http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Ambient/AC/index.htm

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Terra Ambient’s Wanderlust has hit the street

Following his widely acclaimed 2004 Lotuspike release, The Gate, Jeff Kowal (aka Terra Ambient) now delves deeply into his most personal space, sculpting a sonic cathartic experience for all to hear.

“It’s a journal,” says Kowal. “What started out as an expected sequel to my previous release, turned into an emotional sketchbook of some major changes in my life, including a move to the American Southwest.”

Previously on “The Gate”, Kowal used strictly acoustic and live recordings to express himself, but this time he turns to the use of electronics and synthesizers to find a deeper voice in Wanderlust. Kowal explains, “Re-integrating digital and electronic sound sources helped me to capture some of the gritty, subtle and grandiose sounds that this music needed.”

Wanderlust does in fact range from the subtle to the grandiose: epic, sweeping and luscious, Wanderlust plays more like a movie soundtrack than an ambient CD. Delicately balanced between tribal, ethno-acoustic earthiness and searing electronic pads and leads, Wanderlust takes the listener on a journey.

“Sometimes the music is expansive, sometimes it’s quiet and myopic,” says Kowal. “Once the project started to gel, it really became something to dive into and get lost with.”

Aside from synthesizers, Kowal brings many other acoustic and electric instruments into the mix, including frame drums and percussion, didgeridoo, electric guitars, bass, bansuri and PVC flutes, and a modular analog system.

For samples and to buy it, head over the the store >

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ARTIST – ALBUM – LABEL

Between Interval – The Edge of a Fairytale – Wanderings
Cluster – Qua – Nepenthe
Robert Davies – Gallery of Spirits – dataObscura
Steve Dinsdale – New Church – Northern Echo
Paul Ellis – The Last Hiding Place of Beauty – Groove
Forest Fang – Phantoms – Projekt
Arve Henriksen – Cartography – ECM
Johann Johannsson – Fordlandia – 4AD
Kevin Keller – Deep Flight – Zebra
Lammergeyer – Beginning to End – dataObscura
Mara’s Torment – Across for Show… – Atmoworks
Nils Petter Molvaer – Hamada – Emarcy
Palancar – Elysium Planitia – Blue Water
Robert Rich – Lumin: Live Archive vol 6 – Soundscsape
Bruno Sanfilippo – Auralspace – AD21
Scanner – Rockets, Unto the Edges of Edges – Binemusic
Saul Stokes – Metacollage – Stokesmusic
Terra Ambient – Wanderlust – Lotuspike
Tosca – No Hassle – K7
Various Artists – Pop Ambient 2009 – Kompakt

http://www.starsend.org

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A sneak peek and look behind the scenes with Terra Ambient on his upcoming release, Wanderlust.

Due out in June

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It is now April 2009 and the latest album Shade by Parallel Worlds has just been released as DiN32. During the intervening releases Boddy has produced 5 solo albums and collaborated on a further 13 with musicians from a diverse range of styles (Markus Reuter, Nigel Mullaney (as Dub Atomica), Chris Carter (of Throbbing Gristle), Mark Shreeve (as ARC), Robert Rich & Bernhard Wöstheinrich. There have also been 11 releases by other artists – Protogonos, Centrozoon, Surface 10, Subsonic Experience, dbkaos, Tetsu Inoue, Radio Massacre International, Hoffmann-Hoock & Wöstheinrich and Parallel Worlds. As part of the “DiN plan” every tenth release is a sampler disc containing a continuous mix of tracks from the previous 9 releases and thus there have been 3 of these iNDEX compilations so far. In fact the first one iNDEX01 (DiN10) was featured on the cover of the June 2001 issue of the well respected music magazine The Wire and helped DiN establish an international reputation. These sampler albums also see the DiN graphic style change for the next batch of releases so an evolution of the DiN albums is easy to follow.

