So it feels more than fitting that in my 30th gayby anniversary year, I finally got to meet queer family of mine.

I took Scott to the Bellwoods Brew Pub on Ossington for a Drag Brunch with my cousin, Tara, as special guest.

Tara is related to me on the paternal side of my family, a side I have only recently come back into contact with. That reconnection has already brought up a lot for me 

Karen, my sister, casually mentioned Tara to me in a text message. Wait, what? I’m related to *THAT* Tara?! WOW!! She’s fierce!!

Because I had watched Canada’s Drag Race Season 5, and I remember being so proud to see representation from Newfoundland. There was something about it that hit me immediately. Newfoundland is not necessarily the first place people think of when they think of drag, but IYKYk!

Smaller cities and communities in Canada have always had these pockets of queer life. Sometimes small. Sometimes hidden. Sometimes loud as hell. And where there is queer community, you better believe there are drag queens.

St. John’s, being the capital of Newfoundland & Labrador, most definitely has a gay scene, and it has exactly the kind of friendliness you would expect in that Newfoundlander way. My biggest memory, aside from the warmth, was that the one bar we went to seemed to play nothing but Barry Harris and Thunderpuss remixes. Honestly, there are worse ways to build a queer memory with another proud Canadian moment..

I have loved and appreciated drag since I came out.

I went to drag shows with former boyfriends. One of my former boyfriends was roommates with someone who did drag — hats off to Diane from around 1996 to 1998 in Ottawa! Drag was always around. It was part of the ecosystem. Part performance, part survival, part comedy, part glamour, part defiance, part chosen family.

Today was the first time I have ever had the chance to meet someone in my family who is also LGBTQ2S+, and I am having a moment.

I have supportive family. I really do. Aunts, uncles, cousins, new immediate family — people who have shown me love, acceptance, and kindness. I do not want to diminish that for a second.

But this hit differently.

There is something about meeting someone who is family and queer that lands in a deeper place. Someone who understands the weirdness of family from inside the same tree. Someone who also understands queer family of choice, and who I can see Tara has been building that, just as I have. And now, somehow, those chosen families and actual families are intersecting. That feels incredibly special to me.

That is not a small thing and it’s beautiful.

Many thanks to Minhi Wang and Pearla for this morning’s festive and entertaining brunch, and for doing the introduction to Tara!

I could not be more proud of my family right now.

I love being introduced to new music by friends. It feels like a gift—especially when it becomes something you can share, unpack, and return to together. Not just the sound, but the lyrics, the intent, the meaning behind it all.

My friend Arthur recently introduced me to VNV Nation—“Victory Not Vengeance.” That ethos isn’t just a name; it’s embedded in Ronan Harris’s lyrics and perspective in a way that feels grounded, intentional, and deeply human. Ronan is the frontman and founder of VNV Nation.

I’m honestly surprised I hadn’t come across them before. Given my leanings toward techno and adjacent genres, you’d think our paths would have crossed sooner, but I haven’t spent as much time in industrial or EBM spaces, and somehow they passed me by.

What I do know is this – I’m glad I’ve been introduced and that they didn’t pass me by.

I’ve put together a playlist of tracks that have really landed with me—not just because of the production, which is absolutely outstanding, but also because of the emotional weight carried in the lyrics.

Listening to VNV Nation—and to Ronan speak about his work—has made me reflect on my own music as Polyatomic.

There’s a parallel there: the idea of creating from a place of honesty, of putting emotion into the music first, writing from the heart and letting everything else follow. If it resonates, it resonates. Exploring different styles and inspirations for our albums.

I’m going to be heading into production on my fifth full-length studio album and I admit, I’d can feel a pull to go in a Futurepop direction and while I don’t have the hardware list that VNV Nation has, I have more than enough to carve out my own interpretation of that sound.

In some respects, I’ve already brushed up against it. Take a listen to my Techknow album, there are hints of that direction—ideas that could be further refined. I wrote that album as a thank you to time I’ve spent in Berlin, and also a chance to decompress with something looser, more exploratory and less concerned with polish after releasing Icebergs which was an intense and emotional production and body of work.

Incidentally, Techknow was heavily hardware-based too.

I’ve always gravitated toward strings, pads, and piano—layering in an acid line here and there, building something cinematic, sometimes trance-like. I say I’ve never really identified with harder-edged electronic styles in my body of work, but honestly, you can hear there’s something that’s been waiting to be released and I’m ready to go there, to really explore.

And I think VNV Nation has shown me you can take an album like Strength, add harder elements and create thoughful and joyous music that takes a listener on a journey.

This feels like a natural evolution rather than a departure and it’s something I want to explore more intentionally.

I know I’m on the right path with Polyatomic and what I want it to represent, the emotion that project conveys.

I’ve always said my next album was likely to be called Hardware and feature more of my hardware as I’ve been heavily soft-synth oriented. I really do want to explore analogue synthesis more, which I think will take me more in an experimental direction. I’ve been mulling other titles as well given recent events in my life that I know will greatly impact the sound of my next album.

Arthur and I are going to see VNV Nation live in Toronto, in May. I’m really looking forward to sharing that experience—with him, with the crowd, and with music that, in a short time, has already become something quite personal to me.

My first music video drops tomorrow for Terra Nova which was released on Icebergs, finally getting a video treatment it was supposed to receive years ago.

In 2019, I started creating content on YouTube documenting my year of living in the UK and spending time in mainland Europe.

The pandemic hit and I’ve not been travelling as much, so I decided to start some tech content.

While I’m not travelling as much, I think it’s going to be important to split my content into three different channels:

• Polyatomic – My music project – Iain The Travel Tech Bear will be renamed to Polyatomic as all my music content goes automatically to this profile page,
• Iain The Travel Bear – All travel-related content,
• Iain The Tech Bear – All tech-related content

That way you get to see and subscribe to the content you want to follow, and that will also likely help “the algorithm” direct people to the correct content.

For the next few months, I’ll be transitioning content to their respective channels posting videos weekly

As I reflect back on the 33-year search for my biological parents which now draws to a close, it opens a different door entirely – What is my history?

Adopted kids lead interesting parallel lives of sorts – We inherit the life story of those who adopted and raised us – their history becomes our history.  Their traditions, their stories, their sense of where they come from all shape who we become.

Depending on the age at which we were adopted, that’s the only history we’ve known or it takes a fork in the road.  

In my case, I was adopted at three and a half months old, so I only knew one history until twenty-two years ago and then six months ago at the time of this writing.

For others who were adopted later, there can be memories of a life before adoption. Their histories may feel even more parallel — two lived experiences running side by side.

I can only write from the perspective of someone that was adopted as a baby.  For me, the question has never been about replacing one history with another.

The truth is simpler and more complex at the same time – both are mine.

I grew up with the stories of my adoptive family — their struggles, their humour, their values. Those stories shaped me. I was inspired by my adoptive parents, guided by them, and molded by the life we shared.

That was real history, and it was foundational for who I’ve become.

At the same time, learning the limited history of my maternal side — and especially the deeper, wider history of my paternal side — has opened another dimension of understanding. There is a long line of people whose lives, choices, resilience, and circumstances also lead directly to me.

I didn’t grow up in that world, and I didn’t inherit its traditions in the same way.

But discovering it has brought a sense of recognition — a deeper appreciation for where some of the threads of my life began long before I was here to see them.

There is pride in that history, even if parts of it are still unfamiliar.

And maybe that’s the point.

History, for someone adopted, isn’t a single straight line. It’s more like a braid — different strands woven together over time.

One strand is the life you were given. Another is the life you came from.

And somewhere in the weaving of those strands is the place where you finally begin to understand your own story.

As an adult, I’ve always been comfortable moving between different environments — from boardrooms to kitchen tables and communities. I’ve always been curious about people, cultures, and different ways of living, often trying to see the world from someone else’s perspective. In hindsight, I wouldn’t be surprised if that instinct was shaped by being adopted. Now, as I begin integrating this newly discovered part of my life, that instinct takes on a whole new depth.

Integration, for me, isn’t about choosing between worlds or rewriting the past. It’s about allowing these histories to sit beside each other and recognizing that both have shaped who I am. The family who raised me gave me my foundation — the values, lessons, and stability that shaped my life. The family I have come to know more recently adds something different – context, connection, and a deeper understanding of where some of those threads began long before I was aware of them.

Identity isn’t a replacement process. 
It’s an expansion. 

Each new story, each shared memory, each moment of recognition simply adds another layer to the life that was already there.

Neither history stands alone. Together they form the fuller picture of who I am.

This past weekend I flew to Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador to spend time with my sister and her family. My brother flew out to connect with us.

During the trip I also got to meet 4 aunts, a grand-aunt and 9 out of 28 cousins that I counted when going through the family tree with Karen. Talk about mind blown on just that point.

I don’t talk a lot about my spirituality, but I firmly believe that at times I’ve felt a guardian angel looking over me. For example, when living in Frankfurt, Germany in December 1995, I was feeling so disconnected from family and friends, and the emotions of that – it was like something was telling me to get back to London where I had family. I did get back to London to find on Christmas Day my father had passed away.

I’ve put in a lot of work on myself over the past 6 years, and even broader than that, the past 23 to 26 years between therapy, self help, courses, and mentors – it’s like the universe saying, “You’ve done good b’y, here’s your family and they’re awesome, now go and connect, enjoy and feel the love.”

I know it doesn’t work that way, or maybe it does. Who knows? Karen, Kevin, and the rest of our family have come into my life at the perfect time.

I could not have asked for a more perfect weekend of connection, getting to know each other, and bonding. The love everyone has shown me has been amazing and I hope everyone knows it’s returned in spades.

My heart is full and bursting about how the two of us have bonded. Having an older brother like Kevin who shares similarities to me – sensitive, pragmatic, humourous, smart – has me elated. Having an older sister who values connection and family, smart, straight up, who has taken the time to truly get to know me, who reaches out, who took me under her wing this weekend to introduce me to a bunch of stuff I hadn’t experienced before – I could not ask for a better older sister and that has been super healing for me.

I’ve never experienced that level of connection from siblings – ever. Maybe in our early days with Robyn. I said to my aunt (one of my aunts, now? LOL!) and two of my cousins – I have no idea where Robyn and I went wrong as I search within myself. The overwhelming response was, “It’s not on you at all. You both had a messed up childhood and the fact that you came out of that a great person is a testament to your strength.”

I feel it, and not only do I feel seen after years of being afraid to show my light, years of being afraid to speak up, ask, to be validated.

I wish Robyn and I had a much better connection than we do, I think the odds were stacked against us from the beginning for a number of factors I won’t go into. I will say this, I don’t think she had the space nor the permission to just be and to find herself and I hope, very much hope she is able to find herself and heal to the best of her abilities. She deserves light, love and happiness. I have always felt this despite the friction between us.

There are so many people who are no longer with us that I wish I could share in this moment.

• My adoptive dad who would have been super proud of all of us,
• Scott’s mum, Betty, who was so instrumental in showing me what family was and accepting me in to her family, her consistency and love,
• Our dad who, I don’t know if he’d be shocked or not, but I know he would be elated and proud of my accomplishments and I know, if he’s present spiritually in our world and if he were still living today, that he would be proud of Kevin and Karen for how they have embraced me.

I also wish my adoptive mum and sister could witness this moment with grace and appreciation, putting themselves in my shoes for once. Enough said there.

There is once person I do want to acknowledge and that is Kevin and Karen’s mum, Joyce. I appreciate her willingness to be present with all of us this past weekend. She is amazing.

Newfoundland is beautiful – the land, the people, the wildlife – all of it. We have some amazing unique traditions and way of life, some of which does parallel rural areas in other areas of Canada but it is still unique. For many, this is how Newfoundlanders survived the challenges of that environment.

I have always hated winter and cold weather. This weekend had me embracing winter in a way I haven’t in forever if ever. So much so, I’m ready to head to Bass Pro Shop next winter and get a pair of snow pants – it would be “weird” to see here in Toronto but it would help me embrace winter more.

I can’t wait to get back to Newfoundland this summer. I don’t have a date yet given Scott is headed into knee replacement surgery season with his first surgery taking place on April 21st and second one in July. I am hoping Scott could come with me but it may have to wait until next year.

I have a lot of Newfoundland content coming up on my YouTube channel. It’s part of me returning to own what was always mine. The first video is up, about the International Lounge at Gander International Airport.

This song, Where there is light by VNV Nation (VNV for Victory not Vengeance) speaks volumes about how I’m feeling right now and has been playing through my head. Ronan’s music, his lyrics and what he sings about hit home for me.

I’m writing this Monday evening, and I’ve been feeling raw today.  Not in a bad way, but in a “wow that was an amazing weekend”, that has left me fulfilled.

Specially Sunday, I spent some time with someone new.  We’ve been having some really deep conversations about gay men’s mental health (although the themes are not totally unique to the gay community), specifically about how we’ve both dealt with anxiety, baggage, emotions, the importance of expressing them and the divide between older men and us –  how that past generation on occasion dismisses mental health, how we realised that it needs to be dealt with, how we see and have experienced how it manifests and how we encourage that in others.

This is not an us against them post – there’s no value in that kind of division that you see in mainstream media all too often.  Instead, this is about our observations and experiences.

I really do believe men need positive reinforcement that it’s okay to feel and have emotions, and not just permission.

Times are changing. Many of us were never really taught how to sit with anxiety without calling it weakness. We weren’t shown how to talk about shame without deflecting it with humour, sex, anger, or achievement. A lot of us were handed a model that said: be strong, be desirable, be successful, don’t be complicated.

For gay men especially, there’s an added layer. We learned early how to code-switch, how to scan rooms, how to measure safety, how to make ourselves acceptable. That vigilance doesn’t just disappear because we come out. It buries itself in our nervous systems. It shows up as overthinking, perfectionism, sexual anxiety, as the need to be “at our best” all the time.

We talked about how some older folks were taught to push it down. “Don’t talk about it”, “Be grateful”, “Other people have it worse”, “Stop playing games”.

I don’t say that to criticize them — I say it because that was survival for them. Emotional restriction was a coping strategy in a generation that didn’t have language or containers for mental health.

I’ve lived and experienced some of those moments from older folks – men and women – whether directed at me or when talking about others “Turn off the water works”, “They’re playing games”, “Man up”, plus other statements.

In the discussion this weekend, we both feel we straddle something different. We got the emotional shutdown messaging, and then we also got access to therapy, self help culture, psychology books, online spaces, community dialogue, new research. We almost feel like a bridge generation that feels everything from both sides.

What struck me most on Sunday was this and I was re-reminded: when two men choose to speak plainly about anxiety, about fear of inadequacy, about breakdowns, about survival mode – there’s a real shift that happens and I find that candour really refreshing. There’s less performance, less bravado and more quiet honesty.

That is strength.

Positive reinforcement between men is radical. Saying:

• You handled that well
• That anxiety makes sense
• You don’t have to carry that alone
• You’re allowed to rest
• You’re worthy even when you’re not performing

This rewires things.

We cannot keep expecting men to magically be emotionally regulated while simultaneously shaming them for having emotions.

Yes, some men avoid this work, mocking it, hiding behind cynicism – dear $deity have I seen this in spades! That’s part of the story too. 

Growth isn’t universal or linear, and it’s not always tidy – I know this all too well.

Avoidance is often armour, cynicism is often protection, defensiveness is usually fear wearing a sharper jacket, projection is pain looking for somewhere else to land.

Regardless, every man is worthy and deserving of connection, love, and of a life that feels integrated and whole. Worthiness isn’t contingent on courage, curiosity, or timing.  Integration isn’t something you earn by getting it “right.” It’s something you grow into at your own pace.  No one is outside of that possibility.

Feeling deeply isn’t fragility – it’s integration, and integration is available to all of us, whenever we’re ready to turn toward it.

If we want healthier relationships, healthier sexuality, healthier leadership, healthier friendships — men have to do this work. Not perform it, not posture it, actually do it.

We have to look at our anxiety, our anger, our shutdown patterns, our shame around desire, our fear of aging, our fear of not being enough.

We have to stop pretending we’re above needing each other.

Sunday left me raw in the best way – connected, expanded.  It reminded me that vulnerability between men isn’t emasculating. It’s liberating.

If you’re a man reading this:
Your anxiety is not a character flaw.
Your past coping strategies were survival.
Your breakdowns don’t disqualify you.

And you don’t have to do this alone.

P.S: This entry has been at least 32 years in the making. I’ve been carrying these thoughts since first-year university. I’m grateful it’s finally out of my head — and that life has given me the experiences to understand what I was sensing and questioning back then.

Over the holidays, my Commodore 64 Ultimate arrived. For those that don’t know, Commodore is back and they’re back with a very awesome and true to the classic FPGA-based Commodore 64.

It’s absolutely brilliant. It supports old peripherals, new peripherals, USB storage and the ability to plug in two original SID chips, among other things.

I’ve been spending time backing up disks over the past two or three years. There was a stall as my childhood C64 died – although I think it can be revived by replacing RAM chips based on the behaviour. That’s where the C64U is absolutely brilliant.

So I’ve been going through a bunch of of disks – mostly full of games, some old high school assignments, and some treasures from friends from my past who are no longer with us, but programs they had written themselves.

Despite having these disks for a long time, I never ventured into some of the other programs – assuming it was all data for a particular game. It turns out some of these were basic programs that were written by these two friends in particular.

I’ve often thought about them, but having something somewhat tangible, in the form of a 5.25in floppy, with something they likely enjoyed writing – adventure games, some rudimentary character-based animations, it was really neat to see.

It definitely had me wondering what would have happened had they both been around today, what lives they would have lead. Both were creative individuals – one an amazing pianist, the other into drawing, and both had imaginative minds.

What strikes me is, no one other than the two people I’m thinking of would appreciate the code that I found beyond me, maybe one of their brothers. They’d have been lost to time had I not thought – “Lets see what this is”.

It was a neat way to remember two people lost way too soon.

I made backups so they’re immortalized on USB, soon my file server, and also my retro gaming setup. Preserved that little while longer, honouring them both with code they wrote 41 years ago at the height of the 8-bit computing era.

I wrote the following a few years ago when George Michael passed away and I found it in my drafts.

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley nearly ran over my cousin Erika and her friend Sarah in Toronto, during the one and only concert Wham! held in Toronto.  I had forgotten that story and it was the first thing mentioned after breaking the news at Christmas Dinner about George Michael passing.

George Micheal was one of the artists that my cousin Erika and I connected over.  I often listened to her walkman and a tape she had picked up in Korea.

He was quite brilliant.  A vibrant pop act, an amazing voice and gone way to early.

It’s funny reading a friend’s post completely dismissing George Micheal’s music as pop crap.  They really have no idea the power of his music, nor the work he did behind the scenes for people and the world.  Quite an understated force.

Faith, for me, came out at the height of really good pop music in 1987.  The album dripped with sex, romance, love – someone trying to shed their pop roots to become a contemporary serious artist. I am surprised I was even allowed to listen to the album at the age of 13, but hey, I did. It seemed transcend the topic, taking it to a new level.

Listen without prejudice, Vol 1 – Completely changed the George Michael game.  A way more serious album. A completely brilliant, underrated album and a staple of my high school years.  Most notable tracks include Praying for Time, Heal the Pain and Mother’s Pride.

It never bothered me that it took him such a long time to come out as gay.  People do it on their own times. The pressure he was under, everything he dealt with, considering he had lost his first partner to HIV and then his mother in quick succession, it’s not surprising as he had other things to deal with in his life, including Sony and his fight for a new fair contract.

Listening back to Listen without prejudice, Vol 1; it’s not surprising that album spoke volumes to me.

I somewhat lost interest in George Michael after this. Albums such as Older, Songs From The Last Century, and Patience did not resonate with me until more recent times.

