Seen and Unseen - the liner notes

Seattle, Washington, April 11 2015

Cats Cradle Robbers are proud to announce general availability of our latest collection of electroacoustic constructions, Seen and Unseen.  Here are a few thoughts about this album.

When we decided in 2013 to polish up and release many of our early musical experiments as albums for general availability, we spent an evening grouping our music into albums using a process called “affinities.”  (See the description of that process in aprevious post in this blog).

One of the groupings, which we called “religious”, included tracks where either the title, or the mood, or the lyrics, or the idea of the track related in some way to spirituality.  This is that collection.

As a part of putting together the collection, we expanded, added, re-recorded, and brought in additional collaborators to make the music new and take advantage of several years of reflection.

As always, we rely on and celebrate our many collaborators, who are partners in creating the music and who inspire us to go beyond our personal creative potential.  And of course, we could not do what we do without the love and support of our families - a grateful thanks to Salome, ParisAnne, Lisa, Payton, and (soon to be born) Ed "Quattro" Essey.

The cover image was created by artist Carlie Reilly of New Jersey, the winner of our album cover contest.  We love Carlie's winning cover - it made us really glad we decided to do the contest!

We hope that you enjoy this latest collection of our creative experiments in music-making!

-          Nick Dallett and Ed Essey, aka Snake and DJSE, Cats Cradle Robbers

It Begins (feat. Lisa Jaffe Hubbell and Vidya Ramarathnam)

Lisa Jaffe Hubbell: Hebrew vocal

Vidya Ramarathnam: Tamil vocal

DJSE: Synth, Sequencing and effects (SSE)

Snake: Wine glasses

Snake conceived the idea of combining two of the oldest living languages – Hebrew and Tamil – each singing the creation story from their culture.  We engaged Lisa and Vidya to provide the raw vocals in their respective traditional styles, and we combined them in the studio.  The Hebrew text is cut into individual syllables for the initial part of the track, and both vocals are sung in full later in the track.

We use the ending of this piece to introduce elements of the rest of the album.

Hebrew lyrics (Genesis 1:1-3)

Hebrew script	Phonetic transliteration	English translation
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים	bə-rê-šîṯ bā-rā ’ĕ-lō-hîm;	In the beginning, God created
אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃	’êṯ haš-šā-ma-yim wə-’êṯ hā-’ā-reṣ.	The heavens and the earth
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ	wə-hā-’ā-reṣ, hā-yə-ṯāh ṯō-hū wā-ḇō-hū,	And the earth was without form and void
וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־ פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם	wə-ḥō-šeḵ ‘al-pə-nê ṯə-hō-wm;	And darkness [was] on the face of the deep
וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־ פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃	wə-rū-aḥ ’ĕ-lō-hîm, mə-ra-ḥe-p̄eṯ ‘al-pə-nê ham-mā-yim.	And the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר וַֽיְהִי־ אֽוֹר׃	way-yō-mer ’ĕ-lō-hîm yə-hî ’ō-wr; way-hî- ’ō-wr.	And said God let there be light and there was light

Tamil Lyrics

Tamil script	Phonetic transliteration	English translation
கல் தோன்றி மண் தோன்றா	Kal thondri mann thondra	Before stones and sand were discovered
காலத்தே முன் தோன்றிய மொழி	kaalathey munThondriya mozhi	Before stone age, this language was born
எம் தமிழ் மொழி	yem thamizh mozhi	our tamil language
அகம் என்றும் புறம் என்றும்	Agam yendrum puram yendrum	The right way of living our life both within (inner well being) and external ( outer well being)
வாழ்வை அழகாக வகுத்த மொழி	Vaazhvai azhagaga vagutha mozhi	were artistically written and followed through this language
எம் தமிழ் மொழ	yem thamizh mozhi	My tamil language
எம் செம்மொழி	yem sem mozhi	Our great language
நம் தமிழ் மொழி	nam thamizh mozhi	Our tamil language

Everyone Loves a Martyr

India: meow

Snake: oven door, guitars, piano, flute

DJSE: piano, guitar, SSE

In our early days, we used to try to feature cat sounds in every track.  This is one of the last pieces that followed that guideline (listen to Racoonba Persistante for another example).

Dark and cinematic, this piece features Snake on slide guitar and DJSE on the piano.  The ending section was recorded with a single mic and features DJSE playing one guitar while Snake plays a guitar with one hand and the piano with the other.

