"Wilmoth may be experimenting with the instrumental side of his songwriting, but Charles the Obtuse’s songs are packed with plenty of lyrical subjects and themes that will be familiar to longtime listeners–soulless capitalism, suburban decay, paranoia, and at least one potential horror movie plot. 'Gated Community' is a Wilmoth all-timer, the narrator observing a ritual sacrifice while mainly feeling glad that it’s not *his* lawn that’s getting messed up, and the way-too-catchy 'James from the Suburbs' is a slightly-more-direct excoriation of a Type of Guy who holds all the power and capital in the world and still finds a way to whine about it (the last non-chorus line, which I’m absolutely not going to quote here, is my favorite one). ... [T]he EP ends on one last killer pop song, the impossibly cheery 'I’m Glad He’s Dead,' which has lived in my head rent-free ever since I first heard it. Wilmoth ends Charles the Obtuse by explicitly encouraging the listener to cheer, celebrate, and toast the death of some asshole (deliberately kept vague, so you can break this one out on any number of occasions). It’s both a good argument and a good soundtrack for such a party." - Rosy Overdrive

I'm a guitarist and had never really tried to make electronic music on my own, but I made "Charles the Obtuse," my first solo release, in my apartment using mostly electronic means. I was inspired by Guided By Voices and punk rock to fit everything into small containers – all of the songs are under three minutes.

As I started making this EP, I thought a lot about records I’ve liked that were made by small numbers of people working with limited sonic palettes, like Magnetic Fields’ "The Wayward Bus" or Tracy & the Plastics' "Culture For Pigeon." As the project developed, though, I added more and more synth sounds and blasts of distortion. So "Charles the Obtuse" isn’t as intimate as I initially imagined it would be. But I hope it still feels that way somehow.

I was born and raised in West Virginia. After I finished school, I taught part-time in Ohio while also working as a writer. I eventually stopped trying to do those things for money and moved to Los Angeles to be a professional gambler. Overall, these changes made my life much, much better. But I often think about how this isn’t what I’d be doing in a world that had something more useful to do with me. "Charles the Obtuse" isn't about me personally, but it reflects this sense that the world isn't set up right -- that the incentives for doing good or useful things, or the disincentives for doing bad or useless things, are misaligned.