Love whispers while hate screams, and this year I decided to whisper so softly. I wanted to raise my guitar against the sound of billions of smartphones beeping with the latest news, mentions, likes, and comments, keeping us in a state of constant alarm. I hope that some of you will switch your devices into airplane mode and let this music take you on a flight.

Playing this music softly will perfume the atmosphere, will improve conversation and calm animals. It will make for blithe plants and better growth. My favorite way to listen to this album is with headphones. Moving through a place or a landscape, this music becomes a soundtrack, movie music for one of those foreign films that allow a scene to linger instead of rushing through it toward the climax. The music on this album is equally suitable for lying on your belly and looking at blades of grass moving in the breeze, and standing in a full subway car watching humans sway from the undulations of the track.

I made all of the music on this album with one guitar and one microphone. The palette for the recording was deliberately narrow. Sometimes it reminded me of years ago when I recorded with a four track cassette recorder and had to make things work by improvising solutions.

Working by myself in the studio felt like writing a very personal diary. I recorded Elegy just days after Prince died, and other pieces promptly followed certain world events. I could tell you the source of each song, could tell you each emotion that went into a piece, and what stimulated that emotion… but I’d rather let you discover by yourself the music and the feelings it carries. That’s the beauty of instrumental music – like the description of a tree in a book that requires your imagination so that it can take form in your mind, instrumental music can take on different shapes and colors, depending on your experiences.