Laudanum Escapade (feat. Eliza Heery)

Eliza Heery: Lead Vocal, Bass

Cathy Breshears: Backing Vocal

Snake: SSE, sampled frogs, monk seal, white handed gibbon, guitar, synth

DJSE: SSE, sampled parrot, dog

(ok cool)

Laudanum…

It’s raining on my window pane

And I’m feeling no pain

No pain, no pain

Laudanum…

Birds are tapping on my window pane

And I’m feeling no pain

It’s raining on my window pane

And I’m feeling no pain

Laudanum…

The dog is barking again

In the yard and in the rain

And I’m feeling no pain

No pain, no pain

Said I’m feeling no pain

No pain

Laudanum…

Laudanum escapade was originally recorded in a tiny apartment that Cathy Breshears shared with two kids, a dog, and a bird in Issaquah, Washington.  Cathy was nervous and unused to improvisation, so the original vocal of this track was created by Snake improvising lyrics and singing them call-and-response style with Cathy.  We cut Snake’s voice out for the first version of this song.  Later we asked bassist and vocalist Eliza Heery to contribute her own jazzy style to the vocal, and we kept Cathy’s original vocals for the haunting “no pain” refrain.

Everything is embedded in DJSE’s brilliantly composed drum and bass track, to which Snake then added a guitar and synth chord pattern.  Eliza’s bass puts the finishing touch on the instrumental tracks.

Aside from Cathy’s dog and bird, which can be heard in the final fade, all of the animal sounds were sampled by Snake while on a trip to Hawaii in November 2010.  The frogs were recorded in Hilo on the Big Island.  The white handed gibbon calls were sampled at the Honolulu zoo, and the monk seal snorts at the Waikiki aquarium a few blocks away.

Laudanum is a highly addictive opiate compound that was a popular ingredient in patent medicines in the 1800s, and is just the sort of thing that a bored housewife might have used to dull the pain of a humdrum lifestyle.

  

Seen and Unseen

Snake: Dih, fireworks, berimbau

DJSE: SSE

In 2011, when we recorded the first version of this track on Snake’s back deck, Snake was studying the Brazilian martial art form capoeira, and the unique rhythmic character of capoeira music colored this track from day one.  As the piece evolved, we brought in explicit samba rhythms to carry forward the Brazilian sound.  The berimbau, the single-stringed musical instrument that is specific to capoeira, was an obvious – but late – addition to the track.

The night we recorded this, we had a pile of leftover fireworks, and the sounds of crackling firecrackers is one of the unique elements that works its way into the background of the music. 

Introducing the Dih

The instrument that Snake calls a “dih” is any small wire-stringed instrument where the strings are detuned enough to make the slinky sounds you can hear several times in this track.  The idea of a “dih” was invented by Snake (aka Steve Peanut) and Larry Genuth (aka Eric Butter) as part of their music comedy duo Peanut Butter in the early 1980s.  This particular instance was a small overhand dulcimer, in itself an unusual instrument, created by luthier John Lindsey of Lindsey Guitar fame.

Seen and Unseen was originally dedicated to Jeremy Roberts, our first fan.

Racoonba Persistante (Sharpie's Revenge)

Sharpie: snuffles

Agent K: meows

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Guitars

One night while we were working at DJSE’s erstwhile bachelor pad at the Mosler Lofts in Belltown, Snake’s wife called to say that there was a raccoon lying on the back deck.  It didn’t appear injured or sick and was just hanging out and not going away.  That was the night we started this track.

At the time, Snake’s family had a cat named Darien who had been banished to the back deck after too many things were ruined by cat urine.  Sharpie (as we named the raccoon) became a regular visitor.  She would wait for Darien to be fed, and after he had eaten his fill, she would swoop in and clean out his bowl.  When Sharpie gave birth to a litter of kits, she started bringing them by to visit.  The snuffling sounds in this track were recorded one night when Sharpie brought her kits to visit.

DJSE’s cat Agent K was one of the original members of the band and can still be found on Facebook.  Agent K has since retired from music.   In this track, he tries in vain to find that darned raccoon. 

For this version of the track, we added the (live) guitars and (synthesized) theremin.

Downward Daffodil (feat. Sharanya Viswanath)

Sharanya Viswanath: vocal

Vidya Ramarathnam: vocal

Joe Breskin: Guitar, Moon Lute

DJSE: SSE 

Snake: Guitarron, vertical marimba

This track has been through many iterations on its way to this (final?) form.  The first published version was called “Gravity Schmavity,” a title that came out of a long series of word associations between DJSE and Snake.  Another, very different, version of the track was called Demitasse.  The original samples were recorded at Joe Breskin’s Port Townsend home, and included Snake playing Joe’s guitarron, Joe playing a Vietnamese moon lute, and both Joe and Snake striking long rosewood beams that we hung from his ceiling (Snake dubbed this the “Vertical Marimba”).  Joe then played a long electric guitar solo over the groove we created using these elements.  We’ve excerpted only small pieces of each of these things in this version.

The Vertical Marimba

The main rhythm of the piece lumbers like an elephant (which is what spurred the aforementioned series of word associations leading to “Horton taunts Newton: Gravity Shmavity!”), and our association between Elephants and India is probably what prompted us, when presented with the opportunity to work with Carnatic vocalist Sharanya Viswanath, to ask her to improvise to this track. 

