Segment of Recording from Nublu

I managed to capture most of both of the Keston and Westdal sets at Nublu last Saturday on my Sony PCM-D50. The recording is pretty chatty, but that’s about what you’d expect in a jam packed small venue like Nublu. Although the mix and quality is bad, these kind of recordings are good for gathering ideas. You never know what might come out of a late night, or rather early morning, jam session. This particular jam started sometime during our second set, shortly after three in the morning, with a loop of drums and synth bass Nils put together that Graham O’Brien (drums) and I joined in on.

After Three AM

Light Traffic in Battery Park City

I made this recording during a five minute walk to one of the several subway stations in the Battery Park City community of lower Manhattan, New York. On this particular Saturday afternoon traffic was light. There was a great deal of construction going on in the area, but most of it was on hold for the weekend. I think it’s a nice example of quiet, weekend afternoon, city ambiance. The recording is quite long, and although I did plan on editing it down to a shorter segment, after listening to it a few times I decided to leave it as it is, including the part in the middle where a car went by blaring early Herbie Hancock.

Battery Park

Keston and Westdal at Nublu NYC

One Sound Every Day entries are likely to be a little scarce until Monday or Tuesday because I’ll be in New York for a performance at Nublu. The group playing is Keston and Westdal with Graham O’Brien on drums. We’ve been busy preparing for this and other events lately, including the Spark Festival in Minneapolis. I’m excited to be visiting New York again. This will be our fifth performance there as Keston and Westdal, and the third time at Nublu, which is a really great venue. I’m also eagerly anticipating the Spark Festival having just learned that Pole will be performing on February 21, 2009.

That said, while I’m in New York I’m planning on making some binaural recordings of environments, street musicians, musical performances, and general mayhem as I encounter it, so I expect to catch upsoon after I return. New York readers and visitors, please stop by Nublu (between 4th and 5th on Avenue C) this Saturday, February 7. We’ll be playing two sets starting at midnight. Here’s an example of what you might hear during our show.

Ostracon
by Keston and Westdal (Unearthed Music, 2008)

Backwards Dissonant Rhodes Chord

I stumbled across this backwards dissonant Rhodes chord while going through the recorded sounds in an Ableton Live project from about two and a half years ago.

Backwards Dissonant Rhodes Chord

Panopticon Rhodes Loop

This loop of Rhodes electric piano is the basis for the track Panopticon on One Day to Save All Life (Unearthed Music, 2008). I played the Rhodes through my Memory Man delay to get a sort of watery quality then captured the recording and looped it for the piece. Here’s one instance of the loop.

Panopticon Rhodes Loop