Monsoon Season is the music of Southern California songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Raphael Umphres. Born in the diversity of the American Southwest, Raphael was exposed to a large variety of world music at a young age that shaped the formation of his songs, from family-favorites like U2, Bruce Cockburn, and Lisa Gerrard, to Italian Traditional music, Bossa Nova giants such as Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, to Japanese Composers such as Ryuichi Sakamoto.   As a teenager, Raphael picked up a classical guitar for the first time, and became fascinated with cross-genre instrumentation. Umphres was immediately fascinated in the way that classical pieces written for the cello can be completely changed when played in a different style, or on a different instrument. This fascination has lead Raphael's music to incorporate elements from across genres in a fun, approachable, emotionally-authentic way that is reminiscent of pop music, folk music, and Rock n' Roll all at the same time. Raphael is a big fan of Sondre Lerche, Cœur De Pirate, Right Away, Great Captain!, The 1975, Beatenberg, Akira Kosemura, and many others.   A decade after Raphael discovered the guitar, in August 2019, the first Monsoon Season single Standing the Fence was released. The band, including drummer George Neal and bassist Jake Foster, are currently playing shows + celebrating the release of their first single, and are working on the release of another single coming early 2020.