The result is something we would like to think could accompany yogic practice, hence the also word-associative name Downward Daffodil.

DJSE setting up shop at Breskin's

Breskin in full effect

Sharanya, relaxing between takes

Tamil Lyrics:

Tamil Script	Phonetic transliteration	English translation
ஓ அன்பே எனது உயிரே	Oh anbe yenadhu uyirae	My dear, my life
நீயும் ஒரு குழந்தை	Neeyum oru kuzhandhai	you are my child too

Joe on the Moon Lute

 

Truesetto

Snake: Lindsey fretless tenor guitar, Bookmarked guitar, electric dih

DJSE: SSE, Trombone

Dating from 2009, Truesetto features the Lindsey fretless tenor guitar and the electric dih (which has almost no relation to the acoustic instrument of the same name mentioned above).  You can read all about the creation of this track in this blog post from 2009. http://catscradlerobbers.blogspot.com/2009/07/truesetto-reflections-by-snake-on.html  

There is also a video of this tune on our YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnDydCBHDH8

Listening (feat. Janet Dallett)

Janet Dallett: vocal

Michael and Jane Engle: wine glasses, voices

Snake: guitar, berimbau, piano

DJSE: speak n spell, SSE

Snake’s mother, Jungian Psychologist Janet O. Dallett, passed away in June 2010.  A few days after her memorial service in Port Townsend, her nephew Michael and his wife joined us for a session at Snake’s house.  We talked and played with water and wine glasses, and started a track we called Funk Back.

Back in the 1970s, there was a consumer advocacy show on TV called Fight Back with David Horowitz. Snake once overheard his mother and her friends joking that the show should be called “Fuck Back” instead.  We modified this to Funk back to make it more musical and less PG-Rated. 

DJSE had a Speak & Spell  that he brought along to the session, and you can hear it saying “funk back” periodically in the final mix.

We worked on this track on and off for a month or two and never got very far with it.  Then Snake got the idea to make it an explicit homage to his mom by bringing in phrases recorded at a reading of her book Listening to the Rhino: Violence and Healing in a Scientific Age, as well as other snippets of conversation recorded during her last months. This formed the backbone that we used as the center of the final piece. 

How much longer?

And if longer, how long?

Today is the time of the rhino

(funk back)

If you dismiss it, become possessed by it, or try to destroy it, it will surely annihilate you

It is vastly more powerful than our little egos

I have very complicated eyes

Today is the time of the rhino

He offers his roomy, ancient skin for us to grow into

Do it - it is urgent

Diablita

DJSE: SSE

Snake: guitar, vocal, fork and nutcan

Cathy Breshears: vocal

One day, Snake arrived at DJSE’s place armed with his Gibson L6 electric guitar and Roland Jazz Chorus amp only to find DJSE burning to do something with a hard rock sound.  He had built the first pieces of Diablita in Ableton before Snake showed up, and Snake put his Gibson to good use.

In China, they say that the ideal woman has 天使般的脸,魔鬼身材, or “Angel’s face, Devil’s figure.”  We played on this idiom in this track, taking advantage of the fact that Snake, in the last stages of a cold, temporarily possessed an unnaturally deep voice.

This track has gone through several phases, including one in which Cathy sang several verses that we co-wrote on the same evening that we wrote Laudanum Escapade, but this mostly instrumental version is the one we liked best.

Angel's face

Devil's body

Saving grace

Salumba parte

To-cha-mo

To-cha-mo

Are you ready for me?

One of our most frequently used instruments, the Nutcan.
Snake scraped it with a fork for this track.
First Frost in the Garden and The Immortal Bottle both feature a quarter spun on the lid.

Saints (Feat. Danny Shih)

Danny Shih: violin

Snake: electric guitar, vocal

DJSE: SSE, vocal

Danny was a co-worker of DJSE’s, and revealed one day that he played violin.  In 2010, we were looking for somebody to replace the synthesized violin on Swan Station 5 (released on Jack in the Bucket), so we headed to Danny’s for a session.  We spent some time on that track, and then decided to start something new.  Snake picked up Danny’s electric guitar, and Danny contributed some beautiful violin lines to the beats DJSE laid down.  The result is one of our all-time favorites. 

Danny is a New Orleans Saints fan, and the scant lyrics on this track (Amen. Amen. Saints. / Feelin the Brees.) were taken from the framed newspaper article on the wall, celebrating their recent superbowl win.

The Dry Sound of Atonement

Snake: Maytag washer and dryer with various inclusions, glassware, cabinets, fuse box

DJSE: SSE

On Saturday, September 14, 2013, DJSE came over to Snake’s house for a boil.  A boil is a special type of session that is near and dear to our hearts.  Named for the first such session, Boiling the Ocean, a boil is a session in which we take a specific location, such as a room in a house, and wring as many sounds as we can out of items we find in that location.  We then assemble a piece of music using only those sounds, straight up or electronically processed. 

