The track title "Seven Skies of Egypt" is not original. Well, sort of. I found an obscure reference to a non-existent track by The Egyptian Lover with that title, although it was spelled incorrectly on a defunct blog page. Naturally when I saw  this track I nearly wet my pants. Unlike other times, this was a good reason! Attempts to contact the owner of the page yielded no results. So I asked Egyptian Lover myself and he said he never released any track with that title. I thought to myself, what a ridiculously awesome name! So I just used it myself.

CM_Sky_K is yet another sky reference, taken from"CMYK", a design and printing term: Cleopatra's Magical Yodeling Koalas. Just kidding. It stands for Cyan Magenta Yellow Black.

Freaks Get Down has a sample of Robert Smith of The Cure in it, reversed. I like The Cure. Speaking of the Cure, I have Robert Smith's autograph. I used to work at an airport a long time ago and I checked him in. He was hungover as hell but I got his autograph.

The strange forest you see before you is not CGI but rather a photograph of cotton grass taken by John McConnico. I stumbled upon the image online, tracked him down and acquired permission to use it. It looks great, don't you agree? Note in the album cover at left you can see the famous Hollywood sign, mid right. I added this to help the illusion that this was a dreamlike landscape with odd, Dr. Seussian trees. If I had hair then perhaps it would look like this.

The name Coconaut was purely of invention; I had no idea it was the name of a drink. I remember that in an article in Alternative Press we were described as "Electronauts" and how I was amused and pleased by that. I was trying to think of a name that would be universally enjoyed, and naturally perceived as fun and associated with a party. As I was thinking of beach-related themes, I put the two together and Coconaut was born.

The project was originally intended to be a follow-up to Skylash, but I felt the material didn't sound like Skylash.

Many badmouth dance music, deriding it as fake and not requiring talent. Well, making a track that takes a person in a bad mood and gets them bouncing on the moon is harder than some think.

This record mixes various elements of electro and dance. This is about the time I was using both software synths and sequencers as well as hardware synths and samplers. So, this is a great opportunity to talk about gear. If you are young, you need to watch out for three things: 1. Damsels in distress (they will either stay in distress or cause you distress once they sucker you in), 2. Politicians who promise to take care of you and, 3. Gear Lust. Don't buy a bunch of gear that will take up your money and just confuse you. I have been fortunate to have experience with many arrangements and no matter what you use it's important that you enjoy yourself. Don't worry about copying what some other guy uses. There are plenty of free VSTs and plugins so look around before spending cash. I used to have TONS of synths and you know what? Writing music and gear lust are two separate, unrelated things. 

This is the artwork on the inside of the CD case. It was originally part of an experimental project that involved creating a surreal airport interior, and this area was part of the lounge dimension. Yeah, I said lounge dimension. It just seemed like it fit the theme of the music so I went with it. I feel really lucky that I can produce the music I want and also create my own visuals for them. Everything fits together more tightly that way, I think. The vision is more solid. I really like the idea that it exists in some unknown void. Reminds me of some of the old Quake III maps.

This is is another angle, obviously, of the same area. The unusual designs on the wall and floor are just meant to be some artwork. I simply designed the basic form in Illustrator and then exported those paths and used them in Cinema 4D. I mostly use 3ds max now but the idea is the same for all of those applications. I'm always associating music with these other worlds, like it's not just a beat but there's an entire world that goes along with it, even if it's just electronic based dance music.