The word Explorations reflects more than the sound of the album - it describes the way it was made. Across Army bases, studio sessions, and late‑night Tascam experiments, Brian was constantly testing ideas: harmony, melody, groove, and texture. Each piece on the album began as an exploration of what he could do with the tools, players, and time he had in front of him.

The title also speaks to the dual nature of his musical life in the 1990s. On one side, there were jazz and fusion sketches, Army Band connections, and studio dates in Augusta and Korea. On the other, there were rock songs, home‑recorded experiments, and the seeds of what would become Re‑Sounding. Explorations names the process - the act of searching, trying, and discovering - that eventually led to a more defined fusion voice in the 2000s.

In that sense, the album is less about arriving at a single sound and more about documenting the journey toward one. The title honors the fact that these recordings capture a composer in motion, learning how his ideas behave in real time, and following them wherever they lead. The title Explorations is almost literal. This is the sound of Brian Grace searching - through jazz, fusion, improvisation, composition, home recording, and self-production - for the musical language that would carry him forward.

The album does not present one fixed version of Brian. Instead, it documents a decade of discovery: the early sparks of a one-man-band identity, the first professional studio sessions, the limits and possibilities of cassette-based production, and the emergence of a melodic jazz/fusion voice that would echo through later work.

“By 1999, I had a rather large catalog of original recorded music from over the years - so when mp3.com first came along, I thought that was a good way to release some of my mostly unheard music to the world. So, mp3.com was a good catalyst for the birth of Explorations.” - Brian Grace

Explorations began not as a planned debut, but as a release valve - a way to finally share years of unheard music created across Army bases, world tours, coastal apartments, and makeshift home studios. When mp3.com appeared, it offered a rare opportunity: a digital platform where Brian could gather the strongest pieces from a decade of writing, arranging, and recording. What emerged was his first official album - the jazz side of a story that had been quietly unfolding since 1988.

The following year, he released Re‑Sounding, the rock counterpart to Explorations. The best of the jazz side, then the best of the rock side. Two albums. One story. Together, they marked the moment Brian’s catalog stepped out of the shadows and into the world.

During this era, Brian’s music reached unexpected places. Poem became the official on‑hold music for the VA Long Beach Healthcare System for roughly five years - tens of thousands of callers heard that haunting melody without knowing it was composed and performed by one of their own employees. At the same time, Brian became “The Voice of the VA,” recording greetings, menus, announcements, and informational messages for the entire phone system. His voice became the sound of the organization for an entire era - all provided freely, as a service.

The roots of Explorations stretch back even further. Korean Morning was written during Brian’s 1988 world tour with the Army Soldier Show, performing for troops across Korea. It opens with Arirang played on bass -  one of the earliest signs of his multi‑instrumentalist identity. In 1996, Blues for Bob’s Blues and the original version of Exploration were recorded at Studio South in Augusta, engineered by the same engineer who recorded James Brown’s sessions there. These were Brian’s first professionally engineered tracks - the earliest glimpse of the harmonic language that would define his later work.

Across the 1990s, the sound evolved: Explorations → Re‑Sounding → Hodgepodge → Product. Jazz sketches became fuller arrangements. Rock ideas became more cinematic. The rhythmic and harmonic language sharpened toward the fusion era. By the time Product arrived, the sound had crystallized - but Explorations remains the beginning of the story.

It is not a snapshot. It is a timeline - 1988 to 1999 - documenting the evolution of a young composer, multi‑instrumentalist, and producer finding his voice.

In that sense, Explorations is less a conventional debut than a carefully preserved map of beginnings: ensemble  studio recordings, Army Band connections, self‑produced cassette experiments, and the final mp3.com‑era  release all converging into Brian Grace’s first proper album.

The 2026 remaster brings that timeline into sharper focus, revealing the album as a decade‑long document of be-coming - the earliest full portrait of Brian’s jazz/fusion voice taking shape.

The Tascam Tracks

Explorations is where Brian truly became a one-man band - not as a slogan, but as a working method. The Tascam 488 forced him to think like a composer, performer, engineer, arranger, and producer at the same time.

“During the 1990s, most of the time it was just easier - and less expensive - to do it all myself, all the while knowing that real drums would have made some of these tracks soar. I was serious about what I was doing, though, and was committed to making the absolute best recordings I could with the limited materials I had at the time. I made the most of it.”

“Perhaps I was hoping that if people could look past the fake drums and into the content, chords, structure, and music, they could maybe look past those limitations. In the back of my mind, I always thought of having a real drummer play on all of these songs, and eventually that would happen.”

- Brian Grace

Beyond the album artwork, 1999 was a year lived in motion - performances, day jobs, late‑night sessions and shows, and the everyday moments that surrounded the making of Explorations. These photographs capture the wider world of the era: the San Diego streets, the Postal Service years, the early VA connections, and the life Brian Grace was balancing while his debut album quietly took shape.