Music

I started playing music when I was eight years old. After having a blast playing soprano recorder in the second grade of elementary school music class, I had the tremendous privilege of being asked to audition for my school’s band in the third grade. I started out on alto saxophone and kept playing into high school, where I mostly played tenor saxophone.

When I was thirteen, I decided to learn how to play guitar, like everybody else. My good friend Arnoldo Alfaro Cruz told me to play bass instead, a piece of advice I’m still indebted to him for. I had my first ever bass lesson with Abel Guier, best known for his work with Gandhi. Years later, I saw him use a beer bottle slide in a concert with Parque en el Espacio, a trick I would end up using with my own band, Gauss.

I ultimately picked up guitar at 23 while living in Vancouver, Canada, for the very simple reason that I wanted to write my own songs and quickly realized that bass is a somewhat problematic songwriting instrument. I’m currently studying jazz theory to expand my range on this instrument.

DoctorOga

DoctorOga began in Spring 2013 when, due to fate, I had to stay in Costa Rica while I waited for my passport to be renewed. I had to take a semester off from university studies, but the musical collaboration I began with Gabriel Rivera, Jake Barley, Alberto Muñoz, and Adrián Badilla culminated in the composition of The Night Suite, a symphonic rock concept album telling the story of a lucid dreamer’s journey through his unconscious. An advanced demo of this unreleased LP is available on SoundCloud here.

I returned to Costa Rica for a longer visit in the first half of 2018, a prolific period in which Gabriel and I composed the majority of the band’s second album: Everyday Science Fiction. This psychedelic rock concept album consists of a short story anthology in which every song is its own world. With the assistance of Jaffet Víquez, Adrián Badilla and, above all else, Pol Rivera’s production we’ve managed to create something truly special.

Here’s a link to the official YouTube Channel featuring the music video to our song Wastelands.

Damasco Soul System

My musical collaboration with David Silva began in the summer of 2016 at Wreck Beach when my father, who was visiting Vancouver for my graduation from UBC, saw him playing djembe and promptly told him that his son was an accomplished reggae musician. Over the next two years, I mostly helped David execute his musical vision by making guitar and bass arrangements for Damasco Soul System featuring the great talents of Damon Hanley on rhythm guitar and Steve Sackey on percussion. Ultimately I left the band when I moved to Munich to pursue my graduate studies.

You may check out their YouTube page here.

WiTH

I started WiTH in Vancouver, Canada in 2014 with Yannick Jamey and Jordan Lysenko. We mostly played neo-psych rock with strong space rock tendencies. We disbanded in December 2015, but rumor has it that there might be a come-back anytime soon 😉

In the meantime, check out some demos we put up on SoundCloud here.