During my teenage years, received wisdom held that a guitar was one of the most reliable magnets for a guy to attract girls. The cool ones who weren’t much swayed by sports or muscle cars.

I, uhh … went another way. Got my first synthesizer, a used Moog Prodigy, a few weeks into my first semester at university. After years of music lessons, and feeding a cheesy organ and borrowed electric pianos through guitar pedals, I was enthralled by the new places the Moog would take me.

It kindled a permalove of sonic landscapes and painting with sound. A fascination with cinematic pieces, full of ambience and atmosphere. With the music of mists and distances, of inner and outer spaces. With abstract narratives and impressionistic travelogues. It’s probably not your thing.

Multitrack recording came later, after one of my novels sold at auction. Four major publishers bidding on your work is one of those seismic events that can bring pivotal upgrades to your life.

This was the genesis of Green Man Studio — my name for this evolving enhanced environment for making stuff — and I’ve been grateful for it ever since.

Sometimes the music connects to my writing. More often, it just comes from its own place. Its own geeky, entirely uncool place.

I call it, among other names, Axis Mundi.