SeaStars 2007 album now available at Jamendo

Adrian told me about Jamendo.com some time ago. Was pleasantly surprised to find lots of radio-friendly CC-licensed music.

It took me some time to get our SeaStars 2007 album uploaded to Jamendo (it only accepts WAV format, which is a pain to upload, at about 35MB per song!)

Here it is! http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/37025

Before that, I decided to create an email account for the band (details at our Jamendo profile page).

Jamendo is a social networking site for musicians: upload your songs (singles or full albums), license it under CC, share it, let people discover you, discover musicians you like, post comments/ review their music. You can also see a consolidated page of the comments you’ve posted. The site also recommends stuff that you might like (unobtrusively, I might add).

They also offer stats on your music (no. of downloads, plays etc).

You can offer friendship requests and receive requests as well.

Gotta admit I’m a bit skeptical about “I wanna be your friend” requests, ‘cos I think some musicians who offer friendship often do it to publicise their music rather than make friends. Still, it’s a way to discover other people’s music.

I’m glad Adrian told me about Jamendo.

It’s a very well conceived social networking site for musicians, based on a CC-licensing concept.

Nice.

I like it waaaay better than MySpace music.

~ Ivan

SeaStars 2007 album accepted by XFM 96.3 for radio play

A few months ago, I emailed Mediacorp’s XFM 96.3 and asked if they could use the tracks on SeaStars 2007 for their interlude segment.

The producer wrote back. Said she had a listen and found the music suitable.

Also asked that I send her the tracks in WAV format, which I promptly did.

The music would be aired during the interlude segments. Unfortunately, no mention of the band though.

But at least now we can honestly say our music has been aired on national radio! 🙂

~ Ivan

Discussing music via video chat

Ivan and I were discussing on gmail video chat and then on skype (which had better connectivity) about the 2nd album which is to be called One World, One Moment”. The third album is tentatively called “The Mangrove Tree” although this might change.

Ivan’s been pretty productive so its gonna be tricky compiling this one cos only half will be collaborative. But still the music and mash-ups are a step up from seastars the album.

We are still thinking of a distinctive sound for the music and Ivan hit the nail on the head by mentioning the word mindfulness. Its the general philosophy that the music is built upon

Ivan‘s notes of discussion:

1) Themes/ issues.
e.g. “SeaStars”, “The Mangrove Tree”, “One World, One Moment” (moods)
Issues – e.g Human Rights, Violence, “how screwed up this world is”

2) Musical Philosophy – Mindfulness. period

3) Musical Style – (still exploring)
To me, this is best understood by others through the vocals and instrument sounds they hear. What is this, I’m not sure what. Currently I feel there’s a possible blend of “read aloud poetry” and Asian instruments.

~ Adrian Loo

Song: The Hill (2008)

One of my better songs, if I may humbly say so. I wanted this to be a strong, confident, inspirational tune. Do you think it sounds like that?

“The Hill (2008)” Listen/ download the higher quality versions at ARCHIVE.ORG

The whole song started as a melody (as what you’d hear at the beginning), with a Celtic Tin Flute sound. Then I added more and more layers, adding bagpipes, choir voices. I experimented with a series of different “African Drum” loops, which worked nicely.

The effect seems to be like a marching song from the heydays of the British Empire. You know, the Scottish bagpipes and African drums.

I can imagine the Singapore Army using this in one of their recruitment adverts, LOL.

But it’s not a warring song.

If I ever make a music video for this, I’d start with a single person at the foot of a hill. Simply looking up. Then for no apparent reason, that person starts walking up the hill. And soon, people starts to join the climb. The hill isn’t particularly steep but it’s not an easy climb. On the way, an old woman has to sit down to rest. A young man goes up to her. He carries her on his back the rest of the journey. The music video would end with a view of the people just standing on the top of the hill, quietly looking out on the misty glowing landscape.

This image illustrates the imagery nicely (Climb up the green hill. Originally uploaded by Berni Beudel):

Enjoy the song!

Let me know what you think of it. Leave a comment.

~ Ivan