DiN has thus established itself as one of the most innovative, interesting UK electronic music labels over these past 10 years. One of Boddy’s main aims was to allow DiN to act as a bridge between the analogue sound world of the early 70’s synth pioneers and the digtial soundscapes of the more experimental modern exponents of electronic music. DiN continues to embrace new technologies and with the download revolution in full swing has established a sub-label DiNDDL (DiN digital download) to produce a series of
download only albums that will run alongside it’s regular CD releases. There have been 5 of these so far and furthermore these and all of the DiN catalogue are also available on iTunes, Emusic and MusicZeit. Undoubetdly these are challenging times for independent labels but by continuing to evolve and release high quality music DiN is looking forward with relish to the next 10 years.

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of DiN the first sampler disc iNDEX01 (DiN10) that was featured on the cover of The Wire magazine in May 2001 is presented as a free download (256kbps MP3). The CD features 15 tracks covering the DiN1 – 9 releases, many of which are now out of print. The continuous mix features the music of Ian Boddy, Markus Reuter, Protogonos, Dub Atomica, Chris Carter, Centrozoon, ARC, Surface 10 & Nigel Mullaney. To get this music please go to http://www.din.org.uk/news.html

Please send any 10th birthday wishes / comments /
thoughts about DiN and it’s music to
din10@selse.demon.co.uk

Please fell free to circulate this press release
to your contacts and colleagues.

–
Something Else Music Limited
Ian Boddy
http://www.ianboddy.com
DiN – Purveyors of Fine Contemporary Electronica
http://www.DiN.org.uk
http://www.myspace.com/dinuk

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Well, the results are in and it’s official.

Darshan Ambient’s From Pale Hands to Weary Skies is the recipient of the 2008 NAR Lifestyle Music Award’s “Best Ambient Album!”

Congratulations go out to Darshan Ambient!

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New Age Reporter announced their nominees for the 2008 NAR Lifestyle Music Award this week.

Nominated by broadcasters worldwide, this is a impressive list, including two Lotuspike Artists’ releases, Darshan Ambient (From Pale Hands to Weary Skies) and Rudy Adrian (Desert Realms) nominated for Best Ambient Album.

Also on the list is Craig Padilla nominated for both Best Ambient Album and Best Electronic Album for his Below The Mountain release with Spotted Peccary.

Congratulations Michael, Rudy and Craig!

Interested in seeing the entire list of nominees? Check it out at New Age Reporter >

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Lotuspike Interview with Mikail Graham on KVMR 89.5’s The Other Side

Founded in 2004 Lotuspike recently joined forces with Spotted Peccary Music to deliver yet a even wider array of progressive ambient and electronic music. Their goal is to release music of the highest standards while keeping the artist and their unique and individual creative process first and foremost. Join host Mikail Graham for a two hour focus on their new releases including live interviews with its founders and more.

January 13

8pm – 10pm PST

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Johan Agebjörn is a musician who lives in two worlds connected by electronic wires. With a project called Sally Shapiro, he makes smooth electronic dance music. Under his own name, he explores ambient sounds, environmental spaces and gothic tinged melodies. Agebjörn talks about his snow shrouded sound.

See the ECHOES web site for more information on air dates and stations. > >

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Along with Spotted Peccary’s John Gregorius, Darshan Ambient took a spot on John Diliberto’s Essential Top 25 CDs for 2008.

View the full list here >

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Check it out over here >

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100.1 KRUU FM – Deep Winter Chill With Pirate Radio:
An all-Lotuspike show on the coldest day of winter
Saturday, January 19, 9:00 CST (10:00 EST)
tune in to KRUU online >

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Lotuspike applauds this move, and agrees with Steve Jobs’
“[Thoughts On Music][tom]” post in which he indicated Apple’s position
that DRM-free music is better for consumers.

We are working with our iTunes affiliate to attempt to get our music into
the “iTunes Plus” store; at the moment, it’s not clear how independent labels
like ourselves can participate.

Meanwhile, Lotuspike music is available from other sites like
[eMusic][em] in DRM-free formats, and of course remains available
from the [iTunes Store][itms] in the standard Protected AAC format.

