Been fascinated by Detroit techno recently so I’m working on a 40-50 minute mix of composed techno tracks that I might then later chop into pieces and release using various pseudonyms. Otherwise people think I’m crazy.

Might even redo the design of the site along the way if I find a good web template. So there’s more about music and less blabbing.

Just finished a Catapult of Noise EP called Amazonia, has material going back 4+ years with some kind of unified theme around South America. Never been there, by the way. But it’s similar to the concept of Ian McDonald’s Brazyl book.

I’ve worked with Sam Reyes with a seventies pop-single track that is now ready and maybe more similar early day seventies pop music to be done as well. Clavinets and pop organs rule!

Cat Puppet is a project to make “New Musik” kind of pop music with voices and simple synth arrangements plus acoustic guitars. The first single should be out very soon.

I have a ’shoe-gazing’ guitar-layer album halfway done, that should be finished this year, too.

And then all kinds of odd things left and right that will be done on a whim from time to time. Also interested to start a side-band project with a very much “Cheap Trick” like attitude on stage. As well as produce anyone who has a song and interested to release it.

All together, more voices and pop-songs this year.

It’s really amazing what you could do nowadays with Internet, such as upload huge amounts of your music for free streaming and downloading purposes.

That was a pipe dream in the seventies.

Now, the rest of the web site pages start to get too busy, getting into ‘MySpace land’, ack. Need to rethink some of the components.

Ten minutes quick test. Very good! Will purchase it!

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Izotope_Nectar_Testing.mp3 (507 KB)

Posted via email from Kent Sandvik’s Posterous

Also over at Free Music Archive. Maybe easier as you could download the whole album there with one single download. Kind of positively surprised how many downloads have happened at Free Music Archive within less than 16 hours.

This album will also go out through iTunes/eMusic et rest shortly as well.

Background: Long time ago I took part in an Ableton remix context and instead of remixing songs I thought what about making 10-11 songs as the remix. Recently I found the project inside my huge music project hard disk and I went in and did some tweaking here and there and broke the songs in to 10 songs as a separate album.

As for the concept: It was just fun trying to put together a techno band that is interesting in mental states rather then chrome, dark city skies and comics, or something like that.

This release has a special license: You are encouraged to re-distribute this material as much as possible.

As for music, the audience could quickly register if a particular presentation lacks the quality aspect. Let’s say a badly tuned guitar, or the musicians not playing in sync, or each one playing a different take or odd scale. Or the drummer not keeping the pace. There are exceptions like the early day punk movement even if I do think they masked their shortcomings by playing loud and fast so such cases were not recognized. And even if you think Deerhof is a bad band, they are actually doing pretty amazing music by using banality as the key to their success.

For me, I could tolerate a lot, but hearing copycat versions of euro-trans songs one after another — like at a jazzercise class — is where it hits a nerve on me. Well played but super-boring, so the quality aspect is there. I could stand a badly playing band if they sound interesting, but I have a hard time listening to something that is banal and super-commercial to the point so it’s like sugar on top of sugar.

Maybe the closest other art form where quality is apparent is literature, someone who can’t write will seldom  become a successful writer. Those who know that hire ghostwriters.

Going back to music, at jams there are different tolerance levels for quality. Some don’t like the sloppiness of musicians that can’t play a song or can’t play together. Others ignore this as long as the presentation is interesting. I could tolerate it but I’m less inclined to listen to a really boring presentation of yet-another-blues cliche song. So we are all different. As for mixes, a really badly mixed version is not fun listening, the quickest way to turn away a consumer from your music is not spending enough time doing a properly mixed (and mastered) version. This is where the amateurs are separated from the professionals.

Anyway, I need to deliver. Fortunately my hard disk is full of all kinds of projects that were never released of some reason or another — biggest one me losing interest as it’s fun to make music, less fun to finish it and release it.

Anyway, I will tackle this backlog and release free stuff. First is a 46+ minute experimental techno track, Mental Beats, that I’ve now broken up into 11 parts and doing remixing and final mastering. I will release this under the Spectral Mystics moniker. I might also release it via my RouteNote account — feel nowadays that the best way to release music is the combined free + paid services model. Those who want to sponsor me, they do it. Those who don’t, don’t mind as long as you like the music.

There’s also an ambient 50+ minute track called Rebirth that I will break up into parts and remix it. The story was that one of my cousins wanted music for the delivery of the baby, so I delivered!

I’ve also started working on two new sample libraries, one with synth bleeps using the Synthi XILS 3 plugin, fun one and nice to have a set of seventies bleep and sequencer run stuff. The other is using the Cheeze Machine string synthesizer for seventies string machine cheeziness. Hmm, how did I get stuck in the seventies?

It really comes down to a a very simple formula: The audience wants entertainment. If you deviate from this form, you get into troubles of all kinds. Below are some cardinal mistakes I’ve seen, especially here in the San Francisco Bay area scene, one of the few places where you actually still have many places where you could do live entertainment, music, DJ:ing and so on. So it’s quite doable to get gigs most of the week, just need to do some thinking.

To start with, you need to have a brand identity, be unique. Yet another generic blues band does not really cut it. You just drown in the amount of garage blues bands of all kinds that exists. Find something unique you like doing and the gigs will follow. Be generic and you are ignored.

Secondly, you have to somewhat swallow your pride and place something the audience like listening to, or dancing to. Trying to educate them about the music roots or something similar is futile — the audience is not there attending a class, they want to have fun.

Thirdly, you need to rehearse with the band or your act. Doing something ad hoc is fun at jams  but for real professional image it is hurtful to see bands that can’t stop a song properly or play each song the same way, with little finesse. Not to speak of using the same 20+ song playlist for years and years.

Fourthly, you need to be exciting on stage, if the artists, singers or musicians are on stage looking like they are bored, scared or otherwise indifferent, that then will cause the audience to take a step back. The audience wants entertainment, they are even forgiving for sudden impromptu acts as long as they experience something unique. Having a dialogue between the band/artist and the audience is what separates success from utter failure.

Fifthly, you need to have integrity and stand for things that you think are important. This means that you stick to something you think is the difference and provide entertainment. Trying to please all will just frustrate most.

Sixth, select the band so the members like playing together. Putting together a super-group of super-musicians usually lead to a short-lived band. This means less time to market as the band collapsed and it takes time to build a brand.

Seventh, as for marketing, someone has to take the role of becoming the marketing person for the artist or band. No marketing, no gigs. And it does not mean to pest friends and family to attend gigs, it means to build a real fan base. Note that live venue and bar owners are interested in headcount, not the quality of music. No headcount, no gigs. No fans, no headcount. I doubt anyone has a big enough family and friend circle to pull something like this off, or then they will suddenly lose a lot of friends due to pressure tactics.

Eight, surprise the fan base with differences in the act or playlist. Doing the same act over and over is wearing, even for the biggest fan. But provide them with surprises so they want to get to the next gig.

Ninth, make each gig special, a theme or some kind of reason why the gig really happens. A new album release, a sudden 20-song medley theme presentation or something similar. This comes back to point eight.

Tenth, make sure the old or new fans want to see you again. It means that you provide them enough rope that they want to see the event again. This is a tricky area, the things I could think of is to pre-announce some other event happening later that they really want to check out. Or never do a dull or bad gig, even one person in  the audience is an influencer, he or she could tell others to ignore the act/band or tell them to absolutely check them out later. Never stop a gig too early just because the audience is small —  that gives the impression that you don’t take your act or your fans seriously. Don’t take lots of breaks, why? The audience is there for entertainment, not to wait for you to show up again after a 20+ minute unnecessary break. Prince is not taking breaks at his 3+ hour concerts. No energy as part of this is also a problem, lethargic bands are nasty, self-destroying entities.

I could go on. But the trick, again, is that the audience wants entertainment. They want to attend a happening — live music I think is one of the rare forms of entertainment that could stand against the avalanche of cable TV, video games and movies on demand. If it’s done right.

Here’s the play list of all the music I listened to on a motorcycle road trip via Yosemite to Death Valley, Kern River district over to Central coast and then back home.

How it was done.

1. Mount the iPod

2.  Under the Devices-<Your iPod Name>-Music, right mouse click on Music and export this text file.

3. Use a spreadsheet like Numbers to import the data back in.

4. Sort on the date played.

5. I then copied over just that part to another new Numbers spreadsheet, did final column pretty-cleanup and then exported it as a PDF file.

Now, I have an eclectic taste of music and shuffle mode is always on!

To  start with, you have 24 hours in a day, of which maybe eight is involved in a deep state of non-activity, or sleeping. Another of the day is reserved for work, eating, watching TV, commuting. It’s easy to see how you could end up with max four hours a day with creative work unless you are a full-time artist, something that is pretty tough living today.

So the first word is concentration. Just concentrate. Get things done. Avoid distractions.

