Third-year Cal Poly Pomona music student Louis Garcia has released his first EP, “Imaginary Conversations.”
Garcia worked on the 4-track EP for 2 and 1/2 years. He started working on it during his transition between high school and college. During his freshman year at CPP, he spent most of his time working on the EP.
“It’s summarized [as] being a freshman,” said Garcia. “It’s like a feeling of loneliness where there’s a lot of people around, but you don’t know a lot of them. I feel like it captured that.”
Garcia, better known by his disc jockey name, Ocean Roulette, spent the next few years refining the sound of his songs to get it where he wanted to be.
“It was a learning process for me, learning how to record and produce music,” said Garcia. “I used these tracks as a way to teach myself. As of this week, I finally put them out.”
The EP has an electronic sound to it. Garcia produced all of the work himself.
“I did record vocals also,” said Garcia. “I have a lot of guitar parts that I laid down myself. Some live drums to give it a natural sound all laid over samples and synths balancing it out with electronic elements.”
Garcia says that his EP evokes a diverse range of emotions.
“I feel like, honestly, there’s not one thing I want people to feel,” said Garcia. “When I made this, I had certain mindsets that I would be able to delve on, like, certain concepts of things around that interested me. I try to make it as personal as possible.”
Releasing music would be difficult for anyone, but Garcia enjoyed making this EP. As a music aficionado, he wanted to create a conceptual project that others would appreciate.
I feel like everyone’s different in the way that they enjoy music,” said Garcia. “I like hearing albums as opposed to just singles. There’s something fulfilling about listening to a consistent idea all the way through a number of tracks. I thought it would be challenging to do that myself. I was craving to do it for awhile.
Garcia cites various artists as influences in the sound of “Imaginary Conversations.”
“I would say that SBTRKT is one of the bigger influences,” said Garcia. “He has a pretty cool electronic style, but he also collaborates with a lot of singers. That’s one thing I wanted to do, and I still want to do in the future.”
Michael Soares, also known by his DJ name Pleasureplex, is a fifth-year music industries student who mastered the EP.
“I was really glad to work with him on this,” said Soares. “He spans many genres. He’s not just pigeonholed, which is really cool.
“I think, more than anything, Louis was really involved in all of the creative aspects of this. What I helped him with was just technical. I just helped him fine-tune sounds and get everything ready to put the EP out. Everything he sends me is very well done.”
Soares believes that the EP has a different, but appealing sound.
“I think that everyone should listen to it and get their own opinion,” said Soares. “Overall, it’s an amazing EP.”
Garcia also works as music director for the CPP radio club, Radioactive, the school’s official radio station. Alongside Garcia is the club’s president, fourth-year organizational communication student Paul Verdugo.
“You just see that he enjoys the art of what he does, which is something that not a lot of people have,” said Verdugo.
Verdugo feels that Garcia has already established himself as a professional musician.
“To say he’s an up-and-comer is almost a slap in the face to him,” said Verdugo. “Even though he’s establishing himself, he’s already performing things and making things at a level that far exceeds where he should be, or where someone in his career should be.”
The “Imaginary Conversations” EP can be streamed on Ocean Roulette’s Soundcloud.
EP soundcloud.com/oceanroulette/sets/imaginary-conversations
Soundcloud soundcloud.com/oceanroulette
Facebook facebook.com/oceanroulette
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