Questions, answered.

No problem! Once I have designed a personalized listening journey for you, you will be able to stream it on all streaming platforms. The CDs can remain a personal souvenir for you to revisit in the future, or gift to a friend :)

Within 24 hours of your purchase, you will receive an email with a link to a questionnaire I have created. It will take you no longer than 5 minutes to fill out.

Upon receiving your responses, I will get right to work:

1. Putting together a listening journey I think you’ll love
2. Writing your personalized listening notes
3. Packaging it all up neatly
4. Shipping the listening journey right to your doorstep!

Every single CD is hand chosen from my personal collection. Whether or not you fill out the questionnaire, you will be receiving 10 CDs that I find cool in some way, shape, or form. Though your listening journey will be selected randomly from my larger collection, the collection itself was NOT randomly put together.

I am a one man operation! All sales are final!

(In the event that you are dissatisfied with your CDs, email me at ___. I will go revisit your questionnaire results (as well as any additional information you provide me) to offer 10 more album recommendations for you to discover on your favorite streaming service. While it is my genuine hope and intention to put together a listening journey you’ll love, I do not have the bandwidth to offer returns and I dearly hope you’ll understand why.)

All CDs are gently pre-loved and come in their original packaging with artwork and booklets intact. If you experience any playback issues, please don't hesitate to reach out for a replacement.

Every CD is an original, commercially manufactured copy. In most cases, I have also done the research to ensure my copy of a given album is the best mastering/ digital presentation available for the given album.

Yes. I maintain customer notes so that every order is fresh, new, and exciting— no repeats. No two packages will ever be alike— whether it’s your order, your fourth order, your friends’ order, or your friends’ third order.

Absolutely! You can fill out the questionnaire with them in mind, forward them your questionnaire link to fill out themselves, or skip the questionnaire altogether.

Every stack comes in its own special packaging, and you're welcome to include a personal message for the recipient in your order notes :)

All purchases are one-time only! Feel free to place subsequent orders at anytime :)

Shipping is a flat rate of $5, anywhere in the USA.

All orders are prepared and shipped as soon as possible, within 30 days of purchase.

All orders shipped from the great state of North Carolina, USA 🇺🇸

Odds are, you have a few favorite albums.

These albums are probably special and nostalgic. They take you back in time. You listen to them on road trips, plane rides, and in your bedroom when you want to feel something. Maybe in the gym when you’re feeling cinematic.

But any new music you discover is found through singles rather than albums.

TikTok singles, endless Spotify recommendations, playlists that hold a vibe just a little too well.

Skip. Skip. Skip.

None of the discomfort of sitting with something you don’t like. But none of the reward either. Just an endless attempt at rekindling nostalgia receptors that have been beaten to death a billion times.

Why not do the work of discovering the music you’ll be nostalgic for in the future?

CDs are a means of discovery.

Even if you’re not used to listening to full albums, some of them will resonate immediately. Some won’t resonate at all. Others will be uncomfortable at first. New sounds, new harmonies, new personalities. Intentional friction. Suddenly, without you realizing it, on the second or third listen— you’re floating on cloud9, flying the friendly skies, high as a kite— immersed in a world you had never known before.

And when you come down, you get to take a reminder of that experience with you. In a backpack, on a car seat, on a bookshelf, in your mind— wherever you go, the CD goes.

Let’s break down the math.

Assuming an average of 45 minutes per album, and assuming you listen to your stack twice (as per the recommendation in your personalized listening notes), we’re looking at 15 hours of entertainment, enjoyment, and good vibes.

For less than $15 an hour.

That goes without mentioning the lifetime enjoyment available beyond those first two listening sessions: when you inevitably come back to some (or all) of the album, days, weeks, months, or even years from now. They’re yours forever.

What we’ve mentioned so far (as being $15 per hour of entertainment) is just based on the entertainment value of any random selection of ten CDs.

But these aren’t ten random CDs. They’re picked from a collection of CDs I hand-picked and vetted as representative for their genre.

And it’s not ten random CDs from that collection either.

They’re ten CDs hand chosen from that larger collection, presented in a specific listening order for you, with personalized listening notes, all based on your individual taste and questionnaire responses.

Well, what qualifies me to do that?

Good question. I’m glad you asked.

I started playing the trumpet when I was 8 years old. Since then, I have been studying music for the past 18 years, 14 of those years in formal academic institutions like UNC’s School of the Arts and Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

The selections I’m making for you are based on years of music research, acquisition, listening, and love.

I love this ish. I won’t ever stop loving this ish.

And I love all music indiscriminately. That’s not true. I don’t enjoy modern country or death metal. But I have paid my dues and respects to every genre besides those two, and am sure I could learn to love them too with enough time and attention.

My current favorite genres are soul, funk, singer/songwriter, 80’s pop, 70’s rock, world, jazz, electronic, and an occasional classical music moment.

(Don’t worry. That doesn’t mean you’re going to get jazz or classical in your stacks if you don’t want them.)

In the past, I have loved modern pop/ rap/ hip hop with a burning passion. I would practice freestyle rapping and singing every day, alongside my formal musical studies. I loved the high stimulation value in comparison to the classical and jazz music that I was playing in school at the time.

These days, I find those genres to be too high-stim for me and the work I’m doing now. But I recognize their value, respect their contributions to the culture, and will surely revisit them in the future. (Stay tuned for that.)

My first ever favorite songs were “Believe” by Cher, and “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin. I would listen to them after school before I started playing music myself. Both of those tracks were passed down to me via bootleg CDR’s my grandfather had obtained in India.

Probably the only genres not adequately represented in my current collection are country, metal, and rap. But don’t hesitate to place an order if those are your main genres. If I cannot adequately meet my own expectations for what constitutes a natural extension of your current journey, I’ll do my research and find you 10 recommendations to stream, (similarly based on the specific qualities I value within music as a whole, represented within albums in your current favorite genre). I will then package those recommendations in your listening notes, alongside the ten physical CDs chosen for you from my personal collection that I hope you’ll come to love in the future.

For you rap fans, I already know what adjacent material to put you onto. 😎

Besides those genres:

I’ve got your 60’s 70’s 80’s 90’s pop/ rock.

From the deep cuts you haven’t heard, to the introductory stuff you need to hear if you’re new to the era.

I’ve got your soul, funk, disco, reggae, and other black-powered delights.

I’ve got your deep-cut house, techno, dub, electronic, synth-pop, ambient, space-jam music of the future and beyond.

I’ve got your singer/songwriter legends, from the stratospheres of fame to the underground of reality.

I’ve got your jazz, from bebop, to cool, to fusion, to avant-garde.

And similarly, I’ve got your classical, from medieval, to renaissance, to baroque, to romantic, to contemporary minimalist/ maximalist.

The study of music has long and away been fascinating to me.

I take pride in my understanding of the landscape, as well as my ability to put together musical listening journeys for any one of any background.

To both meet you where you’re at, and to broaden your horizons.

Hope that answers your question.