[itp]: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/iTunesPlusPage
[tom]: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
[em]: http://www.emusic.com
[itms]: http://www.apple.com/itunes/store

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Just a beautiful image from Jeff’s wife on the road in New Mexico.

Simply worth sharing.

- Daniel

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There are a couple of important presumptions there.

The first, and more easily dismissed presumption, is that if they send you a
CD, you will be interested in releasing it. By [Sturgeon's Law][slaw], that’s
sort of a stretch right there. But let’s not dwell on that too much.

[slaw]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

The second presumption is much more interesting. Even if we posit that they
have recorded the *finest music ever heard by the ears of humankind*, they are
presuming that you will want them to send it.

Hell, why *wouldn’t* you want to hear it?

### Money Enough and Time

Well, first: releasing records is sort of resource-intensive. It takes a fair
amount of two things: money and time.

It costs **money** to press an album. Even assuming, as with Lotuspike,
that the artist himself is responsible for delivering a finished recording
to the label, it costs money to master the recording, to design and prepare
artwork for it, to actually press it, and then to promote and sell it.

It also takes a fair amount of **time** to press an album. By time here, I
really mean *effort*: someone has to, on behalf of the record label, make
all the arrangements for mastering, graphic design, pressing, promotion, and
sales and distribution.

Both of these things mean that your average resource-limited indie record
label (hi!) can only release a limited number of recordings in a given year.
The actual limit will depend on the size of the label, both in terms of
financial resources and in human resources. Bigger labels with bigger budgets
and more staff can likely handle more releases in a given year. Smaller labels
with fewer people and smaller budgets can do fewer releases. (For reference,
there are three of us at Lotuspike, all part-timers, and we operate on a
shoestring budget.)

And all of this means we need to be *extremely* selective about what music we
will release. For Lotuspike, at the moment we have nine discs in our catalog
after three years. At the moment a release pace of four to five discs in a
year is about all we can handle.

### Legal Problems with Unsolicited Demos

An “unsolicited” demo is one that someone sends in without being asked to, or
making prior arrangements for. It is as opposed to a “solicited” demo, one for
which prior arrangements have been made (and the label is expecting).

There are some legal issues to consider. This is more of a problem with the
larger, deep-pocketed labels (because those with deeper pockets are more
likely to get sued than us little guys), but is still something that even the
little guys need to think about.

In particular the problem is this: suppose we release a CD next week, and
Joe Synth comes along the following week claiming we ripped off the music
that he sent us without crediting him. Big copyright infringement lawsuit;
end of label. Only problem is we’ve never heard of Joe Synth. Maybe he
sent us a demo, but maybe we hadn’t even gotten around to listening to it yet.

If instead we adopt a policy that we do not accept unsolicited demos, we
can have a lot more control over what set of demos we can really be expected
to have heard. If Joe doesn’t send us that CD, he can’t sue us for ripping
it off because there’s no expectation that we’ve heard it.

By limiting the number of demos that we accept to the number of albums we can
reasonably be expected to actually critically listen to, process, and reach
consensus on, we limit our exposure to this sort of liability.

### Umm, Did You Listen to Us?

As an aside, we get a fair number of requests (usually through our contact
form on the site) saying “hey my metal band just released this **r0kkin**
album, do you want to release it?”

These are often sort of amusing. But also a little bit offensive at the same
time. I mean seriously, if they didn’t take the time to pay attention to the
fact that we are a *progressive ambient music* label, why should we take the
time to listen to their CD? (Even for amusement value?)

Sometimes we hear some music that is *really* good stuff, but just doesn’t
quite fit. I mean, thrash metal is far enough off that anybody who has any
idea of what sort of music we do would know that that ain’t it, and anyone who
thinks metal would fit here should probably do some more homework before
contacting us. But often we get a (solicited) demo of music that is really top
notch, and we like it a lot personally, and it *almost* fits but just doesn’t
quite match exactly the aesthetic we’re going for with the label. Those cases
are often a little harder to turn down, but again we’re just three guest room
warriors trying to keep a label cohesive and targeted, so we have to pick and
choose what CDs we put our name on. (We’ve reluctantly turned down a few discs
that some of our favorite colleague labels have subsequently released and have
done well. Just because we turn it down doesn’t mean it’s no good!)

