Artemis Seven

You Were Here will be here soon

artemis7 — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:09:08 +0000

You Were Here is being distributed to the usual online suspects, and will be for sale there soon. It’s already available on CDBaby, at a bargain price of $4.90. Go get it, if you’re so inclined.

It’s been a productive time in the studio recently, and I’m excited about the next full release.

Single Time

artemis7 — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:40:32 +0000

The EP is done, pending a few final levels checks. I’ll be getting it to the distributors by the end of next week. So good.

In the meantime, a new track, “Leaf on the Water” will be available in the next day or so as a single. I’ll post more information when there’s a place to download it.

Onward

artemis7 — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:24:57 +0000

It was a productive weekend in the studio, and I worked up a new track to replace the one I jettisoned. I’m hoping now that the EP will be a few weeks away.

Classical Research

artemis7 — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:53:10 +0000

It’s been a a great few weeks for making music here at a7 headquarters, but not so good for writing. The arrival of a grown-up real (digital) piano in the studio has put a hold on other things – instead of programming drums, I’ve been playing Chopin and Brahms and Satie and working out theory problems. This is very good stuff, and I can’t wait to see how it feeds back into a7 when I get my composition hat on again.

Raw Materials

artemis7 — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:05:18 +0000

Electronic music is powerful in that a producer can put everything exactly where they want it, and as digital editing becomes more and more powerful, we are seeing this trend in all sorts of music. The highly produced pop music on the radio doesn’t have a beat out of place.

There’s something gained from this, and something lost as well.

I wrote a bit about my process of sanding, but I didn’t mention that it was possible to sand too much. If you remove all the texture, you end up with something featureless. A little grippy-ness here and there isn’t a bad thing. Part of this can be achieved by the raw materials you use to begin with. If you start with a drum synthesizer and a drum kit played by a human being, you will have very different results, even if you polish the heck out them. If you mix materials together – a synthesizer and a piano, a precise drum pattern with a hand drum – then there is an interaction which has some potential. It doesn’t always work, but it puts you in a place where some magic could happen.

An example of some successful magic is DJ Krush’s collaboration with trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, Ki-Oku, which blends trip-hop and jazz, electronic and acoustic, controlled and wild, into something much more than the sum of its parts.

Too Hasty

artemis7 — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:26:23 +0000

I was too hasty in saying I had all the tracks ready! After some more listening and a day full of reworking, I’ve decided one of the tracks on the EP just didn’t work well enough to include, both on its own and how it played with the rest of the songs. I’d rather take a bit longer and have the final result be superb.

Sanding & Gilding

artemis7 — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:30:08 +0000

The tracks of the new EP are finished. It’s 5 tracks, about 33 minutes in total, and offers more variety than I was expecting. Some other tracks I was thinking to have on the EP will be shelved until they fit a bit more with their surroundings.

Now begins the process of producing the final mixes. I listen obsessively to every track and remove small elements that catch my ear. Similarly I’ll add things that cry for something a little special. This is what I call “sanding” and “gilding.” It takes some time, but the result is that the ear can float from one thing to another without getting snagged up.

After that comes the final mixdown, making sure that it sounds good not only on my spiffy headphones but on a car stereo, an iPod, etc. Honestly, it will sound better in quieter environs due to the subject material, but it’s good to know what the damage is.

Preview of “Rainbow Bridge”

artemis7 — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:17:45 +0000

Hard at work on the first EP, which should be 5 or 6 tracks at this point.

Here’s a preview of a interim mix of one of the tracks, “Rainbow Bridge”

Lighting out for the territories

artemis7 — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:56:09 +0000

Welcome to the new home of electronic music project Artemis Seven. We’ve got some new music coming soon and are very excited to be sharing it with you.