When I got on Twitter, I decided to follow George.  I followed, and I found him quite interesting and I enjoyed his banter. I miss his banter these days (updating this post in 2025).

His album Symphonica is amazing. His voice is amazing. I wish I had a chance to see him in concert.

RIP George Michael. You are missed.

This may have been the fastest an album has come together for me.

I wrote a track around October 2023 that I started using in videos for my YouTube channel which I named Strength. This was specifically for the Iain the Tech Bear videos and it first showcased on a video I produced on my first computer, a Timex Sinclair 1000.

That’s how Strength, the album, started. 15 months to produce a full album, artwork and remixes.

When I write music, I am often visualizing things, processing the emotions, how I’m feeling in the moment, is it colourful or more grey, etc. That forms the shape of the sounds I’m looking for.

If I’m in more of an upbeat mood, I’ll write a track like Good Night. If I’m in a mood where I’m reflecting certain things and feeling triumphant over something, then Phoenix may come out. If I’m envisioning a cold desolate landscape that’s covered in ice and snow, then The Rock – Winter Mix from Icebergs is something that’s going to come out.

Don’t tell me that electronic music doesn’t have emotion because I will overshare what I was thinking about when I was writing every single track I’ve written.

Strength then started to form itself into a cohesive album with a theme I never considered until it started coming out! It tells the story of the day in the life of a kid on a Saturday waking up, having friends over to play video games – possibly an old school RPG where you go on the journey together and figure out clues to complete the game.

The album seemed to form backwards – Strength, Freedom, Connecting Dots, Let’s Do This and Gaia for the first set of tracks; and then A New Day, Phoenix, DMAO, Moving On, and Good Night. It’s almost like I was channelling Stephen Covey and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Begin with the end in mind.

I’ve just realized backwards and forwards, other than Gaia.

There were a few goals I had in mind for this album:

• I wanted to break my use of the Korg M1 and I finally did that
• I took layering to a whole new level with the pianos on several tracks
• It had to be an upbeat album
• While I have a track that references Pet Shop Boys’ Being Boring on a previous album, I’ve wanted to try that again and did that with two tracks on this album. While I’ve used the key and a few other elements as inspiration, I made both tracks my own.
• Take lessons I had been learning around EDM production and apply it – I did that with DMAO and Good Night, and probably the whole album
• I really wanted to up my mastering game, and I think I’ve been able to do that on this album, faster than on Icebergs, for sure. I learned heaps and learned just how much I’ve learned in over the past few years.

This album is completely written using soft synths on a Mac laptop, with the exception of one track that used hardware synths, so you can consider this my “Software” album for now.

In order of production:

Strength – I used Diva, Serum, M1, Komplete, and Largo. I love the bass on this and it’s exactly what I was looking for. It is a very synthwave track and there are parts that remind me of the Sega Dreamcast boot animation. I always pegged this track for being the last track on the album.

This track really contributed to shaping the sound of the album. The album as a whole and this track is a celebration of growth and resilience, letting go, and realizing just how resilient I am.

Freedom – Soft Synths included Alchemy, M1, Piano V3, Komplete, Nexus, Diva, Omnisphere, Battery, Omnisphere. Diva I picked up during the writing of Techknow and it’s a staple of EDM production. I resisted buying it for so long, wanting to make do with what I had, but now it’s a key part of my sound.

I think I’ve finally broken my use of a Korg M1 Piano 8. No more Rhythm is a Dancer. LOL! This track won’t be the last I write with an M1 Piano 8, but I’m going to use it sparingly. After all, the 90s were 30 years ago.

While this song may have a bit of melancholy to it, surprisingly I consider it more uplifting. It also feels like wind blowing or water flowing at points.

In the narrative of the album, it sounded like the perfect soundtrack for ending credits to a video game, maybe a JRPG.  Congratulations, you’ve earned your ice cream – our version of the Platinum Trophy at the end of this track.  Now, go find a Dance Dance Revolution Pad and let loose and dance your heart out!

Connecting Dots – I used Analog Lab, Alchemy, Diva, Legend Hz, Omnisphere, and Battery on this. I think this could fit in at a rave, though it’s quite cinematic. It starts slow and then builds into something phrenetic.

