Time Crimes is a compilation of soundscape-esque ambient electronic tracks influenced by genres such as Intelligent Dance Music, Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Industrial, Lo-Fi, Space Rock, Trip Hop, Progressive, and Indie/Alternative Rock. It was created entirely within the Propellerhead Reason 8 DAW, supplemented by live instruments including the Nord Lead A1 Analog Modeling Synthesizer and an ESP LTD H-251fm electric guitar.

These tracks were written in order to capture specific moments in my life. As I have written or been involved with at least one album per year since I started releasing these albums, they can been seen as somewhat of an attempt to preserve thoughts, emotions, events, etc, taking place during the year since the previous album. In the same way that a dream represents the mind's consolidation of a day's happenings, this album represents that same consolidation but on a much larger time scale.

The initial inspiration for this album was the simple concept of time and how it can rule our lives, as we are all bound by it. After beginning work on the first few tracks, my cousin posted a picture of a clock that he had snapped on a vintage 80mm camera. Something about the image felt surreal to me, and I decided to purchase the photo from him to use it for the album art.

Many of the tracks on this album are simply about trying to accept life as it is, while trying to erase feelings of guilt about actions in the past. It's about the attempt to abandon thoughts related to running out of time in a world in which we are all aware that our time is limited in nearly every way. It's about feeling unreal in the "real world" ... looking around and questioning everyday things that most people seem to accept as normal, as reality. And lastly, it's about overcoming the anxiety and depression that can often accompany such thoughts.

During the writing process of the album, I composed the tracks in the sequence in which they are listed. Upon completing each song, I would then listen to the songs I had completed before falling asleep most nights. The tracks began to take on a somewhat dreamy or sleepy feeling, as most of the writing took place between midnight and 3 am. Some of the tracks have somewhat of a similar feeling to what you might hear in a video game soundtrack. I attribute that to the fact that I was a huge gaming fanatic for a large portion of my life, so that aspect tends to always bleed through into the music a bit. Video games once served as my primary escape from reality, and now I'm trying to somewhat re-create that escape through writing and listening to music.

As with previous albums I've released, this idea of capturing the moment was a major inspiration. Therefore, most of the melodies you hear are improvisational in nature. Though there was a process of selecting which melodies to use and which not to use, it was most often the case that I decided to use the original melodies I had created during the initial conception of the song rather than ones I managed to come up with later. So the format of the tracks could be described as a sort of structured randomness, kind of like a Jackson Pollock painting. I just went with the first, automatic ideas that came into my head, regardless of the genres of music such sounds most often appear in. There was no attempt to follow a particular genre or style, other than the overarching desire to achieve surreal and/or nostalgic sounds.

Above all, my goal is always to make something that sounds unique and outside-the-box. So far, this notion has tended to manifest into collections of connecting melodies where all other aspects of the music (rhythm, percussion, etc.) take somewhat of a backseat to the ever-present melodies. It's not necessarily the kind of music you'd thrown on at a party. But if you're driving alone into new territories, literally or figuratively speaking, or walking down some deserted path into the woods, or even just laying awake at night unable to fall asleep, it might provide a good soundtrack for you.

I can't necessarily pinpoint my musical inspirations for this album, but I was listening to artists such as Failure, David Byrne, Garbage, Tame Impala, Beach House, Beck, Animals as Leaders, Modest Mouse, Radiohead/Thom Yorke, Boards of Canada, Lorde, Dance House Children, Built to Spill, Hum, My Bloody Valentine, and Slowdive while writing these tracks. I had also been listening to a lot of experimental electronic music on Soundcloud. I tend to think that I am influenced by everything I hear, and not just the music I typically enjoy listening to.