We often refer to the music thus produced as REAL house music.  Get it?

In this boil, we attacked Snake’s laundry room.  You can hear some AA batteries, a rock, and some dryer balls cycling around in the dryer, the washer filling up, and various cabinet doors being slammed.  Snake sings into the dryer, and we created a virtual gamelan from various pieces of glassware that are stashed in that room.  The beeping sounds created when the washer and dryer are turned on and off supplied a built-in melodic focus.  The overall mood is trancelike and focused, and we tried to honor the idea of atonement, given that 9/14/13 was Yom Kippur that year.

Acid Washed Dreams

DJSE: SSE

Snake: nutcan, flute, tin whistle, balloon, vocals, berimbau, shaker, classical guitar, Lindsey fretless tenor guitar, Gibson L6 electric guitar

Salome: laughter

Acid washed dreams started with Snake wanting to reverse-engineer a Bhangra beat.  We took some time to lay out this traditional Punjabi folk dance rhythm in Ableton, and then we started to add sounds into the mix.  The heavily processed sound you hear at the beginning started life as a tin whistle.  A balloon sounds a bit like a DJ scratching.  The traditional Cats Cradle Robbers percussion staple, the nutcan, came into play.  A tabla sample appears.  DJSE samples his then girlfriend, now wife’s laughter.  Eventually we added synthesized violins, some real guitars, berimbau, and vocals.

The lyrics present an imagined scene, tripping on mushrooms in the rainy streets of Mumbai after a night of clubbing during monsoon season. 

It's not raining, it's steaming

Urchins blaspheming Shiva

And in weaving these visions

To believe is to leave her

Cars and bars and whores amid the Bollywood nights

The lights and the stars making the boulevard soar (sore?)

'Til they lock the doors and it's just me, alone

Walk in the warm rain

Steam rising from the street, in the heat

To be alive in the city of flowers and songs and mycelium dreams

What About That Pasta (Feat. Steven Harry Markowitz)

Steven Harry Markowitz: Piano

Snake: Guitar

DJSE: SSE

Steve Markowitz and Snake, under the name Polyrhythmics, performed improvised music at various open mic nights in the Seattle area in the early 2000s.   In this track, we relive those moments with a pair of free improvisation bookends around an electronic piece tying together their duet with DJSE’s beats.

Steve is a brilliant composer and improviser, and his own music is well worth a listen and can be heard at his page on last.fm.

We have a winner!

When we started talking about Seen and Unseen and what we wanted to do with the cover, we weren't quite sure what to do.  Neither DJSE nor Snake had any brilliant ideas.

It was DJSE who had the idea of running a cover contest.  We weren't sure we would get any submissions at all.  But thanks to Instagram, thanks to Twitter, and thanks to IndieNation putting the contest on their front page, we wound up getting 8 submissions, including some really nice ones that we had trouble choosing between.

And the winner is...

Artist: Carlie Reilly

Carlie submitted an early version of this concept as a slightly blurry photo in black in white.  After reading our feedback, she added color, manipulated the drawing digitally, and submitted a new version with a sharper photo.  The art plays like an homage to 1960s psychedelia, and we were knocked out by the detail and especially the hand-drawn version of our logo.  The overall style is bold and it looks right at home next to the rest of our covers.  CONGRATULATIONS, CARLIE!

But we had 7 other submissions which deserve to be seen and celebrated, so here are the 7 submissions that did not make the final cut:

	Artist: Sergei Nitchenko Sergei's submission was simple and striking, with strong colors, and a really nice integration of our logo.  We liked the way the text in the title fades in and out of visibility.
	Artist: DJSE and Salome Ann DJSE and his wife spent an evening creating inkblots, and this striking and delicate blot was the best of the lot.  This one was a strong contender (but we liked the winning entry even better.)
	Artist: Ajesh Palelil The detail in Ajesh's black and white line art is really striking, and we felt some connection in this shot to our track "Diablita".  Cropping it square and adding a vignette helped to make it more like an album cover.
	Artist: Brett Tiff Brett's entry is stunning, and this execution reminds us of some of the early Wyndham Hill records.  We love the art at the top, and enjoy the way our logo balances nicely in the middle.
	Artist:  Daniel Burkert Daniel's spare line drawing nicely captures the idea of being seen and unseen, and plays on the latin character of many of our tracks, especially the title cut.
	Artist: Dustin Simpson This cover concept captured the album theme very well - the lava lamps, hidden buddha and partially obscured logo really nailed it.
	Artist: Lianna Langkamp Lianna took one of the photos from our Jack in the Bucket album release party, and made it into line art.  We loved the cartoon versions of ourselves, the yowling cat, and her responsiveness to feedback - she produced three versions of this in response to requests.

In the end, everybody wins.

