Catalog of Stolen Worlds

Catalog of Stolen Worlds was my first Wave Collector album. The production of the album was based largely around recordings I’d collected using my Zoom H4n portable digital recorder. The name “Catalog of Stolen Worlds” came from the idea that I was stealing pieces of the world by collecting sounds from it. I expanded that idea to a more sci-fi theme; I imagined a spacefaring collector, stealing sound waves from strange worlds all over the universe.

Catalog of Stolen Worlds Cover
  1. Life Cycle
  2. Rihaku’s Hundred Poems
  3. Ice Enchantment
  4. Question Air
  5. Crow Flies
  6. The Mouse Shaman
  7. Sacred Struggle
  8. Divine Calculation
  9. Teach a Man to Long for the Sea
  10. Ornamental
  11. Temps Perdu

Stories Behind the Songs

Since each song included sounds I recorded in my daily life, each one also has an interesting story behind it. The vinyl version of Catalog of Stolen Worlds contains a hand-drawn insert that tells the story behind each track. Here’s a digital version of the insert (click to see a full-size version):

Insert Side A
Insert Side B

Album Art

I got in touch with Evan Ohl, a designer who has since become a longtime collaborator, to help me design the album art for CoSW. There was a lot of back and forth in the design process. Here are some of the earlier ideas and versions that led up to the final artwork.

This established the concept of using mountain scapes to bring a large sense of scale.

This version incorporated circles, representing multiple far-off worlds, and drawing closer to the warmer hues of the final color scheme.

Now we’re getting very close to the final version! We felt that adding a human figure would create even more of a sense of scale. And since I love reds and oranges, we went full-on autumnal with the color scheme!

Neal’s Favorites

While I love all of the songs on this album for various reasons, these are the top 3 that have stuck out to me as the best:

Rihaku’s Hundred Poems

The sake that started it all

The main reason why I love this song so much is the memories I have around it. I recorded the main melodica samples at my friend Victor Nash’s studio, Destination: Universe! in Portland, OR. He came up with the hare-brained genius idea to hang a microphone on a string from the ceiling and spin it around me while I played the melodica. When I sat down to start working on this song, I drank a delicious bottle of Sake called “Wandering Poet.”

The text on the side of the bottle inspired the whole song: “The wandering poet Rihaku would drink a big bottle of sake and write a hundred poems.” I love the idea of this drunk poet just cranking out poems like it’s nothing. The song flowed out effortlessly, and I had a nice buzz, just like Rihaku!

Temps Perdu

This song reminds me fondly of my mother’s house. She has an exquisite windchime hanging from a giant pecan tree right next to the garage. The sample that starts the song is taken from this windchime. Many other samples from the song were recorded at her house.

Temps perdu means “lost time” in French, a language I speak decently and have been studying over the years. The song is inspired by the way that time seems to pass so quickly. Before one realizes, 10 years have passed. Given that next year will be the 10-year anniversary of Catalog of Stolen Worlds, I feel that more acutely than ever now.

Aside from all of that, I just love how this song turned out. The sound feels big, meaningful, and deep. It really captured exactly the emotion I was feeling at the time.

The Mouse Shaman

“The Mouse Shaman” is a nickname my friend gave me when I was dressed really strangely at Burning Man circa 2010. The name stuck with me, and when I made this song, I tried to imagine who “The Mouse Shaman” really was. This song would not exist without some fine folks at the Oregon regional Burning Man festival, SOAK. I’m not sure the exact year, but the first year I went, I met a talented man who played the Native American flute. I also met a skilled didgeridoo player. Their performances, which I recorded and used with their permission, formed the basis for this song.

At the beginning of the song, you can hear people laughing. I met a woman at SOAK who told me she had recorded her and her friends laughing hysterically. She then played it for the group, which made us all start cracking up as well. I’d like to think that in some way, I’m carrying forward the tradition, playing the recording for a new group of people.

The Lost Song

I’m including a song that tragically never made it to the full album. This song was called “Mechanical Nightingale,” and was made using a recording of an old coin-operated mechanical nightingale at Marsh’s Free Museum in Washington.

Marsh’s Free Museum, home of Jake the Alligator Man

For the first (and hopefully last) time in my life, I somehow accidentally deleted the project file for this song. It would likely have been the 12th song on the album. However, before it was lost, I had bounced the audio. It was imperfect, the song was not done, nor was it completely mixed, but it was something. Without further ado, I present to you what is left of “Mechanical Nightingale”: