Li'l Blog

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- SO

This morning I resumed mixing on what will be the title track of the next album – “Beautiful Things”. This will be part of a series entitled “Agenda”. I know – sounds lofty, self important and perhaps ominous. This is the culmination of much rumination on the fact that just about everything presented to the public these days has an agenda. I figured I’d just come out and tell you that I have one, too.  I believe mine is much less sinister than most.

That means that at least one of the tracks will have vocals – a first for this project. Ordinarily that would give an effort such as mine a muscular boost up the charts and improve my general “listenability” for the majority of people – but it is possible the lyrical content might counteract those expectations, and neither result would be my intention; other than the truth that it is always a (normal) musician’s desire that he find an approving audience, preferably without pandering.

New on the website:

I’ve tidied up the page for “Simple Work“, added some minutia for the bored and/or fans, and moved the “ingredients” info to it’s own page – where it is now much more concise & legible – and where links to the synth developers are provided right next to every synth listed, when possible.

“Tussle in B Minor” has been added to the audio player and the corrupt file for “Rollover” has been replaced with a good one. (Facebook fans recieved a free download of “Tussle” yesterday).

There are currently 7 tracks in various states of production for the next cd. If I had to pin a date on release – I’d say Spring 2011. I’d love it to be sooner – and regardless – singles will definitely be released early to fans and radio stations that accept digital. The final product will be an actual hardcopy.

Thanks for stopping by! Please say hi! – SO (KM)

Chain D.L.K. has given a favorable and fun review to “Nativity Set”.  Hooray!!

I wasn’t expecting reviews really; for most magazines and sites I merely sent an announcement for them to post. They didn’t of course, so I continue to be an anomaly – basically ignored by critics/publications (in both genres I release), yet favored and often charting on stations all across the US and beyond (”Simple Work” continues to get airplay 15 months after it’s release and has garnered several #1 positions – woohoo!!). It feels right, mostly. Everyone likes to be taken seriously, though. My music is often dark and serious. It is, however,  never dark and evil. This is probably a hindrance to critical acceptance in a genre where that is expected of you. Sorry folks, that’ll never happen.

“Nativity Set” has been my introduction to online-only releases. Getting airplay has been tricky this time out. Radio is in a greatly transitional stage as far as medium goes. A handful of stations prefer digital submissions. Many more seem to tolerate it. An equal amount refuse to accept them. I think in a few years that will pass, since half of them already are broadcasting mp3s from a digital library. It may suck sonically, but it’s darn convenient on so many other levels. Even stations without digital libraries still have djs that show up, plug their ipod into the board and get busy that way. Many hearty thank yous to the friendly djs who have been putting this one out there.

To get a zip file of this Christmas music I done did while it’s still on sale – click hither.

Have excellent holidays, everyone and thank you for stopping by! – SO

Nativity Set – a new 5 track ep of holiday music is released today! Downloads are available at tradebit exclusively – you will not find this album at itunes this year!

So head on over to tradebit to pick up your copy for only $1.98!

Thank you so much to all the radio stations and djs who have already added “Nativity Set” to their playlists!

“Nativity Set” is ready for release – bumped up to Nov 30th, but it’s available now! For those who are already ‘in the spirit’ or just can’t wait for the holidays to come – you can get a zip file of the new Christmas ep (5 tracks and artwork) by clicking here.

Individual tracks are also available for download at the same site.

“Nativity Set”

release date 12-1-09

Pretty psyched about finally releasing a new holiday album. I’ve wanted to since ‘07 but this is the first year the music started flowing for it. Well it’s done now – yippee!! Had a good time making this one – far less stress than ’simple work’.  This will be an online-only release. It won’t be on Itunes or any of the other big shops due to time constraints – maybe next year. This year I’ll put it up as a zip file for a very delightful price (I think) of $1.98 for all 5 tracks! Here’s a page with a little more info…

DJ’s and music directors will receive direct mailings with a link. If you’re a dj or have an internet station and would like a copy just email me with a link to your site or station and I’ll hook you up.

Vst developer B. Serrano makes instruments I use frequently – in fact lately, I’m in love with Adonis (donationware). I don’t often have the time to go exploring music offered for free online… but lately I’m taking chances (see previous post) and have not been disappointed! Serrano goes under the name Wayan (or vice versa) and offers 11 very cool instrumental songs ranging from techno to house to ambient. Most of the ambient stuff eventually gets around to the rhythm and riffs, gladly. Here’s the page. It’s in French but you should be able to figure it out. My favorite track, currently, is “Selena”. If you like the music you can leave comments there without logging in – pretty cool. Enjoy!

