►New track: Sunrise on Riva Centauris

Just published a new track on my page and the usual places (Reverbnation, Soundcloud, others to go) and wanted to share it on here aswell.

It’s called “Sunrise on Riva Centauris” and the idea behind it was to create a genuine Chill out track, totally based on samples, trying to create a special atmosphere in a soundscape that depicts the sun rising on a distant (imaginary) planet.

I’ve used quite a lot of samples, and many of them I modified prior to using, so that I managed to get exactly the sound I wanted.

It’s the most electronic track I’ve made yet and the one that is most Ambient, or better, Soundscape. It’s like a picture almost…

Take a listen for yourself and tell me what you think 🙂

Sunrise on Riva Centauris - Soundscape chill out ambient

►Check out this review of my music

Thanks to the initiative of Matthew Alexander from Free World Radio Telecasting, I can now share with you a really fine review that he made of my music:

http://musicreview4jamminsquirrelproductions.blogspot.com/

A big “thank you” to him for writing such a carefully prepared and well-written review, he really got to the essence of my music and I feel honored with his final words where he says I should go for a live act, something I definitely have planned for the future but it’s great to feel supported on this.

So, I finish this post with recommending you a visit to his label on Reverbnation,  Free World Radio Telecasting, and check out their artist roster:

http://www.reverbnation.com/label/freeworldradiotelecasting

►It’s time to… Keep Calm And Carry On!

Remember this post?

Well, I just finished the song and already let it out into the world, you can find it on the Reverbnation profile and widgets, on Bandcamp or download the MP3 directly with this link.

But for your convenience, here is an embedded player from Soundcloud so you can hear it immediately while still reading this text:

This is the first Downtempo track I produce, and it is quite different from my previous songs, especially because it is the first that is almost completely made from samples. Exception are the voice takes and the historical recording medleys.

As I already explained in the first post, the idea inspiring this song came from an historical poster:

Keep Calm And Carry On Poster
Keep Calm And Carry On

It gave face to a campaign that the british government started during World War II, to try and keep its population away from panic and fear.

While one could say that the message is not totally wrong, they certainly did came close to what we call propaganda and I think it is quite ironic to tell people to keep calm and carry on while there are bombs hitting the houses one street away from you…

So I found this story quite interesting for its controversy and also liked the classic poster, which has since become public domain and been used in many variations and even colours on tshirts, cups, whatever…

My idea then was that I would record as many different people and voices as possible, saying that sentence over and over again, mixed into a track that has a nice and relaxing harmony/melody, while then, from time to time, suddenly creating a shocking contrast with a wild medley of authentic historical news recordings from WWII and 9/11…

The message? It’s upon you… you can choose between two:

1) Times today might be better then during WWII, but still things often get so bad you feel tempted to stick your head into the sand like the ostrich and just repeat over-and-over: Just keep calm and carry on.

2) If you don’t like the idea of being compared to an ostrich, you can think of it as an ironic, critical demonstration of how wrong that sentence really is: one moment you’re listening to a voice saying it with calm, neutral intonation, the next moment, voices are all joined together, becoming menacing and as if that wouldn’t be enough, you suddenly feel you’re in the middle of all the terrible happenings from September 11… So, do NOT keep calm and carry on, DO SOMETHING…

Hope you like it, and if yes, don’t forget to leave a comment with your feedback and share the track with your friends 🙂

►Nice exposure for my project

Made an interesting deal on Fiverr with a music promoter (Sean Presley) who seems to be very serious about what he does and although we made this deal not long ago, he has already done some good work for me and more is to come.

Part of this is an article he posted on his most visited music blog, check it out, looks really nice:

Promotion post for Jammin Squirrel Productions

 

►Interesting music service

Wanted to share with you an interesting (and quite innovating) music service I discovered some days ago.

It’s called “Ramen Music” and is based on subscription, so it’s like if it was a magazine but instead of articles, its issues (released every two months) feature hand-selected tracks of all kind of styles.

They request us artists to submit our music, and upon acception you receive a fixed value per track which depends on the number of subscribers they have (at the moment it is 150 dollars which is not bad at all, considering you give them only a non-exclusive right of distribution only in their system).

So I submitted two of my tracks (“3 Feet and 1/2” and “Bossa das Pedras”), wish me luck! 🙂

And I thought it would be a good idea to share this opportunity…

So here’s the link to them: Ramen Music