### Be Honest With Yourself

OK, I’m not exactly [Simon Cowell][idol]. But are you William Hung, or are
you Taylor Hicks? Actually, American Idol highlights exactly the point I’m
trying to make here. Every (non-prank) Idol contestant comes into those
auditions because somebody, somewhere, told them they could sing. And yet
those initial auditions are often so hideous you can’t turn away. Why does
it happen? Usually, compared to the average shmoe on the street, even
some of the stranger contestants would come off favorably.

But truly any musician who expects to sell CDs to complete strangers needs to
have a really good look in the mirror and decide. Is my music as good as I
think it is? Is it as good as my mom says it is? To be successful as a
professional musician (and by “professional” I don’t mean that it is your
career; rather I mean that you are offering music for sale, and by
“successful” I don’t necessarily mean that you are the next Justin Timberlake;
rather I mean that you are able to achieve your personal goals as a musician,
which apparently include selling CDs to the public), one really needs to
develop the capacity for brutally honest self-criticism, and to encourage
those around oneself to offer one brutally honest criticism.

### Have You Fished the Pond Already?

Another thing that happens to us occasionally is that someone will often ask
to send us a CD, saying something like “I’ve made this great CD, and I think
you will want to sell it, because I’ve been offering it as a free download on
my website for six months already, and 800 people have downloaded it!”

Well gee whiz. So your fans all have the music already, you say? Hmm. And we
should drop two grand pressing it onto a disc so that they can, what, buy it
again? *Hmm.*

Free downloads have their place, for sure. You can download free snippets of
some Lotuspike tracks at the [lotusShop][], in fact. [iTunes][] offers free
30-second snippets of almost all of the songs in the iTunes Store. Those are
intended to enhance the market for a disc by giving a buyer an idea of what
they would be getting by buying the disc. A test drive, more or less. But
in the same test drive analogy, the dealer doesn’t just give you the keys and
say “heck, keep it for a month or more, no need to pay”. You’d never buy the
car if you could get it for free.

### How Unsolicited Becomes Solicited

OK, then, let’s assume that you’ve recorded a fantastic album, and you’ve been
brutally honest with yourself, and it’s still fantastic. And you’re sure it’s
absolutely a *spot on* match for our artistic direction. And you haven’t
diluted the market for it by offering your full album as a free download.
There is *no doubt* that your album would be a *smashing* success as a
Lotuspike release.

But we have no idea who you are. And so we don’t know any of that. So how
do we know you from the aforementioned Joe Synth? Or from the **r0kkin**
hair-metal band? Or William Hung?

The answer is that you have to get to know us, and get us to know you. But
how?

**Connections.**
Maybe you know someone who knows us, or you know that we know. And maybe that
person agrees that your music is great, and can arrange an introduction?

**Dialogue and Reputation.** Maybe you don’t know anyone we know. Yet. So
build connections. Get active on various [forums][hypbb] and [mailing
lists][bem]. Build a web site that showcases your talent (but if you offer
full album downloads, don’t expect to turn around and sell those same
tracks!). Then get in touch and tell us who you are and what you’ve done.
(When you contact us, say something more than just “where can I send my CD?”.
Include a little bio or at least a link to your site.)

And maybe at that point we’ll ask you to go ahead and send in a demo.

[idol]: http://www.americanidol.com
[lotusShop]: http://www.lotuspike.com/shop
[iTunes]: http://www.apple.com/itunes/store
[hypbb]: http://www.hypnos.com/phpbb/
[bem]: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beyond_em/

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I have made a lot of progress since this was taken and all of the walls are now bare, and I am in the process of removing all of the Liquid Nails adhesive left behind from how the wallboard was being held up.

More soon.

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I have actually started construction (destruction) in my basement this week on what I hope will quickly become my project studio (equipped for both music and freelance design purposes). I have had to “undo” some nasties that the previous owners left for me. Most notably are moldy sheet rock and literally NO electrical run for the room.

So why not post a preliminary plan on the blog and let some others comment on what my set-up should be? I could actually use the help. Here are my initial thoughts / factors / constraints / plans:

The initial set-up should accommodate the actual project I want to work on, but with flexibility in mind, since I may decide to change up or perhaps explore other directions along the way. What I want to accommodate right off is:

DAW:
– 2 G4 Mac Titanium Laptops (already have)
– Audio interface / MIDI IO (please help)

*Mixer / Monitoring:
– Mixer? (please help)
– Phones for monitoring (for now)

MIDI:
– M-Audio MK-449C MIDI Controller Keys (already have)
– Secondary control (TBD)

Instruments:
– ESP LTD MH50 Electric Guitar (already have)
– Udu (TBD)
– Frame drums (TBD)
– Various hand percussion (TBD)
– Flute / didge (TBD)
– Various VST / AU

*External Effects? (have not yet decided on this – comments welcome):
I have tossed this idea around a bit, looking to offload some of the CPU load from effects to external units. Comments welcome on external DSP (powercore) vs. Hardware…
– Small Rack (please help)
– Reverb (please help)
– Multi FX unit (please help)

Mics:
(please help)

So I obviously need suggestions for Mics as well as the best way to tie it all together, vis a vis audio/MIDI IO interface. I am aiming to sync the midi clocks on both laptops. The items with * are kind of “what ifs?” In other words, if I go the way of external effects, etc, I would need to more carefully consider these. So I am hoping to generate some discussion here as I move towards an initial set up. Also, keeping in mind that the budget is tight (I have to figure that out yet), and this is a certainly a novice set-up, I want to sensitive to cost where possible without compromising too much those items that are important.

So it may be bare bones at first, but I would like comments on all this stuff.

- dp

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Lotuspike and Carnegie Science Center are pleased to bring back The Ministry of Inside Things, Friday, June 9th at 8:00pm.

The Ministry of Inside Things, consisting of electronic musician Chuck van Zyl and electric guitarist Art Cohen, are considered among the most innovative of US synthesists today. Influenced by the early music of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Ash Ra Tempel, their spacemusic has been described as linear, leading the listener across many sonic terrains. Based on improvisation, The Ministry of Inside Things creates electronic realizations that flow from theme to theme, with the experience often lasting up to two hours. Through use of textures and atmospheres as well as harmony, rhythm and melody, the group transports the audience on an internal sonic excursion.

van Zyl has been recording electronic music and performing live for more than 15 years but is best known for hosting one of the country’s most successful radio shows of electronic music, STAR’S END, for the past 20 years. van Zyl has released two CDs of spacemusic on the Centaur label, Celestial Mechanics and The Relic as well as a collaborative effort with Peter Gulch, Regeneration Mode on Synkronos and The Sound Museum with Gulch and Rath on Groove Ltd. Art Cohen has been pushing the limits of the electric guitar in the studio and in live performance for well over 15 years.

Performance will be accompanied with a laser light show and feature a meet and greet after the show. For more information, email: contact@lotupsike.com.

For more information: http://members.bellatlantic.net/~chuckv/moit.html

For online ticketing: http://www.carnegieonline.org/csc
(look for “voices beyond the dome concert series” at the bottom of the page)

Or e-mail us: contact@lotuspike.com

Call: 412-237-3400 for ticket information

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Lotuspike and Carnegie Science Center welcomes Robert Rich!
Sunday, April 23, 2006
8 p.m. in the Henry Buhl, Jr. Planetarium
$16; $8 for members, students, children and seniors

Join internationally-acclaimed electronic music artist Robert Rich under the dome of the Henry Buhl, Jr. Planetarium with live lasers and special effects. In his 20+ year career, Rich’s music has been distributed and broadcast internationally on major radio shows and has been included in feature films, gallery installations and planetariums across the country and abroad. In addition to his accomplishments as a musician, Robert Rich is also gifted innovator who participated in the creation of MIDI, a global computer language that synthesizers use to communicate with one another. Presented by Carnegie Science Center and Lotuspike Records.

Get more info here >

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Today was the last day for Dr. Robert Moog, a man whose impact on
electronic music and music of all kinds cannot possibly be measured.
He will be missed, though his influence will be felt for decades to come.

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update!

You can now purchase tickets online for our Voices Beyond the Dome concert series @ the Science Center!

Click here for tickets >

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Now that I’ve got the studio nearly reassembled after moving, I’m starting work on my next album, tentatively titled West. It will be sonically similar to On Water, but the compositions will be more structured, in the direction of the last track on On Water, “Pray for Rain”. The first track, “Laurel Ridge”, is finished now; look for an exclusive preview of it in the next lotusCast podcast. We’ll also feature a sneak peek at Daniel’s work in progress as well.

-Ben

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OK, so after a long bout with a mix issue and learning a few things from scratch (thanks Jeff) I have decided to scrap my whole production process and start again.

It’s not as big of an issue for me as it is for an artist with a complex hardware setup or elaborate studio environment. This is mainly because my world is made up of one laptop (mac of course), a entry level MIDI controller and a guitar (which I don’t know how to use yet), so when I say I have abandoned my production process, most of it has to do with the DAW.

Thanks to fellow lotusFounders Jeff and Ben I have come to understand the value of Logic Audio’s mixing flexibility, so i am hooked and off and running.

My only regret is how much time I scratching my head over Ableton Live in the production process…and don’t misread this, I LOVE Live, but I found Logic to exceed my expections when it came to achieving some rather complicated sound sculpting tasks.

Thanks again to the lotusPartners. They are true mentors!

DP

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So I finally upgraded my version of Ableton Live, which I have been lovingly crafting some sketches for my upcoming project.

So, I am finding that upgrading, before it feels beneficial, can be somewhat disturbing and can really, really suck.

I upgraded to a newer version, while still not the latest (v. 4.0.4) , it is newer, and was alleged to fix a clicking / static noise issue with ReWire and MIDI controller movements. In doing so, not only did it not do anything to solve my issues, but now ReWire fails to work at all. Nice.

This is the error I got >

if anyone has any insight, feel free to have at it.

More later after I get things moving again.

DP

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It’s been a while since we added to the blog. Sorry to add to it with a rant…

I am mixing a few things as I approach a CD project, and so far it pretty much is the hardest damn thing i’ve ever attemtped music-wise.

Not sure why i’m struggling this much this time around…it’s not as if I haven’t done this before.

Jeff took a listen and we both agreed it still needs some EQ work and the mix is all up front. Jeff suggested maybe splitting the stereo audio to independent monos to create some more spatial presence. Overall, I have to rip it apart and start again to make room for everthing where it sits more comfortably.

Here is a sample of what i’ve got >

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So, yesterday morning when I was driving into work, I was listening to some music that was really well mixed. This got me thinking about making a list of my “favorite mixes”; i.e., albums that I think are exemplary in mix quality. I’ve started a list here. If you read this and want to add some of your own, please feel free to use the comments on this post.

• Peter Gabriel: So, Passion
• Steve Roach: Mantram
• Robert Rich: Bestiary
• nine inch nails: The Fragile
• Fluke: Risotto
• The Art of Noise: In No Sense? Nonsense! (probably the oldest item on the list)
• Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (whoops, no! much older than TAoN…)
• Madonna: Ray of Light

These are albums that, in my opinion, are so well-recorded that they’re interesting to listen to even if they’re not your favorite style of music (although I note that I’ve chosen albums on which I actually do like the music…). These are seductive recordings — I don’t mean musically seductive, Barry White-type seductive, but I mean that the recording is so good that the sound seduces you into attentive listening.

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