We were very pleased with all of the submissions we received, and everybody who entered will receive a free download code for the album once it's available.  Carlie will get 5 download codes for Seen and Unseen, plus a video interview, plus we'll spam her name all over twitter and instagram - all very well deserved.  And of course, her art will grace the cover of our all-digital album in every digital marketplace and streaming service. A great big THANK YOU to all of the artists who participated!

-DJSE and Snake.

The Album Cover Contest is ON!

 Attention Artists!

For our upcoming album Seen and Unseen, we are soliciting art from our listeners.  If chosen, your art will be used as the album cover for the all-digital release, and will appear on ITunes, Amazon, Spotify, and everywhere else digital music is sold.

What will you win?

If your art is chosen, you will win the following:

•          Your art will be used as the cover art for the all-digital release of Seen and Unseen
•          5 free download codes for the album
•          Promotion for you and your art on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, including posts promoting your work through our marketing partner IndieNation
•          A video interview about your art on our YouTube channel

How to enter

-          Post your original artwork to Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #ccrcovercontest OR post directly to our Facebook wall, OR post using the form on Indienation here.

Additional rules and restrictions

•          Contest starts February 22^nd 2015 at noon and ends March 21^st 2015 at midnight
•          Final artwork must be an image least 1400x1400px square and high resolution.  (Images posted for judging can be any size sufficient for our evaluation.)
•          Image must be your original artwork and copyrighted by you
•          Submission to the contest gives Cats Cradle Robbers the right to use your submitted image for promotional use in any format and in any media in perpetuity. 
•          Our rights are non-exclusive – you retain the right to use your image or transfer non-exclusive rights to your image to others.
•          No promise or guarantee is made or implied that there will be a winner or that a contest entry will be used as the cover art for this or any other album. 

Tips and Hints

•          The theme of the album is transcendant experience, including religion, spirituality, drug induced euphoria, dreams, and psychology.
•          Listening to the album is a great place to start.  Our works in progress are in a Soundcloud playlist here: https://soundcloud.com/catscradlerobbers/sets/seen-and-unseen
•          You can represent one of the tracks on the album, the overall concept, or just do what you’re inspired to do
•          Your art should incorporate the title of the album and our band logo (or provide space for us to add them)
•          Check out the covers of our existing albums to see what we’ve used in the past!

Good luck!

- Snake and DJSE, Cats Cradle Robbers 

SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/catscradlerobbers

Instagram: @catscradlerobbers

Twitter: @ccrseattle

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsRn7PraSc2p2LtHzmPEiUw 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catscradlerobbers

Adventures in social media marketing, (or How IndieNation is saving the world)

Folks who follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Spotify are aware that we're engaged in a battle at the moment. (UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for voting for us - we came in second place in the Rock/EDM/Alternative battle)

No, it's not a legal battle.  It's not even a music battle, though it's couched in those terms.  

This is a social media battle.  Sponsored by IndieNation (makers of the Indie Nation App), this is the second battle in a series of events designed to help Independent musical artists leverage social media to grow their fan base, with the ultimate goal of breaking big in the music world.

There have always been independent artists, playing in local scenes everywhere, and often invisible or limited to small niches.  What's popular is not an indication of who is the best - it's just who has the best marketing machine behind them.  In the past, indie artists printed their own records, they worked the road (Snake spent two years touring the Southwest in the early 1990s and can tell you that it is fun and rewarding, but a really lousy way to try to make a living)

Anthony Barksdale, the mastermind behind IndieNation, understands that music marketing is not what it used to be.  The old system of big A&R departments, top 40 radio, and corporate marketing campaigns targeting carefully selected musical niches is crumbling.  Cheap and easy access to music on the Internet means that profit margins for large multinational music machines are eroding.  That means we need a new model for musical artists to make money - a model that is still in the formative stages.

What has changed?  Well, the independent artists haven't gone away.  Financial success in music is still determined by popularity and marketing, not by talent.  BUT, the playing field is more level, more open.  It's now up to individual artists to market themselves, and they have an unparalleled global stage to do it on.  Musicians may still be discovered by an A&R exec ploughing through a pile of demo tapes, or by a promoter visiting a small smoky bar, but they are also breaking on YouTube through viral social sharing, or being promoted one message at a time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Spotify, or sites dedicated to independent musicians - sites such as SoundCloud, BandCamp, blend.io, RadioAirplay.com or IndieNation and its affiliates Indie Speaks and UnsignedArtists.club.

