What does it mean to witness a sunset on another planet? To feel both infinitely small and immeasurably vast in the same breath? Martian Sunset is a meditation on scale—of time, of humanity, of survival. It’s about the relativity of struggle, the ache of transformation, and the quiet hope that our next horizon might lie beyond this world.

These compositions emerged from my 1000 Songs Project, a creative odyssey that began in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election – when I gave myself a goal of writing 1000 songs in four years. I stopped after I wrote and created full demos of 250 new compositions, all while navigating a mysterious chronic illness. Then, during the pandemic, I dove deep into the worlds of film scoring and audio engineering, disciplines that profoundly reshaped how I listen, write, and create.

Later, when I began revisiting those early songs with the idea of making this record, I realized that many of the tunes no longer reflected who I had become. The turbulence of the recent years had transformed me. I was sick—and then with struggle and commitment, I recovered.  As the pandemic waned, I toured, collaborated, and rediscovered the joy of spontaneous creation—particularly with my friend Rez Abbasi and playing alongside an inspiring new generation of international musicians. Spending time with artists like Joe Lovano and seeing the direction of his new ensembles continued to push me further into my own exploration.

What you hear on Martian Sunset is not just a collection of tunes—it’s the sound of survival and reinvention. It’s jazz as a vessel for grief, growth, and futurism. It’s the soundtrack of looking up at the stars and daring to imagine that our next chapter might be written under a red sky.

— Bill Ware, 2025