Updates

A Day – Out Now on Streaming

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A Day, ultimately, is a musical exploration of my currently static life. Now, I think we can all agree normalcy and routine are a good and inevitable thing in a successful life; but for artists like me, built for the road and for a carnival of new, it can be a struggle to adapt. For the first decade of my adult life, the road provided. Not a stable income, but a never-ending buffet of new experiences. 

Creativity is a hunger that needs to be fed, just like any desire. I go to a museum and feel the weight of human grandeur; I stand on a starry field deep in the country and experience the mass of God. I have an 8-hour conversation with a stranger searching for answers that awakens questions in myself. These experiences fuel my creativity, give me things worth thinking and writing. 

Preserving that in the middle of static normalcy is a challenge. When each day resembles the next, you have to carve out moments of joy and adventure. Thankfully I am not alone; I have incredible friends, family, and I work with curious college faculty every day to make their classrooms stronger. It’s a fulfilling static: a nighttime drive through an 8-lane freeway in Omaha blasting your favorite music. 

From that minutia emerged A Day, a small but important progression in Studio Arlen’s releases. With A Day we break the numbering format found on the previous three albums, which signifies that I’m stepping away from that series for a bit. Instead, the album uses times of day as the framing device, capturing a sound of the morning, afternoon and evening. 

This certainly isn’t a new idea, but it’s a rite of passage for some artists. We tell each other stories across time with our version of what morning or afternoon really sounds like. My favorite remains Mae’s mid 2010’s release of three eps: Morning, Afternoon & Evening. This would later be organized into their 2017 release of the self-titled Mae. In that album they explore the depths of those sounds at length, and it remains deeply embedded in my brain, certainly influencing my work in some ways. 

This is also the first Studio Arlen album to contain vocals & lyrics, and my first fully hip-hop EP. The single –Good Day – combos some chill, expressive hip-hop with a nice pop/soul chorus. For the storytelling I’m drawing vocal approach influences from Minnesota-based hip-hop legends Atmosphere while making it just enough lyrically Jerry to be entertaining. From a writing standpoint, Good Day is one of the strongest set of lyrics I’ve ever written, and I’m proud of the story it tells you. It’s not one necessarily a story of triumph or depression, just of existing every day in a challenging world. 

Good Night… also makes limited use of some vocals; a nice hard rock vibe with a dank low end shoots us immediately into orbit.  This intensity eventually gives way to a more ethereal nighttime section before finally melting into Bossa Nova to close us out. This idea of night came out of me slowly, because for me, it is the most complex sound. 

So, we find ourselves switching between the caffeine fueled late night rock sessions I love, ethereal star gazing music, and the laid-back vibe of Brazilian Jazz. This was through composed as most of my stuff is, meaning each part organically grew out of the last one. I’m not moving between pre-established ideas, I’m letting the music tell me where it goes next. That’s part of the reason my albums remain such a cinematic journey to many. 

The other two tracks on the album, Good Morning! and Good Afternoon. have no vocal and really try to tell you the story through sound. These stick to the more standard approach I’ve been using for all Studio Arlen releases. My morning is bright and optimistic, groovy and acoustic. My afternoons are chill spaces where the intensity of the day begins to wane. Both are designed to sit in the background of your life, but should hold up to a few intense listens as well. 

Good Morning I hope will make a good ringtone for my fans out there. That’s part of the reason it begins in total chaos before smoothing out. For me, that is morning: when a million ideas turn on in my head at once and I find myself in charge of organizing them. Peace emerges from that initial chaos. That idea also makes for a great alarm clock sound, perfect synergy. 

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All in all, A Day is not my biggest or fanciest release, but it advances the ideas that have been rolling around in my head for Studio Arlen, and it fundamentally expresses something I know most people struggle with: the tedium and joy of waking up in the same exact place. I hope it captures the sound of your day in some way, that it resonates with you 

My best, 
Jerry 

Updates

Luna I (2026) – New Album Release

On January 31st, 2026 I will be releasing Luna I

First, I think it’s fair to say that Luna I is my boldest music creation to date. It takes chances mixing multiple genres and production approaches. It’s an evolution in production skills for my work: undeniably modern, yet still distinctly me. This is an album that I’ve been working on a long time now, since 2019’s The College Scores. 

The College Scores was a sprawling 16-track encapsulation of my time spent at U-M scoring student films, working on small scale productions. At its core, it was an album very much about the sensation of sound; it had just two lyrical tracks, which were made for specific short films. It also definitively drifted me into the digital realm after spending most of my teens & 20’s making acoustic folk/rock/pop for live audiences. That drift was inevitable in my head, but difficult to pull off in real life. It took me awhile to develop the tools I needed. 

