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Erik Appelwick is a freelance composer, based out of St. Paul, Minnesota and isn't comfortable referring to himself in third person. Going forward, he will refer to himself as "I".
Here are some of the bullet points:
2025 - New album, “I Think We’ve Got a Situation” debuts 2.11.2025.
2022 - Released yet another album, “Paradise”. https://music.apple.com/us/album/paradise/1606399497
2020 - Released a new Vicious Vicious EP, Gravity. https://music.apple.com/us/album/gravity/1505158987
Released 4 new Citrine singles: So It Goes, I Am the Night, Feelings Change and Venice.
2019 - Released Citrine’s third album, Dreams. https://music.apple.com/us/album/dreams/1487458860
2018 - Released Citrine’s second album, Waves. https://music.apple.com/us/album/waves/1440328987
2017 - Released Citrine’s first album, Spine. https://music.apple.com/us/album/spine/1310724454
Released Monolux's third album, Kurami. Minimalist ambience.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/kurami/1237335591
2016 - Recorded and released Monolux II. Matthew Kretzmann and I have continued to make ambient music together
since 2010. We made a video collage for the album's entirety and can been seen here: https://youtu.be/lBqOZY6wr2c
- Released the second Tropical Depression album titled "Islands".
I made a video collage for this album too and you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/IddXa6zA-ew
2015 - Went freelance. Making custom music for you and you and them and she and they. When I'm not making music for them I'm making music for me because it makes me happy and let's be honest with ourselves here; making yourself happy should be at least top 5 in the hierarchy of priority.
2014- Released the Tropical Depression album. Initially I had no designs on playing shows or even giving myself credit for having made it. I had created an Andy Kaufman-esque persona simply called "The Yachtsman". The back story was that The Yachtsman recorded the album on a 600 foot yacht during 2 years of sailing around the world, debauching himself from Ibiza to Fiji with champagne and cocaine and bathroom selfies. Yes, there was a recording studio on the yacht and yes, TY found time to record the album between blurry bouts of imbibing bubbly and bouncing babes. Eventually, I passed the album around to friends. Said friends were genuinely excited about the songs and after consistent urging, I decided to put a band together with old familiar pals, Martin Dosh and James Buckley. We played a CD release show in July of 2014 and have been playing shows around town ever since.
2012-2015 - Staff composer at EGG MUSIC making custom music from blank page to completely mixed in a wide array of styles for a myriad of clients like Microsoft, Nike, Chevy, Target etc. etc. Yes, some heavy hitters. Sure, there were less fancy names in there and probably some things that I wouldn't necessarily be patting myself on the back for, but that's not the point here. The point is, I did a lot of work in a lot of different styles for a lot of different clients and that flexibility and understanding of music, along with tasty musical sensibility is what I bring to the table. During those three years I made dance, pop, rock, hip hop, orchestral, folk and whatever else a client would want so that they could sell their stuff to television watchers, radio listeners and social network users.
2006-2012 - Bass slinger for MSP Indie Rock / "Blog Rock" / Art Rock band, Tapes n' Tapes. In the summer of 2005 I had produced their debut album, The Loon in a basement studio. The bass player who played on the album quit, left, got let go, whatever; they needed a bass player and I knew the songs as well as any of them since I had listened to the songs so many times having engineered the tracks and later, mixed the album. There had already been a buzz happening around the band from their SXSW performances and by the time I started playing with them, things escalated quickly. What followed was a substantial amount of touring in the US and the UK, two tours of continental Europe, one tour of Australia and even a little one-off show in Tokyo. The Loon was re-released by XL Records in 2006. We recorded two more albums, Walk It Off (XL) and Outside (Ibid) in 2008 and 2011 respectively. Yes, there was a moment there when we were on the same label as Radiohead and the White Stripes.
2012 - Released Vicious Vicious self-titled album. Heavy stuff. You can feel the weight of what a lot of touring can do to a person. I wrote those tracks from 2007-2012 when Tapes n' Tapes was home from tour.
2007 - Released Vicious Vicious - Parade. I'd like to call it Psychedelic Funk Rock but in reality it's just all over the map.
2005-2007 - Worked with a few bands like White Light Riot, Caitlin Smith, Shadowbox, Shaan Sharma to name a few. Some producing, some consulting, some bass slinging. Produced Tapes n' Tapes' The Loon. Played a bunch of shows with The Olympic Hopefuls and Vicious Vicious during this time.
2005 - Released Vicious Vicious "Don't Look So Surprised". Album still has legs today. If there is a place where breaking up meets a summer party jam, this is it.
2004 - Released The Olympic Hopefuls "The Fuses Refuse to Burn". The song "Let's Go!" got licensed for the show The O.C.. The United States Olympic Committee would eventually put a cease and desist on us for using the word "Olympic" in our name. After more litigious crap kept coming down the pipe I decided to expand my horizons by playing with other bands.
2003 - Vicious Vicious "Blood and Clover" was re-released by a small indie label called Twentyseven Records.