March 14, 2026
It is one year ago today that my good friend since childhood, Wayne O’Brien, succumbed to cancer. He is dearly loved and sorely missed by many. I had the immense pleasure years ago of making a CD with Wayne. The CD was called “Drift” and the Artist name we chose, which Wayne came up with, and I loved, was “Fix the Human”. Ambient music was Wayne’s favourite genre, though he also had extremely diverse musical tastes. He particularly liked albums that kept a consistent mood throughout. I enjoyed much of the ambient music I had heard, almost all of which was introduced to me through Wayne. However, I tended to be more interested in music that had melodic themes, whether it was classical, jazz, folk or rock. This is not usually found in ambient music, and is more or less contrary to its mandate. However, for each of us, the prime objective was to create some music together that was entirely our own. Stylistically, we met in the middle and were pleased with the result. We called it “ambient world” music, because we couldn’t find an established genre that it fit into.
You can listen to tracks from Fix the Human’s “Drift” on this website, and the major streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc. Wayne played keyboards, EWI (electronic wind instrument – you can think of it as a synthesizer/saxophone), hand drums and percussion. I played guitar and bass and some keyboards. We created most of the tracks by spontaneously jamming. The resulting live duo recording was often then augmented by each of us adding another track, sometimes two. The tracks “Avignon Café” and “Clock were good examples of this method, and I think they were two of our favourites. I learned a valuable lesson from Wayne in these sessions, which has affected the way I compose, perform and record ever since. Basically, it was the idea of considering every note and sound from the perspective of “how is it serving the mood of the piece?” We would often find ourselves removing notes and sounds that served our egos rather than the recording, or were just ear clutter.
But there was one track that was created mostly live that we didn’t put on the album. We liked it, but it was just so “eery” it didn’t fit with the others. I was listening to it recently and I would like to share it with you. We called it “Shelter”. Wayne’s spontaneous EWI performance was pure genius. I think it fits the mood of where we find ourselves now in America. It is 9.5 min long so put it on while you do something else, as you might any ambient music. For maximum effect, put it on while you read the news!!