Within the context of the album theme, when I hear this track, I’m thinking of the gaming journey as you’re hunting for clues and then you connect the dots on a massive subplot. Kind of like life.

Let’s Do This – I’m surprised this track uses so few synths – Serum, Legend Hz, Battery; and it’s complete in 9 tracks. It’s definitely synthwave inspired. I think this track takes a listener somewhere different than they’re expecting at the start. It almost sounds like it could be used as music introducing a news show at parts – “And now tonight in the news…”. Again another one of these tracks that has a bit of melancholy, yet it feels upbeat and triumphant.

It draws inspiration from making decisions with your team to proceed with a battle, or to investigate something and the start of that journey.  Interestingly, I’m thinking of Bard’s Tale as well – a fantastic RPG series – as I write this as well.

Gaia – When Gaia came together, just wow. Sitting in James’ studio in Michigan and hearing it before we stopped for the evening. It’s trance, and very ethereal and definitely feels like it has a space them. This track is the only track with hardware – Wavestate, Kronos; and on the software side: Diva, Prophet-5, Legend Hz, and for effects StutterEdit.

As the soundscape came together, on this track, I keep thinking of some of the iconic photos of Earth taken over the years of space exploration, the deep blue of the seas, clouds in the sky. Maybe a cut scene.

A New Day – I had mentioned to a coworker that I had some ideas percolating related to Thompson Twins’ Hold Me New. I’ve been listening to the Into the Gap album a lot in recent time. It reminds me of a happy time and place – choir practice – and being asked if I’d swap places with a guy so he could stand next to a girl and he traded me Into the Gap. He kept his word and a lasting memory during the start of a tumultuous time in my life.

Why Hold me now? Hold me now is such a beautiful song. I’ve been listening to that track a lot recently and while I’ve always loved it, I didn’t know the story behind why it was written in the first place until recently, which is a beautiful story. I wanted to honour my partner John with the grace he’s shown me as we’ve navigated changes our lives and the commitment we have to our relationship. So this is dedicated to him.

I think A new day is the perfect start to the album because, in many respects – new album, new leaf.

I used Piano, Alchemy, Prophet 5, PPG Wave 3, Diva, and JV-1080,

Phoenix – The next track I wrote after A new day was going to be taking the idea of playing with more elements from Hold me now. It had to close with elements of A New Day. What came out of the production was an incredibly powerful track that’s very personal. Themes of a phoenix rising from the ashes, new life, a new day. The fast and slow elements that produces play with, I have always adored, and you get that trance ethereal feeling.

This track captures the essence of the journey of re-finding myself I’ve been on in the past 6 years. I’m at a point where a lot has settled for me.

This track came together really quickly, surprisingly. It contains 59 different tracks! The most I have used on any production. It is so layered. This track was a labour of love, and the toughest to mix and master because of the layers. I think it sounds great. This really is my current magnum opus.

The soft synths used are Piano V3, Alchemy, Omnipshere, Nexus, Serum, Wavestate, PPG Wave 3, Diva, Triton Extreme, Piano, SRX Orchestra, Komplete

DMAO – If Phoenix is about my journey, DMAO is the celebration of that rebirth in many respects. For a track that sounds as epic as DMAO does, it only uses Legend Hz, Nexus, Serum, Omnisphere, Diva.

This is another one of those tracks that, I have no idea how it got here. Again, it just flowed. I wanted it to be an epic dance track, and it delivered what I wanted.

I really want to hear this at a club, and dance my arse off on the dance floor! Manchester, how about it? *GRIN*

That one point where it sounds like a low-fi cowbell? OMG! Love it! More cowbell! Naw, I’d rather have more of that rave horn I started the track with.

The most difficult part of this track was trying to make sure I have good balance on the bass. At times when I was mastering the track, it would sound anemic and then too much base. I think I have a good balance so that you can here the whole sonic spectrum

I’m also well chuffed that it’s included in an independent film, Circular: Act 2

Moving On – This one is a pensive track, the acid line provides a bit of chaos to the pads and strings. It forms a narrative with A new day and Phoenix.

