I'm really no one special, at least no more special than anyone else; and I struggle to find anything terribly unique about who I am that separates me from the herd. Underneath the thin veneer of preference, ego, and projection, we're all basically the same — human beings, made of the stuff of stars, and filled with an ineffable essence that would take more than a lifetime to comprehend, let alone understand.
“Evoking images of galaxies, clouds, waves, and the undulating forces of nature, STØLACE's music will transport you to a realm of quiet contemplation and ethereal memories.”
- Paul A (Maryland)
I've always had a love for the radio program Hearts of Space. As a sci-fi and astronomy lover in my awkward pre-teen years, I used to tune into the program nearly every week on our local classical public radio station, KSJN 99.5 FM. And without fail and ears glued to my low fidelity clock radio on my night stand, I would keep it dialed in for Pipe Dreams, listening to other-worldly performances on the organ from musicians around the world playing on unique organs in seemingly exotic locations. It's what I would consider the beginnings of my love for ambient music and would later fuel the creativity behind my electronic and ambient music compositions.
If you put a metaphorical gun to my head, forcing me to describe the brand of ambient music that I compose, you might end up with something like this:
Vivid images of distant swirling nebulae and clusters of galaxies intertwined, layered with the soft textured veneers of a shaman's robe, the slow swells of enveloping atmospheric vibrations, and the serene melodic incantations sung with a soft hush by the mythical sages of old.
...or something like that. I actually didn't start composing ambient music until the advent of The Relay Station in its original form.
The Relay Station originated as a weekly live ambient music stream on Twitch, performing original and improvisational ambient music. Since its inception in 2021, The Relay Station evolved to be much more than my expressions of ambient and neoclassical-inspired music — it became a means of supporting other musicians like myself and further cultivating my love for classic, late-night or early-morning eclectic radio programs, like Hearts of Space and Pipe Dreams.
In the years that would follow, I created ambient compositions in rapid-fire succession, favoring improvisational sessions. Improv has always been a sort of musical sketch pad for me — a way of drafting out ideas at the pace in which they come to me, and allowing that time to further grow as a musician. While art and music is indeed a thing of beauty, on some level I view them as entirely disposable and hold no sanctity towards their form. Rather, the sacred is held in the quiet spaces where I create, and mold sounds, and produce heart-lifting melodies — to create is to mimic the divine, and its that space that holds far and away more value to me than the 60+ hours of ambient and neoclassical music that I've produced over the past several years.
Similar to my music, The Relay Station also underwent changes over the years in its evolutionary growth, evolving to become a 59-minute radio program up for syndication. Inspired by my forbearers and heroes of my youth, like Stephen Hill of Hearts of Space, The Relay Station has become my means of supporting musicians like myself, and connecting a new generation of listeners to the transcendent, through evocative music in the ambient, atmospheric, and neoclassical genres.
At a more meta level — beyond The Relay Station, beyond my music and art — I consider myself a student of life's curriculum, continually seeking to understand the the ineffable, to put words to the indescribable, and to embody divine virtue through the application of reason, philosophy, and spiritual understanding.
Like a sojourner exploring the vast breadth, width, heights and depths of the Himalayas, I view my life as sort of a journey through various spiritual and philosophical traditions, treating them as base camps or way points along the way — learning from them what I can, refueling for the next leg of my journey, and taking with me only what I need to sustain me and help me grow in wisdom along my path.
At the heart of it all, Stoicism has been one of the more significant stabilizers in my life, putting focus and purpose into my thoughts, my motivations, my speech, and my actions. I spend a few moments nearly every day with the likes of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, and others through their writings — exploring with and learning from them what it means to live a good and virtuous life, to not be tossed about by externals, but to order one's mind and order one's life. In this moment — and that's all we ever really have, is this moment — I wish to live in the very best possible way I can with whatever fate presents to me in the here and now. That, to me, is the art of living. That is who I am.