composed, and arranged. The first is one with a band that I co-lead with Tal Yahalom and Ben Silashi called KADAWA. The album is called “Post Graduation Fees”. It will be out in the next few months – and in the meantime, we just released an EP with songwriter Grey Mcmurray called Downward Jewel.
The second project is the debut album of a singer-songwriter named Ambrose Getz. She and I co-wrote and co-produced that record, which is called “Great House of Embers.” We put so much work, love and care into these projects...
My main role in most projects is bass player, composer or producer. In everything I do I am foremost a collaborator. I strive to come to every project with a sense of wonder and an urge to make an inspiring creation.
I started playing the cello at age 7. My parents convinced me that I couldn’t play the trumpet because I had asthma and that I should play cello instead. I played it semi-seriously until the age of 13, which is when I first heard the bass guitar. I immediately fell in love with it and never looked back (only occasionally).
My dad was into jazz. He introduced me to Oscar Peterson and Paco De Lucia and my mom introduced me to Avishai Cohen, which made me want to start playing upright bass. Growing up I was hungry for records and listened to Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Queen, Stevie Wonder, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Sly & The Family Stone.
Later when I moved to New York I got into Bjork, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Bill Evans Trio and many more. To this day discovering new music is one of my greatest joys, whether it’s hearing releases from my peers, going to shows in Brooklyn, or browsing the stacks at my local record store.
When I was 14, Avishai Cohen gave a masterclass in Jerusalem at a venue called Yellow Submarine. At the time, he was a huge inspiration to me – my mom had given me his album and I was obsessed. During the masterclass, he asked if anyone wanted to come onstage and play a standard. I had only played upright a few times before, but I shot my hand up. He called me onstage and asked the band to call a tune. I prayed in my heart that it would be “Blue Monk,” the only standard I knew. By some miracle, Blue Monk was chosen. I had never played jazz before and was so excited to play walking bass on an upright with people for the first time. When the piano solo ended, Avishai came to me and whispered, “Do you wanna take a solo?” In retrospect, I wonder if he thought that I couldn’t or rather not? But I replied “Of course!”
I had no idea what I was doing but I just went for it in a room full of university music students. That day, I actually played higher on the upright neck than I ever had before. So although that solo was memorable for nobody except me, it was for me the beginning of a lifelong love affair with upright – and a reminder to always keep the exploratory, brave spirit that we all have when we first come to music.
As a frequent collaborator, I have had to learn how to find a middle ground when there are multiple opinions in the room. I tend to have opinions about everything, from the music to the production, mixing, release strategy, artwork, video – all aspects of the project. I used to get frustrated if my ideas didn’t translate the way I wanted, and sometimes I would even spend time developing strategies to convince or show others my ideas were correct!
With time I learned that as a collaborator, the most important thing I can do is facilitate an environment where everyone's ideas are heard and appreciated. It’s important to share my ideas too, but I try to take the pressure off if it will stick or not and allow collective inspiration to occur. Even if your idea ultimately is not featured, it’s a step of the process, and helps lead to understanding what the best move is.
It’s a long important journey for me, and I crave to remove ego from everything I do and follow the musical spirits.
Lately, I’ve been really enjoying the Pyramids pedal from Earthquaker Devices, the Pitchfork from Electro-Harmonix, and the Flint pedal from Strymon. Those three pedals have become indispensable on my pedal board.
When producing at my home studio, in addition to my guitars and upright bass I love using our synths. We have a Moog Sub Phatty and a Prophet Rev 2 that get a lot of playtime during production. I also often turn to plugins by Valhalla (love their delays and reverbs), Saturn and Q3 by Fabfilter, and Soundtoys’ Decapitator, Devil-Loc, and Echo Boy.
Here are some things I wish someone had told me when I started:
Follow your passions, desires and intuitions. Dive as deep as possible. Be kind and generous to the people around you. It will always come back to you.
Surround yourself with people who appreciate your gifts and talents and inspire you to grow by taking risks and challenging yourself. Embrace mistakes and let them empower you to be better rather than discouraging you.
I’ve been working as a professional musician for over 14 years, and headphones have always been a part of my work, from tracking in the studio to transcribing music. Today, I use headphones in two stages of my workflow: while tracking and in post-production. In post-production, headphones with clarity and high fidelity are particularly important to allow me to hear the nuances as I edit parts and make decisions about sound and texture. Headphones that give me a clear sonic image allow me to be meticulous about production no matter which room I am in, or how noisy the city decides to be on any particular day.
My Audeze headphones affect my workflow tremendously. Whether I’m recording, composing, producing or mixing I feel like I have a brand new sense of clarity and trust in what I hear! The frequency spectrum is so wide — many production details that I struggled to hear with my old headphones and monitors like delays, verbs and saturations are suddenly so clear, crisp and easy to tune with Audeze. They really help me get the music to the place I want!
Recently I've been composing and recording demos for new albums for my band The Coralition and KADAWA. I also exclusively use them when I'm listening to mixes and to make notes as well as for research and transcribing older music, they make everything sound amazing!
Artists may receive discounted Audeze product in exchange for interviews and opinions. Audeze does not solicit specific outcomes as part of any artist agreement.