How are Cats Cradle Robbers responding?  We're learning!  The past week participating in the battle is teaching us more than ever before how to leverage our social network to get votes.  Here's some of our key learnings out of the exercise:

• Getting people to see your message is the first challenge.  On Instagram, that means leveraging  relevant hashtags such as "#electronica, #edm, and #seattle to get our message out of our narrow channel and into the public eye.  On Facebook,  that means using every trick in the book to get each message shared and liked as much as possible so that Facebook will show it to more people with higher priority.
• Enlisting help means personal interaction.  Figure out who your champions are and get them on the phone to call their friends.  If you run into a friend on the street, grab their phone and enter their vote for them (with permission, of course :-)).  Make it impossible for people not to help!  One of the vocalists on our battle track It Begins is phoning all of her friends in Chennai, India and asking them to vote every night while the rest of us are asleep.  Friends like that are your key connectors, and their help is vital to success.
• The content is not important.  We posted a recent work in progress somewhat at random, and used this as our battle song.  With social media marketing, you are not trying to engage people based on the quality of the material - you are leveraging loyalty and goodwill  to develop a mutually trusting relationship with your audience.
• Feedback to your audience is important.  When they vote, thank them.  Show them the results of their actions, and make them feel like they're making a difference.  Create excitement and encourage others to share that excitement.

What does this mean for our financial success?  So far, the results are not yet in.  Marketing and publicity professionals will tell you that building a social platform and finding an audience that is engaged and active is the most important precursor to marketing success.  For us, at this point we're working to build visibility and acceptance for our unique brand of electroacoustic recorded art music.  

With your help, we can win this battle.  

Once we make that milestone, we're hoping that IndieNation can help us win the war.

Keep voting!

-Snake and DJSE

A Quirky Time for Something New

Release date: 9/11/2014

Third of three albums to date, A Quirky Time for Something New features material from the last few years.  Darker and more atmospheric than our previous releases, it still maintains the eclectic mix of electronic and acoustic sounds you’ve come to expect, and as usual the music is all over the metaphorical and literal map, evoking sounds from Africa (Papa Pi), feelings from Syria (Damasculated), and ideas from Hungary (Vörösszem), among others.

As with all of our music, we start with improvisation and continue through an iterative process of composition and construction using samples from the original improvisation, sometimes adding sounds and additional artists along the way.  We share thanks and writing credit with our guest artists P-Rose, Dean DeCrease, Joe Breskin, Sumit Basu, Court Crawford, Steve Markowitz, Matt Pickard, and DJ Essey’s dad Ed Essey, Sr, not to mention Snake’s lovely wife ParisAnne for forcing us to clean that shed.

The creative process is split pretty equally.  DJSE does the bulk of the hands-on construction in Ableton Live, but we regularly hand projects back and forth or work in parallel on two laptops.  DJSE builds out most of the percussion loops, often using samples we’ve captured using found objects.  Snake often takes the lead on harmonization.  DJSE takes Snake’s melody lines, chops them and recombines them so they are a product of our interaction.  The process we simplify down to the three terms “Synth, Sequencing, and Effects” is a creative task that encompasses everything from building drum loops to complex composition to audio envelope manipulation and filtering.

Mixing and mastering was done by DJSE in the Jaguar XKR Mobile Editing Suite (aka The Mes).

Without further ado, the tracks:

Neuroverdrive (Ch'min'ter) (feat. P-Rose)

DJSE: Synth, Sequencing, Effects (SSE)

Snake: Vox, Lindsey fretless tenor guitar

P-Rose: slide whistle

Neuroverdrive is the first of two tracks recorded one October weekend on a trip to Port Townsend, Washington.  We tracked this the first night in our room at the Palace Hotel.  The lyrics and name came about in a fun word game over a sushi dinner before our creative session.  Snake made effective use of a heavy-duty room fan by singing into it for built-in FX.

Ba

Ba

Ba

Neuroverdrive

Ch’min’ter

Neuroverdrive

Ba

Ch’min’ter

Ba Ba

Neuroverdrive (3x)

Ba

Ch’min’ter

Neuroverdrive

P-Rose lays down a slide whistle take

Marking the Lindsey’s fingerboard to facilitate playing the solo harmonic line in the latter part of the track.

One N Anette

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Ukulele, Lindsey fretless tenor guitar

A lovely floaty thing featuring Snake on ukulele and Lindsey guitar.  Several different motifs on the uke are combined in different ways over DJSE’s spare percussion.

At the Top of the Stairs

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Lindsey fretless tenor guitar, throat-singing, handrail, violin, door handle, wine glass

Dean DeCrease: Vox, bones

Somewhere in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, a nondescript door leads to a large open and irregular space, a sort of oversized anteroom leading to bathrooms, utility rooms, and a concrete stairway to the parking garage.  The large empty space produces a natural reverb that we wanted to put to our nefarious purposes.  We set up shop here one evening after work.  Snake brought the Lindsey guitar, a violin, and a couple of glasses to go with a nice bottle of Tempranillo he had been saving.  DJSE set up shop on top of a case of toilet paper borrowed from the utility closet.

Snake took advantage of the space by bowing the Lindsey guitar, and we balanced that decision by sampling the violin pizzicato.  Throat singing, an improvised glass harmonica, and a nicely resonant handrail down the stairs rounded out the samples.

Recording At The Top Of The Stairs on a makeshift editing table

Preparing to bow the Lindsey guitar

 In a later session at Cats Cradle East, Dean DeCrease provided some vocal samples and played a set of pork rib bones against the backing beat.  These found their way into the final track as well.

