Sliptide Seattle Electronic Music Producer & Performer

November, New Direction and Motivation

November is one of my favorite months.  With November comes the deep fall season, chilly weather, grey weather days mixed with appearances from the Sun amongst beautiful cloud displays in the Seattle sky.

Also with November, comes birthdays! Amy and I both have our birthday in November and it is typically quite the celebration. Even though we are keeping it low budget this year, I am going to do some additional birthday celebration here on Sliptide.com and various media sites that host my music.

*grin*

So for those of you who read my blog on a somewhat regular basis, you will be the first to know:

Thus far I have tentative plans for a number of music releases, free, to the internet. Starting here at Sliptide.com and working towards posting on other sources (like Soundcloud and iLike) I will release at least 1 free EP, a few singles, more preview clips, and a preview song or two of the new direction I am taking my music. You will see a post on The Latest, and I will update that post as things happen through the month.

Also note that on November 12th, I will be making City Shadows and Well of Souls available for $5 each! This applies to the Digital Downloads available on CDBaby.com. Woo!

-

I've caught wind and am flying on some serious motivation to grind out the music.

On one hand, I owe it to myself and my fans to wrap up production on tracks that are going onto the next album. Primarily trip-hop in nature with blends of down-tempo styles, the next album will feature a few vocal tracks written and performed by me.  I have every intention of making the next release a full album available via the usual digital channels, but this will probably be the last major non-techno based release for awhile.

I've done a lot of soul-searching in the past months when it comes to how I relate to my production tactics, my music writing, and what goals I have as a musician.  When I boil down the mixture of everything floating about in my head, I am left with a clear desire to write, produce, and perform all things techno, trance, and tech-house.  It's how I can pay homage to my roots in electronic music. It's how I can get myself back to the energy. It's how I can continue to connect with an audience that fuels my fire.

So here I go into a somewhat new direction as I immerse myself into a world of dirty, drippy, filtered synths, driving beats, and 'the big four': texture, atmosphere, emotion, and passion.  The music I'm now aiming for meets these four expectations I have for my productions and in the past three days I have produced 2 full skeleton/preview tracks and an additional set of samples/loops that are far closer to the mark of music I wish to be making and performing than anything I have made in the past few years.

I suppose you could say I'm getting back to my 'roots' in techno, or maybe this revelation is a 'back to basics' mentality. Either way, I'm very pleased w/the results thus far.  Focus and motivation are amazing tools to have under your belt as a musician!

I look forward to working on my next 'step' after having a few more tracks under my belt. I will be getting that old laptop spruced up and tested with Ableton Live! 8 for use in live shows.  Cross your fingers! 2010 is already shaping up to be a big year as we head into the last remaining bits of 2009.

Drums and Dogs

I apologize, yet again, for the utter lack of visuals on my blog.  I have never been a big fan of posting pictures along with my entries, though I know that on some occasions I should really consider doing it as I know I have pertient images relative to the content of my posts that would add that much more depth for the reader.

Ah well.. I don't really have time for it right now!

Our house is busier than usual the past 2 days because on Monday we picked up our puppy!! Amy and I are giving a great home to a wonderful black lab puppy (8 weeks old!) we have named Zephyr.  We have been going through the initial stages of puppy-dom and so far so great!  He has been a blast from the get go, and while he is a handful as he does his puppy things (exploration, eating, energy burning, FRAPPING), it has been rather smooth. We have only had one 'accident' so far, and he is fairly responsive already to our training and commands. I'm sure that will be more of a challenge as he moves into the puppy equivalent of the terrible twos.

Last week was pretty sweet.  Cameron and I went to Guitar Center to check out some digital drum sets.  Cameron is friend of mine who is a great dummer and we're planning out some side projects for music.  He is going to pick up a digital set that will be more portable, interface with all of the electronics and recording hardware/software I have, and be much quieter for future apartment living-- I can imagine it would be very frustrating to love drumming and not have a viable way to really let loose when you live in close proximity of your neighbors.

Jeff, Cameron and I were hanging out over the weekend and we threw down some amazing ideas for a project (which, due to the awesomeness of it I can't spill the beans!), as well as some ideas to involve Cameron into the Silver Standard line up. More great times ahead!

Speaking of Silver Standard, Jeff and I are moving closer to having the full LP version of our previous release (The Silver Standard EP) ready for digital release and limited hard copy prints.  We are also planning some smaller marketing packages and materials to help get our name out there in the Seattle music community (of course, taking full advantage of the resources we have online so we can reach a wider audience as well).

Just a quick post for now. I really need to take some time and sit down to get pictures, sound clips, and blogs in order. Oi!