Picture yourself relaxing on a balcony that overlooks the city admiring the multitude of lights that seem to go on forever. That’s where you’ll be transported when you listen to Brett Bixby’s aptly named CD “City Lights.”

Bixby, who recently won Best Male at the Orange County Music Awards (OCMA), grew up in Long Beach and has been involved in music since he was young. “I started on the piano, then I moved on the drums and eventually realized the guitar was the next logical portable progression.”

Having a family that’s musically inclined helped to foster his talent. Bixby’s mother’s side of the family was always involved in choir. His maternal grandfather played the banjo and sang, his mother was a concert pianist and Bixby’s grandmother played the piano and organ. “My dad knew a few songs on the ukulele, so I guess somewhere in there I was hardwired to learn by ear.”

In 1995 Bixby formed Twelvehourmary and after a nine-year run and a full-length album, “Blowing Over” (released in 2004), he decided to take new material in a different direction.

Among the musicians and bands that have influenced Bixby are The Beatles, Neil Young, Elvis Costello to recent groups like Radiohead Andrew Bird and his friends in bands like Deccatree, who won an OCMA for Best Alternative, and Buchanan, which Bixby is also involved in.

In describing his music, Bixby wants each song to be its own thing. “If I can offer a song or melody that resonates, then it feels like I have successfully reciprocated the feeling I get when I listen to an amazing record for the first time.” Bixby equates making music to “taking a ghost for a walk. Sometimes it makes sense and it feels fully formed and does what you think it might do in relatively short order; other times it’s hard to find, hard to keep and hard to follow, but I believe in putting in the time and opening up the mind to the opportunity that an idea might happen.”

As for his new CD, Bixby says that it has more of an acoustic/rhodes/piano palette and that it opened up a lot of space to let melodies breathe and notes not to hurry.
A CD release party for “City Lights” will take place on Friday, June 16, at 9 p.m. at The Gypsy Lounge, 23600 Rockfield in Lake Forest. The party will also features releases from Deccatree and Cory Clark.