Today I’m releasing my latest album, Each Moment Replacing the Last, with the good folks at Deep Electronics records in Den Helder, Netherlands. I’m so proud to be part of their family of excellent artists and producers.
The title came to me from a talk by one of my mentors, Sam Harris. I’ve never met him in person, but his podcast and meditation app, Waking Up, has become absolutely critical to my sanity over the past 12 months. His approach to mindfulness meditation is really easy to appreciate and practice. Sam mentioned this phrase in reflecting on the neverending stream of thoughts and experiences we encounter in daily life, and how we can improve our mental health by not holding onto any of them. In other words, by letting each moment replace the last, we don’t hold onto any of the (mainly negative) perseverations or obsessions to which our minds are predisposed.
Because liner notes have sadly become a thing of the past (another casualty of the streaming era), I’m including below some of the notes from the release.
Chris Otchy is a Northern California-based composer and music producer. He is interested in sonic experiments with textures, rhythmic noise, and melodies that foster transcendence and aid relaxation or joyful movement and expression.
Chris has been making electronic music in a range of styles since the early 2000s, but began taking a more serious interest in ambient music in 2016. His main tools are modular synthesizers and samplers, which he uses to mold emotional textures and melodies from the sounds around him.
In “Each Moment Replacing the Last,” Chris takes a special interest in drones and slowly undulating waves of sound. It contains some of his most restrained and minimalist compositions. What arises in the stillness is a keen awareness of both the notes and the empty space around them. As with much of his music, those spaces are usually occupied with some subtle movement—field recordings and the rustle of household objects. “Each Moment” emerges as a meditation on organic noise and silence.
I hope this music provides some respite from the stresses of your daily life.
Listen to the album on Bandcamp.