This page has downloads and descriptions for the music that I make. The album titles contain links to zip files that hold the bulleted files listed below; if you download the zip files, you won't need to download anything else. Of course, you are more than welcome to download files individually as well. If you have any questions, comments, requests, etc, feel free to email me here. Thanks for checking stuff out :)
Music for Consternated Recycler began development in 2018, when I wrote Feed The Hungry Bee (That's Me). Inspired by a quote from Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I wanted to express my hang-ups with interpersonal relationships and my striving for betterment in that regard. From there, my employment at the Michigan State University Recycling Center led me to start paying attention to our collective ecological and waste crises, and writing songs about my thoughts and feelings and strivings related to said crises helped quell the existential dread I was feeling. Beyond that, I had fun experimenting in multitrack recording with the likes of Pizza Day #4 and Take a Vacation, and channeled the Adlerian pyschology I was reading about at the time in Worry About Worry. The bulk of the writing and recording took place from August of 2019 to May of 2020, and was accomplished primarily with the BandLab app on my phone. The Beach Boys, McCartney I and II, video game music, and Ween were all primary inspirations.
released December 2, 2020
PO-12 and Casio keyboards - beats
Adam Blake - mastering
Jake Pruitt - album cover
Jared Heinze - electric guitar on Makin' Some Songs Not
Jack Petsch - production on Sustainable song; co-production, keyboards, bass, and extra beats on Feed the Hungry Bee (That's Me)
Lyndsay Mohr - fast electric guitar and co-production on Feed The Hungry Bee (That's Me)
Cody Mohr - Otamatone, writing, recording, production, acoustic and electric guitar, Casio keyboards, electric bass guitar, and all vocals
I made a demo for Still I Dream of It shortly after finishing Consternated Recycler in the spring of 2020, but then took the summer off to focus on self-betterment. Music returned to me on a long walk one night through MSU -- A Jaunt. Other songs came to me in this way, including Visual Acuity. I leaned heavily on Bosca Ceoil as a compositional and visualization tool, including the manufacture of more complex harmonies. Other songs were scraps I had in the bag from 2018 onwards that I refactored in various ways (Thanks for the Rubs, Lying Crying Dying, D-D-D-Done For, Daibutsu no Mori), others were wrote on the spot during the recording sessions (Spooky Descent, Kubota L3200), and still others were covers that I enjoyed playing (Open Your Window, Grandpa, Still I Dream of It). The album title is a pun on Doubutsu no Mori, which is the Japanese title of the game Animal Crossing. Daibutsu means giant Buddha statue, and Mori means forest. I've always liked this turn of phrase, and with the Animal Crossing-esque title track, it seemed like a good fit for the album. I used a picture of a beaver that I took in Colorado on the cover as a further play on the title name -- in a forest of giant Buddha statues, the beaver gnaws down what he needs and diverts the flow to his desire. It was quite the imagery, and I'd like to think the beaver is relatable in some way. By being a participant in our natural systems and harvesting materials from our past constructions, perhaps we can change the way our existence flows to be more conducive to ourselves, and more harmonious with the bigger picture of life comma general on Earth.
released June 11, 2021
Matt Prehn on the Ramblin' Gamers Podcast - reversed commentary on A Jaunt
Alexander "Commander Xander" Krantz - spoken word on Call From Commander Xander and Daibutsu no Mori
Ryan Radawiec - bass vocals on D-D-D-Done For, spoken word on Daibutsu no Mori
Kurt Klönhammer - whistling on Visual Acuity
Eric Thomas - electric bass on D-D-D-Done For
Jo Vicari - drums on D-D-D-Done For
Jared Heinze - electric bass and electric guitar on Visual Acuity
Lyndsay Mohr - co-lead vocals on Granpda, backing vocals on D-D-D-Done For
Milo the cat - purs and face rubs on Thanks For The Rubs
Adam Blake - MIDI keyboard on Daibutsu no Mori; recording, mixing, producing, mastering for all tracks
Cody Mohr - album artwork, lyrics, music, vocals, whistling, acoustic guitar, CASIO keyboards, MIDI keyboard, electric guitar, kazoo, güiro, woodblock, jaw harp, shaker, thunder maker, Bosca Ceoil programming, PO-12 programming
Besides having played I'd Love Just Once To See You on guitar since 2017, the rest of this material all dates to after Daibutsu no Mori. I began a few of these in the summer of 2021, with the bulk of the writing happening in the late fall to winter of 21/22. A decent amount of the songs were fleshed out while working at Skymint Brands, either coming up with lyrics at my desk or working out chords during my breaks on a travel guitar. I left my job in February to go down and visit my great aunt and uncle in Arizona for the month, and I brought my newly-acquired Zoom R24 recording console with me. Between hiking and jamming with the guitar club in their neighborhood, I managed to record the bulk of this demo album. The content is split pretty evenly down the middle in terms of subject matter, with half being concerned with relationships, and the other half being concerned with employment. Both were heavily on my mind during this time, and writing/recording these songs brought me great satisfaction and fulfillment. I Just Got My Pay, That Shit Really Sucks, and Reality Is Ours To Shape were recorded in the month after I returned from the 'Zona, but as it is, it is my intention to have these demos merely be placeholders for a forthcoming album of this material in a more fleshed-out and full sound. I have begun some work on the recording of these songs for final mixes, and surely it's just a matter of time until it's all wrapped up as album number three :)
Wandering the fertile melodic gardens I've surrounded myself within, I couldn't help but procure a sampler to share of the harvest I've been reaping for my upcoming album. There's still time yet for the bunch to ripen, but they've got me plenty excited even at this stage of growth. This EP showcases select tales from my past two years relating to money, jobs, longing, understanding, lots of love, and even a bit of Japanese.
released June 30, 2023
Cody Mohr - songwriting, vocals, electric guitars, electric bass guitars, Moog synthesizers, percussion, drum programming on tracks 1/3
Lyndsay Mohr - harmony vocals/synthesized organ/drum programming/production on track 2, percussion on track 4
Adam Blake - production on tracks 1/3/4, mastering
Clara Hayes - album cover design
Alexander Krantz - photographer
Ryan Radawiec - phone call and initial riff inspiration on track 4
