In the fall of 2020 I got a call I never expected.

Mia Dyson had just had a heart attack and, after being successfully resuscitated, was recovering in the hospital. An earthquake had struck Los Angeles and given her system a jolt that an undiagnosed heart condition was unable to bear - going from a deep sleep to very wide awake.

In April of 2022 I sat down with a guitar and wrote what would become "Light in the Dark" - the kind of song that I would want to resonate through me and out into the world, a synthesizer-and-Zac-Clark fueled celebration of digging deep. (📷 by Brendan Willing James)

Over the last few days I got to go on something of a media tour to celebrate the release.

Two lifelong friends who came of age as artists in the early 90s experimenting with “borrowed” software and a 56K modem now reunite on ASync to offer ‘Lights’— a striking piece of generative art that continues their exploration of those questions found at the edges of art and technology.

Brendan Willing James’ ‘In the Colors’ is out now on our label Echo Magic.

This is an album of firsts.

Looking back through photos from that time I’m reminded that my wife and I were still parents of our first and only child. That's the big first.

It was also the first session I got to do with Mikael Jorgensen from Wilco on keys.

I spent most of 2020 taking a year off from the music business. It became clear as we locked down and closed up that I would be fighting an upstream battle to try to force the music business to come to me and after 20 years at it, a break was well-earned.

Much as it was for me growing up inside the music business, they too are seeing the possibility of a life in and around art -- sometimes asking me questions that make us laugh - like if I know Bob (Marley) or John (Lennon) - but filling me with pride that they see knowing those two legends of music as much a plausible possibility as anything else.Much as it was for me growing up inside the music business, my kids too are seeing the possibility of a life in and around art -- sometimes asking me questions that make us laugh - like if I know Bob (Marley) or John (Lennon) - but filling me with pride that they see knowing those two legends of music as much a plausible possibility as anything else.

Fellow home-bound humans,

I hope this finds you well. I have never meant that more than now - and I mean it in all ways.

Today, I bring you music for your home. This collection is called “Wild House” and it’s from Daniel Wright.

Dan is our partner at Echo Magic, my bandmate and father of our goddaughter. So, you could say we know each other pretty well.

This album marks the beginning of a new chapter for me in a couple ways.

First, this is a recording of the very first night Dan, Scott Hirsch and I worked together and the groundwork for what would become Echo Magic began to be laid down.

Now I’m one of the partners at Echo Magic and this is the first official release on our label arm. We’re of course always interested in what’s called “up-streaming” our work to the record labels and institutions we know and love — but sometimes it makes sense to have a little imprint of your own. So now we do.

Today I’m releasing an acoustic cover of Blink 182’s Dammit from my dorm room in 2001. Millions of people have been listening to it for years and I had no idea.

In February 2001, a late winter snow quietly fell outside my window at 80 Boylston Street in Boston. It was my first year at Emerson College, I had left my drum set back home in Vermont and brought my guitar…

If you haven't seen or heard our music, I'm excited to introduce you to Radio Skies with this beautiful video for "Homeward Angel," one of my favorites from our debut release.

Plus, Another gorgeous artifact of a time now passed -- two covers of Leonard Cohen songs that Mia Dyson and I recorded in the past year.

She really turned me on to Cohen's work and it's depth and I've become a fan of not just his words, but his actions, his humility, his tenacity and his grace.