With my album released and me focusing on promoting it, I'm in transition once again. HashiMusic.com will be on the back burner, as I am not available to take on film scoring or producing gigs these days.

But I'm blogging and staying busy online -- more so than ever! So please kindly move over to my new blog. It's not much to look at yet, but I promise it'll be just as personal and deep and profound and wordy and... everything you expect in my blog.

http://aries9.com/blog/

And it is today, October 18, 2007.

My CD went on sale on CDbaby.com. My debut album is released!

At last, the CDs are here -- all 99 or so copies.  

Actually, taking a copy in my hand, looking at it -- I'm struck by how insignificant it seems.  The music that has been my life-long dream, the songs that soaked up all my blood and sweat and tears -- all on a tiny disc, looking like any other.  Just like everyone else's music.  

I hope it will come to mean something to other people besides me.  I know it will.  I know it will.

I've decided to release my album under a new project name, Aries9. I have made a MySpace page with 4 songs on it. The time has come to start letting my music out to the world. Below is the announcement I wrote for the MySpage page.

I just got back from spending 2 weeks in Japan. I took my family to attend the 1-year memorial service of my father's passing. We had a great time, though traveling with 2 little kids proved to be a challenge.

The little album I produced, Marc Gunn's Irish Drinking Songs: The Cat Lover's Companion is now released. It seems that the pre-release buzz from Marc's fans are fairly positive. I'm grateful.

Last week my wife and I both got new glasses.  Like, first time in 5-6 years!  (We can't remember when)

My wife got a totally different shaped pair of glasses from before.  She'll need a new haircut to match it, but we're liking her new face with it.  

But me?  I got a pair that is virtually identical to the old ones, in terms of looks. 

My face hasn't changed in the last few years.  Not that I can tell from pictures and so on.  And I'm liking that, actually. 

This last few weeks have been very weird. Just a lot of things up in the air, future very uncertain. I've been sick off and on, which in itself is very rare. Usually I get sick once a year or so, but no more. I haven't played my guitar in over a month, it seems. Things are going quite well over all -- nothing to really worry about -- and I'm used to working off of urgency, of some kind of crisis management. I really need to get used to this crisis-free zone. To go on and enjoy life, and not spend every minute wonder how I'm going to get everything done.

My mother's in town since yesterday. She's been depressed lately since my father's passing finally caught up with her. She's taking it in strides -- I'm really not worried about that. But I was a bit concerned about how she'd get along with my daughter, who can understand much of coversational Japanese but only responds in English. Kid-talk can be harder to understand (we the parents don't get it half the time!).

Turns out, there was no reason to worry. My mother is the kind of person who can make friends without requiring to employ spoken language. My daughter warmed up to her surprisingly fast, too, and they have become buddies. Their mix of Japanese and English is hilarious to listen to.

That can be said about many things in my life right now -- just a lot of things nearing closure, in transition, etc.

But I'm referring to the Celtic Folk project with Marc Gunn. I'm mastering the 13-song duet album right now.

Now, I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm not a mastering engineer. That's one area of production that is best left to (and usually is) a specialist. Mastering is an art that requires highly specialized skills and equipment and while with the digital age came an easier access to such tools, it doesn't make one a mastering engineer no more than digital camera makes a rock a dog. (a stretch of an analogy??) Anyway, he does know that I'm really not a mastering engineer but he thinks I'm good enough for what I'm charging -- and I generally don't argue with my clients. :)