I obsess over bass sounds on my tracks. The richness of the bass felt like I had taken my lessons on balancing things.

The strings and pads at the end of the track feels like the most epic use of strings and pads to change. Probably the best arrangement I’ve put together and the infinite reverb to close out the track was perfect.

I nearly did consider replacing Strength with this track for last track, or Good Night, but I think it’s prefect where it is. In the narrative of the day in the life of a kid having a fantastic Saturday playing video games with his friends – possibly an old school RPG, it works. It’s time for his friends to go home and to wind down.

Written using JV-1080, Piano, Piano V3, Largo, Alchemy, SRX Strings, SRX Studio, XV-5080, Diva,

Good Night – This was the final track written for the album and I was afraid I would write something that was a bit throw away, not something I’d put my heart into. It turned out very much the opposite.

The baseline was written using Ableton Live – using Serum and a combination of Reverb, Compressor, and EQ Eight inspired, I believe, by some YouTube videos I was using to learn some new music production techniques. This bass line is sublime to me. Definitely a groove with the beats. Classic.

While I attempted to use Link to link to Logic, ultimately I bounced the bass and beats out of Ableton and used it as a sample within Logic. That bass groove is just sublime. Especially adding the acid line towards the end, and then the infinite reverb close.

On the Logic side, I used Jupiter-8, Piano, Omnisphere, Nexus, Triton, Serum, Diva, MonoPoly, Legend Hz

I really feel this track sums up the feel of this album. In the video game narrative of the album, It’s been a great day, reminiscing and thinking about all the good times before heading to sleep. On the flip side, you’ve had a great day, time to go have a great night out.

There you have it, more details about this album.

I decided this past weekend that I would see how far I could go, using a Large Language Model, writing a relatively simple game. I used ChatGPT 4o to create a game.

I knew I wanted to build some form of a platformer, my favourite genre, and decided to go with a jungle theme. I adore playing Donkey Kong Junior, and this is kind of an homage to a game I have spent hours playing.

I’ve had a dream of buying a Panic! Playdate and the API is freely available. I decided I would build something for a platform I knew nothing about and also using a language I’ve never written code in – Lua. I don’t actually have the Playdate hardware, but I’m ready to buy one.

Developing a game, in a new language and API, for a platform I don’t even own.

I might go into detail about how I did this in future videos, but I started with building the player code getting jump and ground pound functionality working.

I then focused on the vines, ensuring that I could move left and right and only up and down on the vines.

I wanted two kinds of enemies – on the vines and in the air.

Of course I needed some form of collectable, which was inspired by Boulder Dash – another game I loved during my childhood.

I had fun trying to figure out collision and overlap detection as the vines behave differently than the enemies, which behave differently from the diamonds. Sprites can can push you or you can make them overlap. Really useful!

All the artwork was also created with ChatGPT – backgrounds, characters – all of it.

Here are my thoughts on using an LLM for coding:

I learned heaps. I have been interested in game development for years and have studied, but I’ve never spent the time to finally build a game. The classes make sense, how they interact with each other, the states. It made sense to me, but finally putting these together in my own game, there was so much I learned.

Despite using generated code, I know this code inside and out. I had to to figure out bugs as there were times I’d fix one thing with the LLM, and then it would break something else. It would go back and forth breaking the same bit of code until I called out, “Could it be this area” after realizing what was going on.

I look at AI as a tool to inspire, especially when you have the right tools, and I had the right tools – ChatGPT, Microsoft Visual Studio, the Playdate SDK, and Aseprite.

Is this lazy? I think not. It shows how efficient and quick I can be when developing code and want to get my ideas out. Anything I can do to speed up my development process, I support. For example, I am a huge proponent of reusable code which also speeds me up – referring to my own templates and design patterns.

If I were to write this from scratch, every line of code, it would have taken me two to three weeks. I did this in a weekend. I figure I spent 24 hours creating this. It will probably be 36 hours with tweaks, bug fixes, adjustments, etc.

I definitely want to do this more. This was the most fun I’ve had writing code for a personal project.