Tag: Music

New Toys for the Studio!

Fall and winter of 2013 saw a few new instruments enter my arsenal at Studio Sublime. The strangest one came first. My wife bought me something called a Sonic Forest for my birthday. I must admit my initial reaction when she showed it to me was not very enthusiastic as I didn’t really know what to make of it or how I would incorporate it into my music. However, when it arrived I quickly fell in love with it and the experimental, hands on approach to music making that it invited. Basically, the Sonic Forest is a wooden box with a contact mic inside and a 1/4″ audio output. Attached to the box sprouts a forest of guitar and bass strings of various lengths that you can pluck, rasp, bow or otherwise molest to produce a variety of sound textures. It also has a Mute switch and a tone switch that functions as a high-pass filter. I made a short song using only the Forest and effects from Ableton Live and you can listen to it below. You can also check out Electro Lobotomy’s other esoteric creations here: http://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/ElectroLobotomy?ref=l2-shop-info- 

I received a generous bit of birthday money from my Grandpa so I decided it was time to pull the trigger on an instrument I’ve been obsessing over for a while now: A Hank or Steel Tongue Drum. Hank drums are propane tanks modified into beautiful musical instruments. Continue reading “New Toys for the Studio!” →

CDs and Contests and Gigs and News and Stuff

Hey look what I got!
Hey look what I got!

The CDs of Sonidos de Cuba have arrived! I’ve already given a few out to some of my Rockethub supporters and the rest of you will receive them soon. They look great thanks to Tania Clarke’s wonderful album artwork. Next I’ll send off a few to CD Baby so the physical copies will be available there too.

It’s a little funny. Two of the people I’ve given copies to have commented on how long it’s been since they’ve bought a physical CD. I know the format is definitely waning in use as people move towards digital and cloud based music, but I really wanted to have some physical copies. It just makes the album feel that much more real, complete, and professional. Continue reading “CDs and Contests and Gigs and News and Stuff” →

Sonidos de Cuba, finished at last!

Sonidos de Cuba, finished at last!

Sonidos de Cuba is now live and available for download from Bandcamp and CD Baby. I’ve also ordered a limited run of CDs with beautiful artwork by Tania Clarke of Side-B Design.

You can get the album through either of the links below:
http://scottmfr.bandcamp.com
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/scottriesterer

My subscribers may have received a flurry of e-mails in their inbox yesterday. I sincerely apologize for that! I was diagnosing a problem on my website that made the widgets appear at the bottom of the page, and the apparent solution was to republish every post. I didn’t realize that it would e-mail each post again! You’ll notice that the widgets are back at the side of the page, and now there’s a nice little Bandcamp store ready for action.

In the next couple days I’ll be making a more detailed post about the album, describing and explaining the stories behind the songs and the recordings used in the songs.

Sonidos De Cuba

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Back in March of 2010, I travelled to Cuba with my fiancée. We had a great time soaking up the culture, music, and architecture around Havana and Vinales. While there I also did a number of recordings with my Zoom H4N. Since then I’ve been using those recordings as the foundation for an album. The first three songs are now posted in draft form on my soundcloud page here.

The first song uses recordings from the Vancouver Skytrain serving as a departure point and a contrast to the later songs. Calle Musica features a recording from a cafe in the Plaza De Armas. You can hear the clatter of cutlery and dishes along with the chatter of the restaurant patrons mixed with the music from the band. Jinetero uses a recording from Jose Marti Square. There was a large crowd of Habaneros gathered there talking and shouting passionately at each other. I was told they were probaby talking about baseball.

I’m trying to finish up the album by the end of the year. We’ll see how that turns out, but I will be posting more songs as they materialize. Hope you like them!

 

Rain Down Video

This is one of my original songs. I made the video exclusively using footage from archive.org.