I love coming across unreleased music that is totally worthwhile – there’s so very much available that you wish wasn’t out there. (Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some sort of overlord rating system for all music found on the internet – voted by all people, culled from all applications and sites – with votes from people who are experts in a particular genre getting more weight- and seriously bad music being tagged with engine search warnings in red like you see on yahoo: ” Warning – the mp3s offered for free on this site might suck and seriously harm your patience and disposition“. I think it’s needless to say I don’t do a whole lot of indie music trolling.

I also don’t do a lot of blogs – hardly any – but I came across this one and posted it a year or two ago before I switched to wordpress. It’s by the gentleman who created the vst plugin “Glitch” (which I’ve yet to experiment with, although I plan to). Look for the “dblue 1985″ post (don’t worry – he’s not a prolific blogger either) and download the music. A tune from it popped up on my player in the car this morning – reminded me how much I liked it! Make sure you read the description in the post. Very cool stuff (the somewhat abrasive opening track is not indicative of the style or sound of the rest of the music – for you scaredy-cats).  Enjoy! and feel free to let me know about other equally awesome electronic music out there.

I know it’s been quiet around here – I’m not a blogger by nature and I’ve been pretty busy promoting my trio’s latest release…but things are perking up on the electronic side of things and I’ve begun aggressively working on a new cd – finishing up the aforementioned “Hot Potato” track and starting several others. It feels great to be working/creating in this manner again. I couldn’t give an estimate on when a release will happen but I do have serious plans to pop out a Christmas e.p. in the meantime. Most likely it’ll be download only – but you never know.  I’ve also already conceived the concept for the following album – if you can stand it.

One of the synth designers I use the most is Krakli – an amazing array of all kinds of free, very well made vst’s – with totally awesome interfaces I find so enticing, and a consistency of quality and reliability I haven’t found in many of the other designers who share their synths at no charge. Through the KVR newsletter I found that Ian has just released a new synth – and was actually charging something for it (albeit only a donation) – so I knew it had to be something incredible. It’s called RMP2 and it has plenty of presets. I got myself a copy this afternoon and was not disappointed. I’m not good at describing sounds – magical is not a word you’ll ever find me using – but these are nearly that – and lush. There are audio demos over on his blog page – which is where you can get your own RMP2! Go do it!

I want to welcome any new fans who’ve come here from Facebook – since I’ve put the free mp3 post up there a lot of folks wind up around here instead – so… hey! (If you’d be so kind to go back and “fan” me sometime that’d be sweet!)

Finally wanted to give long overdue thanks to a few of the many radio stations that gave some amazing support to “Simple Work”, including: WXDU (Duke Univ.) who played it for months and gave me that sweet #1 spot, WBNY (Buffalo) who played it this spring (!) and for the not to shabby #5, WPTS in Pittsburgh gave it a lot of love (#6), WRCT (Pittsburgh), WEFT (Champaign, IL) and WBGU (Bowling Green) who spun it for the entire 13 weeks. There were many others but these were the ones who embraced it – thank you a thousand times! Thanks also to my friends at WUSB Stony Brook who are simply the coolest.

Oh yeah – I’m also working on a video for the track “New Seven” – it should be ready when it’s totally irrelevant and pointless (lol) so if you like that song – it’s gonna be fun.

Thanks as always for visiting. If you wanna show your love over at the burgeoning facebook page – here’s a link. Be well and Peace – Kenny

Well - according to Facebook, anyway…

I’m sure I have a couple more – I hope?! But apparently not too many fans come to this site either…well if you do like the tunes and you get the unction, please stop on by to the fb site and tell the world. Here’s the link.

Meanwhile, still pretty busy with the follow-up business of the latest jazz trio cd (”There You Are”) – and getting ready for a major relocation, so not a lot going on on this front. However, I’ve helped produce a few short films (horror) with some middle school kids I work with, and of course added some music to it – under the Seven Octaves name. Here is a link to download the theme music to the “Fish Movie“.

Thanks for stopping by - don’t forget to say hey if you like. I’m disabling links in the comments box because of all the russian shemale spammers…but if you send me a link to your site (via the contact page) and I like it I’ll mention it here. Be well and Peace – Kenny