Sporking Battalion (feat. Joe Breskin)

DJSE: Piano guts, guiro, SSE

Snake: Piano guts

Joe Breskin: Guitarron, Guitar

Joe Breskin and P-Rose, spork war

The same trip that started with Neuroverdrive found us on the second day at Joe Breskin’s Port Townsend wonderland.  Since our last trip to Joe’s, he had acquired the strung plate from a discarded piano, and had it standing upright on his front porch.  We set up mics and explored this with sticks and mallets, sampling individual notes as well as glissandi.  Ed laid out a Latin beat, including both a sampled guiro and one he played live.  Joe played guitarron and guitar. 

At some point in the afternoon, Payton challenged Joe with a plastic folding spork.  Joe countered with a titanium spork, and the battle was engaged, giving us a handy title for the track.  Working titles rarely stick with us, but “sporking battalion” has survived unchanged from day 1.  (As has Neuroverdrive – that was a magical trip).

In post processing, we chopped Joe’s guitarron track into note samples and Ed built this into the back half of the tune.

The resonance of the plate and the sympathetic vibrations of the strings in the middle portion of the track make for a really magical ambience.

Ed, sampling the piano guts on Joe’s porch

Breskin tickles the Guitarron.

Quirky Hour for Something New

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Guitar

It was about 2 AM, long after the appointed time to leave the studio.  We were done – done, dammit, and in the wake of a newly finished track, DJ Essey started whipping together a new arrangement. 

Snake was incredulous – it was a weekday and there was work in the morning.  It was his house and he was ready to go to bed, but DJSE was onto something, creating something really catchy.  It was so cohesive and complete that it took us several sessions and many months to find a way for Snake to weave in his musical voice, playing on his Yamaha classical guitar.  We really like the result, and hope you will too.

We like to think the release date for the album – 9/11 – is a quirky time for something new and creative.  Snake’s daughter P-Rose was due to be born on September 17^th 2001, and the attack on the twin towers had he and ParisAnne wondering if it was a good time for a child to come into the world.  Quirky Time indeed.

Heavy Mike

DJSE: SSE

Snake: electric and acoustic guitars, piano, electric bass

This simple track has been the source of many an argument between Snake and DJSE.  DJSE would love to make music as simple and melodic as this.  Snake thinks it’s been done – “too commercial” he says.  “Not breaking new ground”.  In the end, we’re both attached to it.  It’s pretty and has just enough of our personalities to keep it interesting.  It’s a little bit grunge and a whole lot of pretty.

The original track consisted of the A/B pair of progressions that makes up the head of the tune.  The minor section that follows is something Snake made up when we started putting this collection together.

We would love for you to imagine a deep backstory to the title of this track, but the reality is pretty silly.  Ed had recently made two purchases – a nice new microphone, and a pretty flimsy mic stand to go with it.  The mic was all set up to record the rhythm guitar on this track, we turned our back, and boom. 

Heavy Mic.

Vörösszem (feat. Sumit Basu and Court Crawford)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: 2xtar

Sumit Basu: Piano

Court Crawford: Upright bass

Smashing together the Hungarian words for “red eye,” Vörösszem is another piece fit for the darker side of time. Shortly after Snake returned from a trip to Hungary, and on the birthday of Nick's friend and co-worker Attila Voros, Sumit joined CCR in the cradle for the third time (following his previous contributions on Jack in the Bucket and Toasting More often). Flush from a few shots of Palinka, we loaded a deep ascending A Hungarian Gypsy scale on synthetic bass, and began weaving wicked stuff around it.  Later we invited the immensely talented Court Crawford to add his upright bass to the mix, and this drove yet another reinvention of this track.  Bowed, plucked, and struck 2xtar drives the undercarriage to make bodies move.

Damasculated

DJSE: SSE

Snake: 2xtar, banjo, slide guitar

On September 1, 2013, US President Barack Obama announced that he was seeking approval to take military action against Syria in the wake of alleged chemical attacks against Syrian nationals.  On September 3, we met for a music session.  Snake brought the 2xtar, and we were inspired by feelings of fear and uncertainty about what would happen in Damascus.

This track, with the banjo and the fife, and the deep warlike drone of the 2xtar, feels like an American battle cry – marching to war in yet another nation as the peacekeepers of the world.  There are mixed feelings of nationalism and sarcasm in the result – and over it all a feeling of being helpless to further or to stop the violence.

Jaanaap Conspiracy (feat. Steve Markowitz)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Vox, Electric guitar, Wine glass, electric dih, electric bass

Steve Markowitz: Piano, Sarcasm

This ethereal, after-dark jazz piece features irreverent jazz pianist Steve Markowitz.  Did Steve’s dog actually go to Juilliard, or was he just throwing us a metaphorical bone?  I’m not sure we’ll ever know for sure.

