The Digital Lo-Fi trilogy, Sad Songs for Cell Phones (2011), Ghost Songs for Cell Phones (2013), and Love Songs for Cell Phones (2015), captures music at its most intimate and unguarded. Recorded on early iPhones through memo-recorder apps at extremely low fidelity, these albums preserve songs as if they were accidental transmissions: tiny windows into private performances, half-demos, half-confessions. The first album is stark and melancholy, just voice and guitar collapsing into the grain of 16kbps monophonic audio. The second leans into the uncanny, with “ghosts” animating the lo-fi haze of iPhone 4 recordings, punctuated by transitions that feel like fragments of forgotten signals. The third returns with a cracked phone screen and a cracked-open heart, framing love through fragile fidelity.
Sad Songs For Cell Phones – 2011
My hope is that you will hear these recordings the way I hear them: as tiny windows through space and time into private—even accidental—performances.
All lead vocals and guitar were recorded simultaneously on one track of monophonic audio at 16kbps with an Apple iPhone 3GS. Tracks 1 and 12 include backing vocals recorded through a Sure SM7. Synth sounds on tracks 3, 5, 8 and 9 were recorded using soft synth patches in Apple’s Logic.
Ghost Songs For Cell Phones – 2013
In 2011 I released “Sad Songs For Cell Phones” which included 13 tracks recorded on my iPhone 3GS. Continuing in that vein, this album contains 8 songs and 5 transitions recorded (mostly) on my iPhone 4. And this time the theme is “ghosts.”
Love Songs For Cell Phones – 2015
In 2011 I released “Sad Songs For Cell Phones” which included 13 tracks recorded on my iPhone 3GS. Continuing in that vein, in 2013 I released “Ghost Songs For Cell Phones” which included 8 songs and 5 transitions recorded (mostly) on my iPhone 4.
Here is a third and final album of cell phone recordings recorded on an old iPhone 4 with a cracked screen using the memo recorder app at 64Kbps. This time the theme is “Love.”