Empathy Box Debut

Sometimes, you find yourself drifting apart from friends for no other reason than life gets in the way. About three years ago, I reconnected with a good friend of mine, Ray Lanich, with whom I had played in a band for many years. We had parted ways after the band split up and had drifted apart, only to come back together again for our shared love of creating and playing music.

The culmination of this reunion was eleven original songs, which we released in October of 2023 under the banner of "Empathy Box". The name, if you are familiar with Philip K Dick's work, refers to the device of the same name in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (a.ka. Blade Runner), which allows people to feel and experience other people's emotions and experiences.

My favorite on the album is probably either Ghosts (Give as one gets) or Up but not awake.

Ghosting started out as a concept Ray had about "ghosting" (where someone begins to ignore your calls or texts, but leaves no explanation), and how it had affected him personally through booking shows and attempting to network as a musician. With the digital world, so many of us hide behind our phones, and I think more and more people are afraid of difficult conversations. Instead, it's easier just to ignore and block, at the expense of the other person. Probably one of the most collaborative effects (each song has input from both of us, but some more than others), the mix just ended up perfect, and everything came together.

Up but not awake was a similar story. Ray wanted to share his experience with a panic attack and its after effects through the song lyrics. Balancing between heavy drop-tuned guitars and haunting cleans, we finish this one off with a four-minute build-up that gets faster and faster and more chaotic until it spills over.

This album is up on all major streaming platforms, and I've included a linktree here if you are curious. Ray has put a lot of effort into promoting the music, with videos and posts that can be found on our YouTube channel and social media links.

Ray himself is a very talented songwriter and musician, and can be found here. I highly recommend checking him out and subscribing to his socials!