When I first listened to Charles Ingalls’ music, I was almost instantly mesmerized by its delicate balance of Japanese tea-garden sounds and electronic beats. Equally impressed that the 18-year-old could write such lush and complex music, I knew this was good stuff.
Combining lifelong loves of nature, music, and self-expression, the young producer composes a spectrum of epic electronic symphonies as CharlestheFirst. The Truckee native, who graduated from Truckee High in 2014 and whose mother is a former Truckee mayor, has released two albums and numerous singles online, and his debut album on CD. He’s produced myriad other songs in his bedroom studio and collaborated with other musicians, like former Tahoe musician Zebuel Early. As CharlestheFirst appears on more lineups around California and begins to catch fire in the electronic music scene, it seems the music he makes from his heart has universal appeal.
“People are more open to expanding themselves sonically,” Ingalls said. “Mixing natural ambience with synthesized stuff is beautiful if you balance it in the right way. I love that there’s this room to do whatever you want in music these days.”
Ingalls first experimented with electronic music in 2012 as a way to accompany his hip hop lyrics, centered on everything from nature to wandering to love and lust. While attending SnowGlobe Music Festival in South Lake that winter, an electronic music set by producer Minnesota blew Ingalls away. The next morning, still feeling charged, he went home and immediately began making his own beats.
“That was the first time I felt I was creating a cohesive piece of art and really putting myself out there,” Ingalls said. “From a creative standpoint when I’m making music, it’s always taking me somewhere blissful, an escape that all musicians search for. It’s really nature-inspired and ambient and emotional. And everybody says chill, too.”
Musically, his influences range the full spectrum from classical music to the Grateful Dead to hip hop, further inspired by personal experiences like relationships and solo trips into the wilderness. Ingalls makes music because it allows him to express himself while creating melodic dreamscapes that he hopes are relatable. He talks of creating a genre called dreamwave due to his music’s ethereal tones and the state of mind he likes being in while writing.
“I love waking up and making music in that weird state of mind in the morning,” he said. “It’s the closest to your dreams you can get.”
Most of his music is without lyrics so that it can be universally understood and enjoyed, regardless of geographic barriers. His first Internet supporters were blog writers based in France and India. His top track, The Summit, has more than 60,000 collective listens.
“Lyrics define what the song is about, and that’s really good in certain aspects. But in instrumental, it’s up to the person that’s listening to interpret it,” he said. “Music is that one tool you can use to reach the universal aspect. It gets people’s attention; what you do with that attention is up to you.”
While his green age in the industry does impact him, it isn’t a hindrance. Ingalls’ teen perspective gives him an eagerness to ride the waves of the scene, playing late night and sunrise sets, often at 21 and up shows. But because he knows he’s young, he gets out of the water before the currents of a scene deeply entwined with partying and egos pull him under entirely.
“It’s cool being young in the scene because I think people are a lot more stoked to see someone young doing music,” he said. “You also get this outside view of what the scene is. But it’s hella funny whenever I finish a set and tell people how old I am.”
With a growing Internet following, numerous local and festival performances under his belt or on the horizon, and an innate hunger for developing his sound, Ingalls is ready for the bigger pond. He’s planning a move to San Francisco where his friend and musical collaborator Early lives, and where he can tap into a larger audience, play more shows, and maybe break into new markets like film and video game soundtracks.
“I’m set on trying to make my career be surrounded by music,” he said. “I feel like I’ve done as much as I want to do in the scene here. And Zeb said, ‘Tahoe is the gate to the Bay, and the Bay is the gate to the world’ … I feel like it will be a really good move for me.”
Info: soundcloud.com/charles-thefirst
