Wave Games was my second full-length album, released in 2022. This album took a lot longer to make than Catalog of Stolen Worlds, because during the time that it took to make it, I moved multiple times and there was a pandemic. The album is based upon the ancient Chinese board game, Weiqi (also known as Go, Igo, and Baduk). I had the idea to make an album where every song was based on a famous go game, and used the spirit of each game to inspire the music.

- Broken Ladder
- Bright Pearl Comes Out From the Sea
- Game Between Gods
- The Masterpiece
- Triple Ko
- Ghost Moves
- AIVSAI
- Move 78
- Move 127
The Games
As I mentioned above, each track on Wave Games was inspired by a famous go game (or in one case, a go problem). Here is the backstory behind each and every track, including the game that inspired it, and how I interpreted the game into the song.
Broken Ladder
This is based on Lee Sedol’s Broken Ladder Game. In this famous game, Lee Sedol played out a broken ladder to gain a strategic advantage and win the game. This is something that is rarely ever seen in professional play, and required the brilliance of top player to pull off.
The back and forth nature of a ladder in go (pictured above from the game in question) inspired the initial arpeggio of the song. The first thing you hear is that back and forth sound, mimicking the ladder being played out. The intensity increases, representing the dangerous nature of this strategy. Finally, the song decays into something beautiful and spacious, capturing the final, masterful victory that was achieved by Lee Sedol in the game.
Bright Pearl Comes Out From the Sea
This is the only song that was inspired not by a go game, but a go problem. When I say go problem, I mean a puzzle that is meant to be solved to help one improve at the game. It’s similar to chess puzzles, which help train a chess player’s intuition. One such go problem is called “Bright Pearl Comes Out From the Sea,” the first problem from the Xuánxuán Qíjīng (玄玄棋經) problem set, also known as “The Gateway to All Marvels.” Here is the problem:
The problem is simple, elegant, and at first glance, looks very difficult. If I saw this white stone on the board, I’d assume that it was dead and beyond saving. However, there is in fact a way for White to escape. If you want to know the answer, click here.
For this song, I wanted it to feel like the white stone was surrounded on all sides by darkness, and that by finding the correct solution, it finds its way to freedom. The soaring synth line that comes in the chorus is the moment when the white stone escapes out into the light!
Game Between Gods
This song is based on a game known as “The Axe Handle Game.” This game is somewhat mythical, as there is a magical story tied to the game. This is an incredibly old game, as evidenced by the game starting with stones on opposite corners of the board.
Here’s the legend (pulled from Wikipedia):
“Wang Zhi was a hardy young fellow who used to venture deep into the mountains to find suitable wood for his axe. One day he went farther than usual and became lost. He wandered about for a while and eventually came upon two strange old men who were playing Go, their board resting on a rock between them. Wang Zhi was fascinated. He put down his axe and began to watch. One of the players gave him something like a date to chew on, so that he felt neither hunger nor thirst. As he continued to watch he fell into a trance for what seemed like an hour or two. When he awoke, however, the two old men were no longer there. He found that his axe handle had rotted to dust and he had grown a long beard. When he returned to his native village he discovered that his family had disappeared and that no one even remembered his name.”
I think it is at least heavily implied that the two old men playing a game are gods. So I imagined what a game between gods would be like. I imagined it being impossibly complex, the fighting informed by layers of nested strategy and anticipation. It would be long, a vicious, close battle with the winner barely scraping out a victory. I tried to work that into the song, hence the fast, furious melodic lines and the multiple shifts in tone and energy.
The Masterpiece
Based upon the game known as “Dosaku’s Masterpiece.” This game is renowned for the brilliant play by Honinbo Dosaku. Strangely enough, Dosaku gave a 2 stone handicap to his opponent, and actually lost this game. It became famous because of the dominant play of Dosaku during this time, and for the fact that his opponent played exceptionally well, but was only able to win by 1.5 points.
I tried to capture effortless mastery with this song, also known as “flow.” You could think of this song as trying to capture the essence of “flow.” The beat is driving but not overbearing, the song flows from one section to another without it feeling abrupt (at least that’s my opinion).
Triple Ko
In the game of go, a triple ko is a rare situation whereby an infinite loop is created in the game. When a player captures a ko, the opponent must play elsewhere before capturing back. When there are 3 kos, there is always another ko that can be played, leading the game to run in an endless loop. In Japanese rules, triple kos annul the game, with no winner declared.
