Digital Phantoms

Posted on

During the pandemic, Vince continued to hone his skills at production, attempting to collaborate virtually with his brothers and friends from where ever they lived. Vince had also just moved to Oaxaca, Mexico; but he still didn’t think that music collaboration would change, since everyone was sitting at home anyway (where ever that home was). Digital Phantoms became the outlet of pure collaboration with the absence of egos. Vince worked with both his long time friend and collaborator, J.R. Wicker, and brother Ernie to produce a collection of 6 tracks that experimented with song-writing production, process, and style.

  1. 2020 (V. Gray, Wicker)
  2. Can’t Kill Anymore (V. Gray)
  3. Sure Thing (V. Gray, E. Gray)
  4. Digital Phantoms (V. Gray, Wicker)
  5. Take Your Medicine (V. Gray)
  6. Muse (Wicker, V. Gray)

2021 license © Vincent Gray.
All rights reserved

Also available on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music and more.

“All They’ve Ever Known” is a B-Side, written and recorded during the summer of 2020.

Another B-side from the Digital Phantoms sessions was “Coding Error.” This is also the first track that I collaborated with Chad Nixon, who added key and synth treatment, that worked perfectly with the mood. The track was used as accompanying music for an aerial skills performance, by Challenge Aerial. (Thanks Kara Strauss).

After reading a lot about evolutionary biology and DNA transcription errors, I got the image in my head that we are all just fuzzy creatures with built-in coping mechanisms that come from DNA coding errors (but that some and not all are of course, naturally selected). In the process of natural selection, many codes get a “free ride” – in that they didn’t have any advantage to survival or selection pressures, but still later on became integrated or co-opted as the organism evolved with new selection pressures. Cat purring is a fascinating example: is it for the comfort of the cat, or us? Did it begin as a communication tool (signal to the mother when to feed)? What is the human counterpart of purring?