When Detroit-based musician Ian Ruhala started his borderless alt-indie project Hala, he was recording in the storage room of his parents’ house on a shoddy computer program. By the time he put out his gorgeous, retro, genre-hopping 2020 full-length Red Herring via Cinematic Music Group, he was co-producing and soaking up advanced techniques of engineering in a professional studio.

Now, a new chapter starts as Ruhala returns to his roots as an independent musician, keen to learn, evolve, and explore every corner of his own sound. “With life, and music, you gotta try everything once,” says Ruhala. “Red Herring had hints of rock, singer-songwriter, pop, country, and more. But I think the beauty of this project is I haven’t found my one particular sound, and I don’t plan on doing so.”