CASE ORION
ABOUT ME
How I got started (2015-2018) _____________
Needless to say, my high school rap group never blew up. But back in 2016 we did headline one sold out concert at a venue in Seattle called The Vera Project - a youth ran community space where one can experience the electrifying activity of "punk rock button making." I consider that show my 15 minutes of fame and that was enough for me. My comfort zone is being the magician behind the curtains. After high school, I enrolled in audio engineering school in 2016 and was able to land my first studio job at 1 Shot Studios, thanks to my Multitrack Recording Professor connecting me with the studio owner Dylan. While in school I started recording local hip-hop and pop artists, charging $20 a mix, and learning how to make hip-hop beats inspired by artists like Chance the Rapper and Mac Miller. By the time I graduated with my Digital Audio Engineering Degree in 2018, I was splitting time between mixing for 1 Shot Studios, and starting my own recording studio.
Next steps (2019-2020) _____________
In 2019 I enrolled in the University of Washington Bothell to pursue my Bachelor's degree in Media & Communications Studies. During my first year at UWB, my roommate was blueprinting a musical collective he wanted to form called Beautifully Brokn. The idea behind the name was inspired by the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, the art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold and thus embracing flaws that create beauty. Right away I was down to be the collective's mixing engineer & producer. During that time, at UWB I got to collaborate on some really cool creative projects including a sci-fi inspired music video that went on to be screened at a Seattle Film Festival (more about it in my portfolio). One of my favorite artists that we got to collaborate with was Robert Karimi, poet and social engagement artist. One thing that will forever stick with me was during a community gathering while music was grooving when he grabbed the mic and said, "Quick. Everyone. Dance like celery!" Leave it to your imagination to interpret, but it sure got the dance floor going. To quote another artist and community activist Gabriel Teodros, "it ain't about what you got, it's about how you freak it." With UWB and Beautifully Brokn, it was all about how you freak it when working within limitations of time and budget. We were learning everything ourselves as far music production, videos, marketing, media, and performing. I really believed in the group and the message we were trying spread, but things got complicated when the pandemic hit. Eventually we ended up splitting up due to a number of factors but along the way we built a friendship that'll last a lifetime.
Going Full Time (2021-Now) ___________________________________________________________________________
By the end of 2021, I was running my own recording studio out of our rental house (our landlord was cool with it, honestly a great guy who totally flipped my view on the whole "evil landlord stigma"), and had built some great relationships with artists around the Seattle area. I had worked with artists in several genres and had mixing credits on over 100 commercially released records. I can confidently say my mixing skills had reached industry level, and I was continuing to work on my media production skills every day. It was time to figure out my next steps.
I had started working with an alternative pop artist named Kavai during the pandemic when most of the Seattle recording studios closed down. He made the move to Dallas, Tx in 2021, and shortly after, he invited me on a trip to Dallas and Colorado to record an EP. After that trip, we knew we were onto something and I took a leap of faith. We came up with four values together, ideals that we would each stick to no matter how far things went with music. Celebrate every win, talk through every loss, pick up your team members, and always remember to help those in need.
I have my morals and I have my craft, besides that I don't need much else (maybe an espresso). My goals today are to build more relationships with talented artists, help others the same way I was helped when I got started, and to share stories that uplift and inspire. To me, the best feeling in the world is witnessing an artist perform a song that we worked on together as the crowd dances along to every beat. I'm so grateful for how far I've come from recording songs in a shed, and I'm hungry for what's yet to come.