When I first started on Luna I, my production skills just weren’t keeping pace with the digital ideas in my head. My musical concepts were evolving, but I hadn’t learned to ‘play’ the computer the same way as the guitar. So, I spent the next three years in a Berklee Master’s program learning how to better craft these sounds and sensations. After graduating, spending all that time under some of music’s greatest minds, I felt I finally had the tools and skills to bring out what I wanted with Luna I.

I also left with more confidence in my process. At Berklee, my creations went over very well; how they combined raw folk storytelling and the advanced production techniques we were learning. I received some once in a lifetime compliments from talented and famous musicians, alongside a truckload of incredible advice. While I will always remain a flagellant in art, Berklee showed me that what I was doing had real value, and to people I looked up to. So, I was ready, technically and spiritually, for the next showcase. I was ready to finish Luna I.





Incredible cover art courtesy of my talented friend Sarah Sisk. This is the second album cover she’s done for me after The College Scores

Luna I is, fundamentally, a space album. I think every young musical artist who hears Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd) carries a drive to create their own version of that ethereal soundscape. A space album has been quietly brewing on my bucket list for 20 years now.

For me it was both an academic and artistic pursuit. I immersed myself in the study of physics and astronomy; I visited the Kennedy Space Center with Mom, the Adler Planetarium with Dan, blasted Feynman’s audio lectures, read the great texts. Most physics graduates recognize this intro path I took; tripping out on science while pondering the infinite is the job of many undergrad scientists, a rite of passage. 

I explore that idea of space through my genre lens, my understanding of pop, rock, hip-hop, & indie. ‘#Liftoff’ mixes big beats with grimy Marc Ribot style electric guitars, the type I’ve always loved working with for grit and midwestern honesty. Tracks like ‘SayItAnyway’, ‘Now That You’re Gone’, ‘ComeBackRound’ are all slamming rock songs at their heart, draped in genre, effects and interesting production choices. 

Still, there is an underlying darkness to this album I could not disguise. Graduating into adult life. COVID and lockdown. Health issues. A difficult breakup. All of it plagued me throughout Luna I’s production. I lost Gram in 2023. Tracks like ‘Challenging’ and ‘Black Sun’ are evocative and visceral, heavy-handed metaphors for my emotional state. The album is soaked in an undeniable and pervasive lyrical irony as I’ve attempted to reconcile the world around me with what I believe about truth, justice, and fairness. 

There’s a lot of pain in Luna I, but it’s not the only note, it’s just one of the sensations. For me, the album starts in a manic, energetic place until it collapses at ‘Challenging’ and we live in my depression for a couple tracks. By ‘The Long Drift Thru Space’ we’ve evened out. The modulation between minor and major melodies within the 7-minute symphony tells a story of hope emerging out of our numbness. ‘Quite Like Me’ and ‘Keyform’ then represent what Jerry emerges after the collapse, a new combination of my acoustic leanings and fancy production skills. Finally, ‘A Big Bang’ plays us out, serving as both a beginning and an ending. 

Luna I is as much an album about melody as it is about musical texture, sensation and groove. Every little part has been considered, its place in the soundscape negotiated. Every blur of sound intentional, every twist and turn. That’s not to say it’s flawless! Far from it. I still have much to learn on this musical journey of mine, even after Berklee. But humbly: it is quite good, and quite close to what I intended. I hope these sounds, melodies, rhythms and textures move you in the same way they moved me while creating them. 

My best, 
Jerry 

Updates

Berklee Graduation 24′

I’ve stopped writing as much these last few years, since I’ve been in grad school. The writing never stopped really, the audience just shifted. A few weeks ago I graduated with my Master’s in Music Production and Engineering from Berklee College of Music, lifelong dream achieved.

That journey, filled with obstacles, fufillment, and learning from music royalty, isn’t one I’m ready to full unpack yet. Needless to say, it was a life-changing experience. But now I need some time to think, meditate on the lessons learned. I’ve got a lot of music to release in the interim, starting with my third Studio Arlen album HaTtr3ck, which will be coming out by late summer.

After that, I’m going to release the pop EP I created for my Berklee Masters Thesis, a real fun and modern approach to my songwriting. I’m working with the visual artist now on the cover art. Then I have a back to roots album in the works; I am overflowing with material and ideas, as always.

Berklee has given me the gift of more confidence in what I’m doing, and that means I can release more than I have in the past, comfortably.