Bug Face Bass is my most recent independent release. Bug Face Bass is an album that's characterized by uncensored creativity, buggy bass, nature sounds, Turkish motifs, original drum samples, plenty of harp, bugged out mix titles, and the occasional vocals. This is my 8th independent release on Bandcamp and my 9th release overall. My previous album wasn't released independently on Bandcamp, but released on a number of platforms through Crystal Vortex Records. Bug Face Bass is also my first independent album that I've put a price on. Because it is my 9th album, I've put the price of 9$ CDN on the 16-track album. You're also able to pay more for it if you wish. I appreciate the support either way.

Bug Face Bass gets its name from the track Got Bug Face (Moth Mix). Check out the art video for the track on my YouTube channel. Got Bug Face was the driving force behind the album. I really wanted to release that track and so I assembled some music I made this year to put together an album. It was the first time I cut up my vocals to create such a track. One night, I was driving my motorcycle back home from work when I got hit in the face with a bug. It wasn't the first time a bug flew into my face while driving a motorcycle but what distinguishes this time was that I was singing right before it happened. And so once I got hit in the face, I started singing about how I got hit in the face - "must have been a bug". And that little tune provided the vocal track, which I later cut up, for the track.

Eastern Capital (3 Caterpies Mix) is the star track of the album. I felt it would be a good introduction to the album as part of the vocals announce my name, going "It's the Ace Beaming Sun! Beaming Sun!" This track wasn't going to be in the album. It was going to be a release of its own and actually I wanted to put it out long ago. I had gotten my old student Ice, artist name SALMON, to work on art for it. It took a bit longer than I expected and so this track was in the dark when I started planning Bug Face Bass. A few weeks before my designated release date, I decided it would be great to include this track in the album. SALMON finished the artwork in time and the art video was made.

The name for the final mix of Eastern Capital is the only mix title with a Pokemon in the name - Bedroom B's final mix title isn't a reference to the Pokemon believe it or not. That's an allusion to the Pokemon series being a creation of the Japanese imagination. The name Eastern Capital is also a reference to the meaning of the name Tokyo, which means eastern capital in Japanese. This track was inspired by a musical instrument called guzheng that I found in a second-hand Japanese goods store. The main plucky sound of the track comes from the guzheng I bought from that store.

Lion's Gate and G For Gypsie (Aha Ha Mix) are two tracks that also received art videos for YouTube. Lion's Gate features an adorable lion drawn up by Jeen, Ying's daughter. Meanwhile, the video for G For Gypsie features Ying herself modelling as a G... just kidding, she's modelling as a gypsie! At first, she was just going to draw me a picture of a gypsie but we later decided to take photos instead.

Caption Attraction (Assassin Bug Mix) makes me feel like I'm seeing an action movie about bugs with those stringy pads that come in right before the second breakdown. Bedroom B (Binburrum Zapdos Mix) is another track that has cinematic qualities, not because of the pads but because of the mysterious vocals. What really happened in Bedroom B? By the way, the final mix title of this track isn't a reference to a Pokemon, as I mentioned before. It's quite interesting actually. It was the legendary Pokemon Zapdos, along with Articuno and Moltres, that inspired the names of newly discovered beetles in Australia. All of the mix titles on the album were named after bugs and insects. Go ahead and use Google image search to find some of the more interesting insect names. Aha Ha? Yeah, even that's named after an insect. The 3 Caterpies Mix has the only non-insect name but it gets its name from a bug type Pokemon.

Two more cinematic tracks include Crack This Practice and Yawnstar. You might find them in a film about the life of insects when the insects go on an adventure. Yawnstar leans towards a group adventure whereas Crack This Practice sounds like a solo journey in the night. Crack This Practice also features an ambivalent and unorthodox use of a very traditional instrument, the ney. The ney is usually found in traditional Sufi music but can also be found in other forms of more contemporary music in Turkey and throughout the middle east.

Tracks like Har Ponwood (Termite Mix) and Gongin (Morpho Aega Mix) may easily be the butterflies of the group as they take the listener into melodic soundscapes while still providing some buggy bass to groove along to. Energizer Roots (Buprestid Mix) has some very melodic parts too but relies more on a kind of bass that might scare you if it crept into your house in the middle of the night.

Proxy Crocodilio has a tarantular bass that sounds like it wants to spin a web on a dancefloor. The track is also accompanied by the voices of two of my youngest students. These four year olds have so much curiosity about the natural world and so much energy for self-expression. It was hard to resist recording their vocals one day back when my school wasn't on lockdown as it is now. Bird Bopp is another track that's inspired by the natural world. The sound of birds chirping/singing can be heard. I think the birds heard about all of these bugs gathering in one place and so they showed up to see what was for breakfast. That bass is probably enough to scare away most of these bugs.

Stop-E-Jerrie (Pieza Kake Mix) was a piece of cake to make. Apart from having a jazzy and comedic final mix title, this track strays from the natural world just for a moment. The mechanical sounds featured throughout the track can probably be easily guessed by most people. If not, I'll give you this hint: ask someone who owns a MacBook. By the way, this strange name for a track comes from an intentional mispronunciation from my childhood.

Last but not least, Urban Forest Walk and No Connection are two more valuable contributions to the album. These two tracks go places that some of the other tracks don't. For example, Urban Forest Walk is among the few tracks on the album in a major key. Does that bug you? No Connection gets its name from the fact that my MIDI keyboard connection wasn't working that day. I had to lay down the first and foundational elements of the track without a MIDI keyboard handy on my first day of working on this composition. You could say there were bugs in the MIDI connection that day.

Bugs... they're everywhere, especially if you live in a mountainside village in Thailand like I do. There wouldn't be a world without these creepy crawlers and yet they don't seem very important to human life, to most humans at least. Then there are the people who study these critters day and night and make careers out of them. Some of these studious people are millennials and loved Pokemon growing up. They probably dreamt of the day they discovered a new species of bugs so that they could quickly name them after their favourite Pokemon. To them, I'd just say thank you. Thanks for adding a level of creativity and imagination to a practice that has a lot more to do with observing things the way they are rather than creating new things.

As for my life, creating new things is the way to go. I love using my imagination. I love the creation process. Creativity is greater than knowledge. I didn't try to find scientific facts about these bugs and insects. I didn't try to learn all of their Latin names. I just found inspiration there. And it may take me a while to find inspiration with all of these critters who creep into our home on a regular basis. The ants are especially organized about their breaking and entering. However, I still try to find enough compassion and mercy to save their lives here and there when I find them drowning in the sink or trapped in the fridge.

Much thanks to baba who created the album cover art even though he's quite a busy bee these days. Thank you to SALMON for creating the artwork for Eastern Capital. Thank you to Jeen for creating the lovable little lion for Lion's Gate. Thank you to Danial Malik for providing a voice clip for Bedroom B. And thank you to my girlfriend Ying for being the gypsie in G For Gypsie.

Please enjoy the album!

Here are the links to the art videos on YouTube:
Eastern Capital: youtu.be/5JlIWDxPJ20
Got Bug Face: youtu.be/I4riF0r_xJc
Lion's Gate: youtu.be/hUC7DR8MhhA
G For Gypsie: youtu.be/_f-L348rk1o