Secondly, reading all these music industry pundit blogs, they seem to have now settled into the mantra that social networks will make or break artists. I disagree, good music will make or break artists. Spend less time doing such social networking, use that time to write good songs instead. It pays off. If nothing else, you feel better about yourself.

Thirdly, producers especially fall into the trap of perfection due to all the possible tools available today. They spend hours trying to get the best sound, best take, chase for the perfect plug-ins and so forth. Me thinks the take is more important, record something interesting. Produce it quickly, release it. If you want something better, save those cycles for the next song.

It also helps to read biographies of artists seeing how they worked, it was not exactly spending time on Twitter, chasing for the perfect plug-in or something similar. They created songs, recorded, produced and released. Simple formula.

PS: Another situation concerning the putzing in the studio is that things start to sound sterile. Anyone with a brain could record in Logic stuff, add in mastering channel strips and it sounds good, but sterile. Doing quicker productions with funky takes will make the track sound unique rather than polished to death.

Take a young sweetheart girl or boy, someone parents could accept. Let them sings about the awkwards moments of first loves and heartbreaks. That’s an easy bet.

Take a rebellious girl or boy, or a band, something parents hate (harder nowadays.) Let them sing about rebellion against parents/family/society or something else. Pretty easy to sell, too. Easily becomes a parody.

Take a singer-songwriter with a guitar that writes songs about everyday boringness that is still a great mystery. Make the titles sound strange so the songs could be re-interpreted by anyone who likes to figure out what is going on. Such singer/songwriters are everywhere, go to an Open Mic. Somewhat harder to sell unless you find a unique angle to it that makes the artist pop out from the grey goo.

Take a group with misfits that are technically very good musicians, ask them to play really strange music with a pop formula. Pray someone will start a cult following. Important that they release 3-4 minute songs, not 20+ minute jams.

Take a rapper, just anyone, ask them to study what other rappers are out there and use 80% of those styles. Include a singer that sings now and then, she needs to actually be able to sing, no auto-tuning. Leave that to the rapper. Add any kind of blase rap lyrics. Still sellable, which is a surprise.

Get a group of musicians that play loud rock music, tell them to use Mesa Boogie crunch sound and tell them to sing about girls that are leaving them. This is important, the average age should be below 25. Put some design jeans on them, make a video with smoke and them playing guitars with long hair swaying with a wind machine. Yep, could be sold. Just don’t forget that Mesa Boogie sound, without it the band will sound like an alt-band which is currently not cool.

Take a band or artist that are writing rock songs, move them to Nashville, put Nashville musicians backing them but avoid the fiddle and steel guitar. Tell the singer to ‘twang’. Use Fender Telecasters. Make this a cross-over hit.

Have a one-person producer do most of the music, 99%, using all the side-band compressor/trance lead, 808-processed drums et rest. Find an under-used singer, ask him or her to sing to some blatant lyrics about vacation, girls with bikinis, clubbing and anything positive, avoid anything related to real life. For the European market, make sure they sing about ‘take me higher’, ‘tonight’s the night’, or even more astounding hooks such as ‘you’re my guardian angel.’  The more high-pitched voice, the better. Make 10 mixes, flood the market and see what sticks.

…and so on and so on… I miss Motown.

Long time ago, when I started purchasing music, it was the issue of cost, availability and opportunity. I could mostly purchase one album a month, which I did for a long time. When visiting the place selling albums, there was a finite set of albums available. And it was not every day I could visit the stores selling albums as they were miles away from where I was living.

So all that created a situation where you thought for a month what to get, you hope you find it or then a compromise, take the vinyl home and listen to it for the whole next month. The benefits were great, you really learned a lot about the music, the productions, songwriting, the concepts and so on. What else could you avoid when listening to the same album hundreds of times.

Now, when CDs arrived, it was somewhat easier to find material. It also helped that I lived in bigger cities like Stockholm with plenty of stores selling them. As well as have a good salary. I still didn’t go out on a binge purchasing CDs like crazy; purchased somewhat more material but still listened to the materials. Hey, even had a CD player in the living room, listening to music instead of watching TV.

Enter the digital era. I never went full steam with the pirating/Napster model, instead purchased digital music, or eMusic where you could download a lot of material. What happened now was that I didn’t have time to listen to all this new material. Hey, it was so cheap and anything was available.

I think this history lesson points out why music is on the decline with the exception of Top-40 pop music which seems to have its own life.

With online streaming et rest it will just become worse — most songs or albums don’t have the attention needed, one listening and that’s it.

Maybe that’s the reason I switched back to getting vinyl, ripping it and listening through the albums more properly…