“Jaanaap” is an invented word that refers to a mixed time signature in which multiple instruments are aligned on the beat, but playing different numerical cycles.  In this track, the drums are playing in 3/4, the piano and bass in 4/4, and the electric dih in 5/4.  Nick Dallett refers to this as “eighth note pulse” in his book The Musical Experience, and uses it as a structuring mechanism for improvisation.  Jaanaap is distinct from Hemiola, in which the time signatures align on the length of a bar.

The Trinity Paradigm (feat. Matt Pickard)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: guitars

Matt Pickard: guitars

Matt was visiting us from Vancouver, WA, and took some time to duet on guitars with Snake.  Matt then overdubbed additional guitar parts.  The thing that really makes this track is the interplay between the guitars and DJSE’s hypnotic tapestry of synthesized piano parts.  This is an exceptionally tasty track.

Matt strategizing between takes

  

Up To Go Down (Feat. Ed Essey Sr.)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: 2xtar, guitar

Ed Essey, Sr.: guitar

Before we started assembling this collection of tracks, Snake started work on a track on his own.  It was in his favorite time signature – 5/4 – and it was intended to feature the 2xtar.  When we were nearly done with the album, it was clear that the 2xtar would be a major part of the album.  Snake suggested bringing the new track along to round out the 2xtar-focused project. 

Snake lays down the original track

About this time, Ed’s dad visited and we brought him into a session to show him what we did.  We let him play some guitar riffs along with the new track.  We liked what he played, so we added them into the final track.

Esseys Junior and Senior

Papa Pi

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Guitars (Gibson L6, Yamaha classical, Lindsey fretless, Ron Ho steel string, Dobro)

Papa Pi was originally recorded on Snake’s deck back on July 15, 2011.

DJ Essey had been researching sub-Saharan African rhythms, and Snake had always wanted to try to build a multi-guitar afropop track.  After several years resting, and remixing with some new electronic sounds, the final result is an afropop-flavored construction with our own unique electronic twist.

Left to right:  Gibson L6, Dobro, Ron Ho steel string acoustic, Lindsey fretless tenor guitar, Yamaha classical

Honeydew Waltz

DJSE: Candy cane tube, spray can, paint tray, volleyball, SSE

Snake: 2xtar, lawnmower, glass lightshade, saw blade, drill, circular saw, jigsaw, flex hose, wonderbar, mayonnaise jar

ParisAnne: motivation

Who wouldn’t love a power-tool waltz line?  In this latest in the series of real house music (following the tradition of Salumba Parte and Boiling the Ocean), we took to Snake’s shed for a new boil.  Christmas decorations, power tools, and all manner of home improvement miscellanea found their way into the paws of the creative duo, who managed to create a hip, modern dance number while checking a big task off of Snake’s todo list.

Introducing the 2xtar. (pronounced two-by-tar). While boiling the shed, there were enough power tools in place that we could build an instrument with found objects. This instrument strings heavy wire across a length of 2x4.  Since this was home-improvement wire, not instrument-grade strings, we had a lot of slack to take up, and we wedged two camping-sized propane tanks to form a dual bridge. To capture and resonate the low frequencies, we screwed on two large cement mixing buckets.  The 2xtar was born! This instrument, with its squealing high-end, distinct percussion shrieks, and resonating bass that adds the signature sound for most of this album.  Check out themusic video to see the 2xtar get built!

Snake plays the 2xtar to DJSE’s beat at the release party for Jack in the Bucket, March 2014 at Row House. 

Zzik'kundz (feat. Court Crawford)

DJSE: Quarter and nutcan, Jar of change, SSE

Snake: Egg shaker, Ukulele, Electric bass, Berimbau, Piano

Court Crawford: Upright bass

One of the swingingest tracks on the album, Zzik’kundz’s core is an interplay between Snake on ukulele and Snake on bass.  The spinning quarter on an empty nut can is a throwback to First Frost in the Garden.  Court Crawford’s upright bass and a wicked battle between Snake’s electric uke and DJSE’s synthesized trumpet round out the piece.

We hope you enjoy these 14 tracks!  Please reach out and let us know what you think - here or on our facebook page.  

What we did on our summer vacation

Here in Seattle it's Bumbershoot time - the biggest music festival of the year, and the last big bash of summer before kids return to school. Seems appropriate that we're nearing a big musical milestone of our own.

We're delighted to announce that we're weeks away from the album we've been working on since Spring - A Quirky Time for Something New. As you can see from this snapshot of our project tracking page, we're down to finishing touches on the Hungarian-inspired track formerly known as Voros Nem, and working on cover art that will feature the 2xtar - the unique instrument that we invented during the Honeydew Waltz session and that is featured on a number of tracks on the new album.

Musically, we think we've outdone ourselves with the new material, and we're looking forward to hearing what you think!

- Nick "Snake" Dallett, and DJ Ed Essey