“If you listen for the feeling and for the raw, unfiltered meaning, you will surely enjoy it a lot better than if you listen to judge us.”

We generally record ourselves when we play in the Sonic Sandbox. We’re not sound technicians, and we don’t have a lot of equipment – just a digital recorder that takes in ambient sound. We don’t have mics for all the players and we don’t have a mixer and we don’t do multiple takes. How can we? What happens in the Sandbox happens in the moment. It happens once and never again. This is what you hear in our recordings.

We’re amateurs and we make amateur recordings. If you want to hear a perfect mix, you don’t want to listen to our recordings. We record improvisation live, and improvisation is full of things that, if you expect perfection, you won’t like. We make a lot of mistakes. We start and stop unexpectedly. We aren’t in perfect tune. We don’t always catch onto what the others are doing. Sometimes we get lost in what we are doing and forget to keep on listening to the others.

To enjoy our music, it helps to listen to it in the spirit in which we make it. We are practicing appreciation for every sound we make. We look for a way to like what we do, instead of trying to find a way to tear it down or criticize it. We make music from whatever we bring to the evening. Sometimes we might be depressed or angry or tired or uninspired. It’s all there. It’s all an accurate reflection of our respective moods and skills.

So it is best to listen for the feeling behind the music. Like falling asleep listening to the band stay up into the wee hours, jamming and drinking. Things get a bit out of control, musically speaking, but at the same time, they get a bit more raw and authentic. So, if you listen for the authenticity, you will enjoy our music a lot better than if you listen with the idea of comparing us to everyone else you have heard.

Our music is not about perfection. It is about getting out of our messy, chattering  monkey minds, and finding a way to connect with each other and with something larger than all of us. It is about coping with depression and with unhealthy compulsions. It is about a respite from our overthinking brains that end up tricking us into counter-productive reactions to our worlds.

If you listen for the feeling and for the raw, unfiltered meaning, you will surely enjoy it a lot better than if you listen to judge us.