Precambrian Resonance on iTunes

Posted on August 10, 2009 by John CS Keston

Recently my solo project, Ostraka, became available on the iTunes Store. Now it’s possible to buy individual tracks. My label partner, Unearthed Music, only sells full albums rather than individual tracks. At such a low volume the transaction fees make individual track sales impractical. That’s why we let Apple handle it for us. Right now the album is floating around in the lonely outskirts of cyberspace, with no ratings or reviews. If anyone is so inclined, please consider visiting the link below to deposit feedback.

Last.fm Preview of Cuba Illinois

Posted on July 26, 2009 by John CS Keston

cuba_illinois Cuba Illinois is the last track on Precambrian Resonance. I produced this experimental ambient piece last September and have made very few changes from the first version that can be heard in the original Audio Cookbook post titled Cuba, Illinois. A consistent thread through piece is made up of sampled vowels sounds running through a vocoder. Here’s the full-length mastered preview on Last.fm.

Listen to Cuba Illinois on Last.fm.

Solo Album will Coincide with 365th Daily Sound

Posted on June 30, 2009 by John CS Keston

I have discussed releasing a solo album centered around the musical output that has emerged as a result of creating One Sound Every Day on ACB. That day has finally come. I have agreed to release my solo album under my moniker, Ostraka, on July 28, 2009, coinciding with my 365th sound. The album is called Precambrian Resonance (Unearthed Music, 2009), a title I used for the ninth sound posted in the OSED category.

It includes fifteen tracks that all began as experiments posted on ACB. Ten of the tracks are full-length compositions, while the remaining five are shorter “micro-tracks” that were originally featured on ACB. The album is available immediately as a download-only pre-release through my label partner Unearthed Music. Here’s the opening track, Illuminator Console.

Illuminator Console

ACB Reader Involvement Requested

Posted on May 19, 2009 by John CS Keston

I have agreed to release my solo album with Unearthed Music on July 28, 2009. This will correspond with exactly one years worth of entries in the One Sound Every Day category on ACB. Since all of the pieces included in this work were inspired by my almost-daily-sound-experiments, it’s a fitting date to release the fruits of my labor. The album is nearly finished and will be released under my Ostraka moniker. Before I master the album I would like to involve ACB readers in the production process by polling you for suggestions.

What are your favorite sounds or micro-tracks that I’ve shared with you during this period? I plan on including four to six pieces from the ACB archives on the release. If you have an opinion about what should go on the album, please respond with a link to the post that has the sound in a comment to this entry. Thanks!

Here’s my latest mix of Blitzen Machine to give you a taste of what to expect from the album.

Blitzen Machine

Another Rhodes Recording from Nublu

Posted on February 15, 2009 by John CS Keston

Here’s another example of Rhodes recorded during our set at Nublu. It’s interesting for me to hear these clips unprocessed and without the other instrumentation, not to mention the excessive crowd noise in the room. During the performance, when I record these clips, I’m usually running the Rhodes through various amounts of amp modeling, eq, compression, delay, and sometimes reverb or filtering. There’s often other loops playing while I record as well as live drums, bass and laptop added by Graham and Nils as you can hear in Segment of Recording from Nublu.

More Nublu Rhodes