A real actual actively maintained blog for a real actual band, on BLOGSPOT no less:
A 60 second Youtube of Fishkill Creek in Beacon NY by the Beacon Hat Factory (I made this):
A benign ambient drone using the three It girls of 2024: Microcosm, Cosmos, and Lyra-8 (I added it to my OPM playlist ):
A dark ambient drone (“FALSE FATE – Ambient drone with SOMA Rumble of Ancient Times, Lyra 8 and Hologram Microcosm”):
I did a major reset of the piece from August 11, my version of Josefin’s Waltz by Vasen, which I’m calling “I am at least trying to forgive.” It is better but still not good. The final product is more chaotic than I intended, and I don’t think I can fix that without redoing the base layer.
There is some good music among the bad. I learned how to do re-amping. In some ways the new voices are have a lot of flavor and feeling.
Also, I improved the video a lot. I was able to keep the feeling of calm but make the cuts more energetic. I got a little better at making videos while I was doing this one.
Even though the video is a lot better I think the music doesn’t gel well enough to find a place in people’s hearts.
I’m enjoying the new Dream Logic album by Lee Evans/Hippies Wearing Muzzles, which he described as:
I’m very excited to share my new album, Dream Logic, with you all. It’s a weird one centered around multiple experiments over the last year or so and it gets into some sonic territory my previous releases haven’t.
Sept 5 at Present Sounds moved to October 3.
Sept 20* I’ll play BAU Gallery in Beacon NY with Ben Sergentanis. To add it to your calendar, use the Eventbrite listing.
These listings posted by the gallery might be interesting:
October 3* I’ll be at Present Sounds, 249 Huron St, Brooklyn NY. This is in Greenpoint, which is a strange attractor for my life lately. Set time is 8:30-10:00.
To help you understand the setting, here’s how they described it:
If you haven’t attended one of these before please be aware that this is a deep listening event more akin to group meditation then to a typical show or party. We have space reserved for socializing (the roof) but when in the upstairs listening space we ask that all speak minimally and when necessary in a whisper (think movie theater) out of respect for others. Please let your guests know too.
To save a reminder in your calendar, use this event link.
The October 17* gig at Bad Old Days / Ridgewood Sound Lab on 1684 Woodvine St in Queens is moving to a new date, but I don’t know the new date yet.
October 19* from 7-9 I’ll be in the garden at Unnameable Books, 615 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238.
*Note to readers in the future: the year is 2024
A highlight video of Ida Manserian’s choreography using my music – with a clean version of the recording – is up on YT.
Related earlier posts:
My mom was messed up for life by her mother’s wild rages. As an adult you learn to forgive people for being bad at adulting. Not everybody is made to be a good parent, so I should do my best to cut grandma Anne Ruth a break.
Playing through this I got an image of a funeral outside on a fall day. It’s not sunny but it’s not gothically dark either. The mourners aren’t crying but they aren’t angry either. A life is complete. People are gathered to show respect to a member of the community.
That’s when my grandma came into my head. It would have been the kind of funeral that made sense for her, if there had been one.
The tune here is Josefin’s Waltz, from a Swedish folk band named Väsen. I learned this from a banjo player at a session at an Irish bar in Peekskill NY.
Musically what I was after was getting a lot of feeling with as little machinery as possible. In the end all I had to use was tempo, timing, and dynamics. A thing about mandolin is how good a plain unprettied note can sound. Just plucking the dang thing like you’re asking nicely makes a pretty decent noise. The instrument is miked up close in mono, with the physical instrument output augmented by a pickup going through a Caroline Météore reverb coming out of a loud PA on the far side of the room. But mainly what you hear is wood and wire.
You’re welcome to use this for films / choreography / whatever. Just email lucas @ gonze.com
Melodic Guitar Music by Adrian Holovaty is a good album of retro acoustic instrumentals. I like that there is a distinctive personal style that isn’t too derivative. Also, the mood of the pieces is fun and the execution is tight.
In terms of the independent web of musicians, I appreciate that the landing page for that album is a standalone thing owned and controlled by the musician, rather than one owned by Bandcamp or Spotify or another transient business. Similar to my own for there is only or the web site for Ear Reverends.
When a world music playlist on Spotify picked up “For My Wife” it was a clue that the slot to pitch my music into was *world*, not ambient, Americana, or ambient western. That same day I went looking for playlists along the lines of world+electronic or ambient+Indian.
Playlist pitching is always always always a brutal experience. You can’t find the authors, or you can’t contact them, or when you can contact them they want money just to pay attention. But I was fired up and inspired and I spent a whole evening drinking wine and hunting for contactable musical humans in the endless vacuum of the Internet. Three days later, wham! A musical human got back to me!
This time out the playlist is a loungy thing called Indian Chillout Vibes.
And there I am in all my angst that morning, playing furiously and morosely in my 5×7 foot office, sandwiched between Amun and Weathertunes:
It’s by a German electronic label / production team called lemongrass:
Lemongrassmusic is an eclectic, independent music label that produces high-class genre-bending music releases, widening the scope of the Lounge genre by exploring Chillout, Ambient, Lofi, NuJazz, TripHop, Electronic World Music, Deep House, Soul and more.
Which makes me realize that *lounge* is another direction to explore. As Calvin and Hobbes said, the hard part isn’t selling out, it’s finding a buyer. The thing about being forced into a box, as a creative musician, is finding a box that wants you!
My collab track with Fastus was added to SeeHear Recording’s “World Fusion” playlist. I thought of this as Americana + ambient rather than “world”, but those are my own blinders. Listeners know what they are hearing!
Their email to me:
Hey Lucas, we listened already in May and really love it! But we had no playlist available to feature it - but now, finally after 2 months, we've got the time to set up a brand-new playlist where your track collaboration with Fastus is a perfect match.
Playlist:
Track:
I don’t know what my tiny-scrap miniatures will be good for. One possibility is bumpers in between segments of a podcast, radio show, or film. Another is little palette refreshers in the middle of a playlist, like pickled ginger between bites of sushi.
