my friend, collaborator Reza “Ray” Pormansor passed away yesterday morning, Sept 09, 2025, in the presence of his loving parents. they cared for him with every fiber of their being, and not an ounce less.
he was surrounded by friends just a few nights prior and many midway to see him. we all expected more time.
ray was my collaborator. he was also one of my closest friends during our personal fervent years. he was a fixture of the Orange County art/music scene at the time, sharing a lock-out at the infamous Bassland Studios in Santa Ana, CA for a time. a haunted place in hindsight, yet one that emanated an orb of creativity from its foundations into its inhabitants.
ray ray co-produced my first album, A DAY LATE: INSTRUMENTALS FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, at 36 Summerfield, in a messy little room upstairs in the family home, next to a small man-made lake with sparkling water.
we had rudimentary digital recording gear, but mixed as much analog as possible using those early digital converters. something I had forgotten was that he also recorded the soundtrack for my first festival film, STILL LOVER. when I had festival screenings, he would make sure to come.
we were a great team because he was incredibly charismatic, able to connect with everyone & a perfect counterpart to my quiet and observant nature.
he played jazz fusion at the Temple Bar across the street from my Santa Monica apartment. he played flamenco punk. he studied with a master to learn the tabla. he genre-swapped because he loved sound, and also because he could play any instrument that he wanted. this was pure god-given talent and anyone that had met him would attest to this.
he made a movie, a terrible one, but he did it and had all of us help him because of that chaotic charisma and vision to see things through. I got on camera for it, and that might have been when I truly figured out that I preferred it behind the camera.
we had a gallery show at Star Shoes in Hollywood. after the show, Heather Graham had a private party in there, and he handed out his flyers to Adam Sandler and Fiona Apple, plainly not giving a fuck about their stardom, while PT Anderson smiled at his fearlessness. we hung out for a bit, but it soon got boring so we got into mischief elsewhere.
he released a handful of records (SOUND WOMB PROJECT, UNFAMILIAR OCCURRENCE, JAHLOBI JONES, JHANVIEH, etc.) under different project names. at some point he changed his performing name to Sam Oak for a few years. when you go back to listen, you realize that he was channeling the future. he mixed rock guitar with 303 acid basslines. always enigmatic.
he wrote two books, as far as I know, and of course both were dense. one was fiction, the other a philosophical one that integrated his core understanding of the world. a latticework of reference that was his original language, a codex of ray’isms. he would meet me at the coffee shop always with a handful of notes, full of diagrams, sketches, and arrows. his world was interdimensional, a pure autodidact.
he got a PhD and became a therapist.
he was a mad scientist, an artist, a musician, a poet, and a legendary figure. he was also a loving son, who truly cared for his friends and would die for them if necessary.
he was fiercely one of a kind, eccentric & infinitely curious about the world, life, people, art and science. the world doesn’t know how to handle this type of presence. too much love outward, too bright a light, too in love with the sensory life offered.
he was an abstraction.
rest in peace my brother.
we shall all meet again at home.
luv
am
