New album release: “Just Few Things”

Life and stuff as usual happend, again – we’ll get back to the “redwinds” shortly. But for now, I can finally say: A new album is out!

Cooking this up for over a year now, I started producing the first bits and pieces roughly early last year – and thought I “might come up with a fresh album soon!” That wasn’t exactly the case, but for various reasons. Mainly, I really wanted to grow as a musician. And that in return meant: Sitting down and learning.

So I did! I listened, and listened, and listened, to a whole bunch of other musicians, producers, from Indie to the big ones, and really tried to figure out what makes “good sound” actual “good sound”. What directions do I want to take? What directions can you take? Where’s the limits – and how far can I come, doing everything myself, from the very start up to the final mastering?

Mind you: I still consider myself a rookie, and I’m far from what any professional could do, obviously. But I think it’s fair to say that, compared to my first released EP, I’ve come a long way and did indeed learn a few tricks on this wildly interesting journey called “music production”.

“Just Few Things” is out now, as a Bandcamp exclusive (for the time being at least), and I am really happy with what I achieved here.

I might drop a bit more about it soon, cause there’s certainly some specific aspects I might want to talk about a bit more in detail. There’s a reason I called this my “blood, sweat and tears” release, after all, since there were times where I doubted I could achieve what I had envisioned. But I can confidently say: This is pretty much what I wanted it to be and I’m super happy to have it finally released after all this time!

I obviously did enjoy making this album and I really hope you get to enjoy it as well!

Redwind week2/2024

Not that much went down this week, but at least two things stood out worth mentioning.

Music

Felt a bit like digging around Bandcamp earlier this week, turns out that was a good idea: “The Alley” by Alley Dash was a lovely surprise!
What appears to be a ‘Best Of’ album hit a few spots for me. Some fine sampling and some fine beats, that’s all I really need to give a record more than just one spin. In this case, it came with some instant head-bopping and feet-tapping, so that certainly worked more than well. That it’s available at the lovely low price of “pay what you want” makes it a no-brainer if you’re into these kinda things.
Now I only need to find some time to dig through the rest of the releases from this one, I get the feeling there might be one or two more tunes in it for me.

Cineast

Less of a surprise, since that recommendation came from Donswelt and we’re mostly on the same wavelength when it comes to the things we enjoy: “Blue Eye Samurai” on Netflix.
I got to admit: I can be quite picky when it comes to Anime. It’s often the art style, but especially the animation itself which often just doesn’t nail it for me. In this case, I can absolutely say: Stunning work!
Revenge stories are just my kinda thing and it’s no wonder that I’m now halfway through just within two days. But the animation is what really makes this one stand out. Such fluid fights are just a pure pleasure to watch, and trust me when I say: When it hits, you feel the impact of it. Few flying body parts and fluids on top of that (never too much), and this ends up being *just* the right mix for me. Also: For a side character Ringo is unlawful charming and I don’t think it’s possible to *not* like that guy.
I really can’t wait to dive back into it and finish the rest of this first season – and probably won’t mind in the end if there will be more of that show.

“Privately” Re-Release

As some may know, january of 2022 I released “Privately” on Bandcamp. Beside messing around with sounds and experimenting a bit here and there prior to this EP, this marked not only my very first public steps in making music, but it also changed something for me.

The amount of support and feedback (mostly positive!) was quite a bit overwhelming, but I got it – looked like this wasn’t “just another thing on the internet” I just do and then move on. Looked like music was there to stay, hu?

Followed up by an full Album then (Music Is Everything Is Music) summer the same year, and another EP (ASPHALT) shortly after, I then took it a bit more to streaming – only to take a major break and basically go full “radio silence” mode for quite a bit now. The reason? Working on a new album.

By now, I’ve been into “music production” for roughly about two years (minus the… let’s call it “20 years of bit practicing before”, shall we?) – and I took notes. I kept at it, I jammed, I composed, I arranged, I looped. I (actively!) listened to a whole lot of other great music, I exchanged with other fantastic, talented and likeminded souls. I tried to figure what makes “good songs” actually “good” – and how I could actually destill this “good” from of my own creations.

Continue reading →