"When I first arrived in San Diego almost twelve years ago, I could only record and put out demos on tape cassettes," recalls soulful singer/songwriter Simeon Flick, who crafts original music in his own Blue Chair Studio as well as playing gigs with local cover band Scratch. "Releasing a full album of well-recorded material to the public on mass-produced CDs was the holy grail."

After working part-time for Fortuna Classical Music for five years, using proceeds earned from singing an ad for Dodge Jeep Chrysler, Flick finally managed to purchase all the gear he needed to record and release two albums in as many years, followed by Reactive Soul, recorded two years later with Sven-Erik Seaholm and nominated for a 2007 San Diego Music Award as Best Local Recording.

"I spent the majority of the aughts playing anywhere from twenty to fifty shows a year, with most of my CD sales happening at those shows. I even did some regional touring on both coasts, which was enjoyable, and I was at least able to say I had been there and done that afterwards."

"My subsequent journey has become more of an inward one since I began to take on as much of what my artistic career entailed as possible, and gave up anything which adversely affected the environment or my headspace."

To that end, "I bade adieu to outsourcing my recording activities not just to save money or gain more control over my work, but because I sensed a major opportunity for growth I knew I had the ability and affinity to take on. I had already been playing virtually every instrument on all my albums, not to mention recording my own demos for years, so this was a logical and rewarding step forward."

He calls his 2010 full-length Piquant "A wonderful milestone on this new developmental path, representing my first engineering credit and the first album issued out of my studio. Despite its imperfections, both real and self-critically imagined, it gave me the confidence to continue logging my 10,000 hours towards mastery in isolation."

"What sets it apart from the previous three albums is that this time I decided to self-produce and record it at home, informally inaugurating Blue Chair Studio in the process, in addition to the usual writing of the material and playing all the instruments...the irony of CityBeat slamming me and the record in their Great Demo Review was that they praised the backing musicians, not knowing it was all done by me, heh heh."

For Flick’s upcoming fifth studio album Sub Rosa (due in March), “Paul Abbot handled the Zen Mastering, putting the final sonic polish on what I honestly feel is my best work to date in all its DIY facets.”

Fifteen songs were recorded for this album (with one possibility carried over from the Piquant sessions for consideration), and eleven of those made the final cut. “Of the five outtakes,” says Flick, “there were two I felt could still go out in some capacity, namely as free [preview] downloads, as they struck me as strong aural statements, albeit on the rawer side of my genre spectrum.”

Those songs, "Manifesto" and "The Dark Side," can be played at http://soundcloud.com/simeonflick/manifesto and http://soundcloud.com/simeonflick/the-dark-side .

Flick says his plan is to continue spending most of his time in the studio and gigging with Scratch, digitally releasing albums ("Not worrying too much about the promotional treadmill other than any opportunities the internet might offer"), not touring ("Apologies, distant family and friends"), and probably not playing his own music in concert as often ("Although time will tell").

"I've worked hard to become a self-sufficient, independent artist. As much as I respect the idea, I solemnly swear I will never subject you to a Kickstarter campaign."