This song is inspired by The Triple Ko Game, a game played between Honinbo Sansa and Yasui Shunchi in 1582 in the presence of the warlord Nobunaga. In this game, a rare triple ko occurred, leading to a “no result” conclusion to the game. The next day, Nobunaga’s ally, Akechi Mitsuhide rebelled and killed Nobunaga. From this point forward, the triple ko occurring in a game was considered bad luck.
With this song, I wanted to capture the drama of the attack on the temple in which Nobunaga died. I wanted the song to feel a bit like a siege, with a fast tempo and a dissonant and aggressive melody. At the same time I wanted the song to capture the trickery and deep reading required to create a triple ko in a go game.
Ghost Moves
This is one of the most well-known go games in history, “The Blood Vomiting Game.” This story has it all, intrigue, death, and even the supernatural! The game was played between Akaboshi Intetsu and Honinbo Jowa. The short version is that the game in question was very important, with the Inoue house coming up with a secret move to try to thwart Jowa.
Despite Intetsu taking a lead early in the game, Jowa found 3 brilliant moves that were said to have been told to him by ghosts. Jowa won the game, and as the stones were being cleared from the board, it is said that Intetsu keeled over, coughing up blood. He died within two months.
I tried to make “Ghost Moves” feel very ethereal, even a bit spooky. The highly processed vocals are inspired by the ghosts that shared the three brilliant moves with Jowa. The lyrics of this song are mostly made up of Japanese go terms. The whole song was meant to be ghostly, otherworldly, and a bit ominous.
AIVSAI
This track is not inspired by a single game, but by the AlphaGo “self play” games. These were games played between AlphaGo and… itself! Here is one of the many games that AlphaGo played against itself. AlphaGo is the go-playing AI model that eventually beat all of the top human players, including Lee Sedol in the famous exhibition match in 2016. The fascinating documentary, AlphaGo, is available online for free:
These games show AI playing itself and revealing a way of playing that was completely foreign to human players. These games redefined the way the game is played to this day. I wanted this song to be very electronic, with no acoustic instruments. I tried to make the song foreboding, representing the approaching dominance of AI not only in go, but in all areas of our lives. Just as it changed go, it will likely change the rest of the world too.
Move 78
In the AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol match mentioned above, Lee Sedol won only one of those games, game #4. During this game, he played a brilliant tesuji on move 78. It was lauded by top players and led AlphaGo to make a series of mistakes that cost AlphaGo the game.
This song was meant to represent humanities triumph over the encroaching power of AI. I wanted the song to feel hopeful, uplifting, and optimistic. I included a lot of acoustic instruments to make it feel organic, symbolizing humanity and it’s ability to overcome.
Move 127
This is easily the most famous move in go history. It is known as “The Ear-Reddening Move,” (the game is known as the “Ear-Reddening Game“) and was played by Honinbo Shusaku against Gennan Inseki. The story goes that during the game, Shusaku, who was only 17 at the time, played a move so brilliant that his opponent’s ears turned red. The move has been praised as one of the greatest moves in go history.
I tried to make this song beautiful and elegant, like its namesake move. Just as the move seemed to work harmoniously with every other stone on the board, the song swells with beautiful and sweeping melodies that feel almost angelic. A fitting track for a move of the highest order.
Album Art
I worked once again with Evan Ohl to create the amazing design for this album. As with Catalog of Stolen Worlds, I released this album on vinyl and had Evan Ohl design the vinyl packaging. He knocked it out of the park, and I wanted to share some of the behind-the-scenes process that led to the final artwork.
A very early design, just a starting point. From here, I gave more notes about what I liked and disliked. It was far from the eventual design, but gave us a great foundation to build upon.
The next step was a line art version of what would become the main design of the final artwork. I really loved this line work, and asked to see some rendered versions.
Three variations on the main theme (click to see the full-size version)
I really love all of these, though the far right version ended up being the closest to what I wanted. I was drawn to the black background, and felt that it evoked space. Everything Wave Collector feels space-themed in my head.
With these design we were most of the way there. I felt that the background needed something extra, and I proposed the idea of “game pieces,” which could be abstract pieces of a game that doesn’t yet exist. That felt like the last piece of the puzzle.
The game pieces, completed the design for me. This was everything I wanted: something that evoked space, paradox, complexity, and the elegant beauty represented in the game of go.
This is an earlier version of the back cover art. This was before I had fully decided on the tracklist, and certain track names were still in progress.
I hope you enjoyed this peek behind the scenes of the creation of Wave Games! I leave you with a picture of me playing go at the 2019 Go Congress in Madison, WI!