It snowed this weekend.  Finally.

This track is about snow.

7/52: No Two Alike

I think creating a good remix requires the ability to bring out your favorite the aspects of another artist's work while contributing your own take on their piece.  This week, I had a blast with my first attempt at such a project, remixing a track by my good friend Gulab Singh entitled Tittoos.  

Check out Gulab's musics...
here: http://soundcloud.com/sweatsbuffalosauce
and here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cattle-Drums/184903371541276



Sound Sources:
-Sweatsbuffalosauce - Tittoos (http://soundcloud.com/sweatsbuffalosauce/tittoos)
-Violin

8/52: Tittoos (#fromtheDL rEmiX)

This week #fromtheDL, I've done a version of one of my very favorite jazz standards - My Favorite Things.  Though originally written as a show tune for the Sound Of Music, it is the rendition by John Coltrane on his 1961 album that makes this tune what it is to me. Within the track you'll hear a few of my personal favorite things including my good friend Aidan Rush, another founding member of The Organic Sound Project, on saxophone.

Sound Sources:
Violin
Saxophone (Aidan Rush)
Guitar
Clave
Djembe
Shaker
Sample: Carl Sagan - The Pale Blue Dot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnFMrNdj1yY)
Sample: Alan Watts - Prickles and Goo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXi_ldNRNtM)
Sample: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Part II

9/52: My Favorite Things (ft. Aidan Rush)

This week #fromtheDL again features the guitar-originated sounds of Adam LoVerde.  The material comes from an improvisation exercise in which a bell chimes every 1:40 indicating to the musicians that it's time to change direction.  This was a blast - the piece explores the line between noise, sound, and music.  Another set of three is hanging out on my computer waiting to be mixed and whatnot, so I'll get on that and post in the next few days to weeks.

Sound Sources:
Violin
Guitar (Adam LoVerde)

10/52: Zen and the Art of Making Sound (ft. Adam LoVerde)

This week #fromtheDL I teamed up with fellow Organic Sound Project member Tom Batista to bring you a piece in the spirit of Andrew Bird's Useless Creatures.  'Useless Creatures' was a bonus disk of instrumental works Mr. Bird created with Glen Kotche (Wilco) and Todd Sickafoose, released along with his album 'Noble Beast'.  We had an excellent evening listening to and discussing this album, and hopefully we were able to capture some of the essence of what makes a musical creature useless.

Sound Sources:
Violin
Clave
Drum Machine (Tom Batista)
Djembe (Tom Batista)
Shaker (Tom Batista)
Random Ambient Noises (Dan, Tom, James)

11/52: Dan and Tom's Useless Creature (ft. Tom Batista)

It's been a long week.  My apologies to those of you who fell off the edge of your seats.  This is a long track, my apologies for that as well.

Over the past week (read: month) I've been feeling particularly negative about the state of the independent music industry.  My experience in the Boston music scene really hit home the fact that with the advent of social media, much of a local/independent musician's time (and thus mental capacity) is taken up with one of two things: getting people to come to shows, or getting people to see and participate all your internet whirligigs.  The end result, naturally, is that an artist's music becomes a product, with the primary thought being "gotsta put this ish out so lots of people will listen to it, gotsta make this ish listenable for lots of people".  Obviously I'm over-generalizing (projecting?) and this is not the case for everyone - but the pressure is there.  Anywho, I've been playing a lot of music - especially on the Piano at my parents house - but it's been mostly improvised, and whenever I go to turn something fun into a track I hit this block.  There's a lot of stuff sitting unfinished on the back burner.  Maybe this will help clear the way?

Sometimes it's nice to just make noise no one wants to hear...



Sound Sources:
Violin
Shaker
Guitar (Adam LoVerde)
Keyboard Synth (Russ Carpenter)

14/52: A Lot Can Happen In A Day (ft. Adam LoVerde and Russ Carpenter)

So it certainly has been an eventful week (read: summer).  Since "last week", I dislocated my shoulder hiking and ended up needing fix-up surgery about a month later.  You would think that being unable to use my right arm would put a damper in any sort of music-making activities.  However, its given me a chance to explore more in the way of piano/keyboards and production and the like.

Consequently, this time included a week or two with my good friends Andrew Trelease and Adam LoVerde and I all in the Oneonta area, naturally leading to a second year of Hello Mr. Moses.  We had a blast recording material up at the cabin until Adam left town at the end of June.  Mixing of the forthcoming album (which we're calling "The Cyclical Nature of Things") is going well and you can expect to have it in your ears soon.  In the meantime - here's a preview of the opening track.....



Sound Sources:
Percussion
Keyboards
Whistle
Bass (Andrew Trelease)
Guitar (Adam LoVerde)

#fromtheDL is the year-long project of multi-instrumentalist Dan Levenstein. A track a week(ish) for 52 weeks. Like what you hear? Follow along here or at http://fromthedl.wordpress.com/ and stay updated with the new track each week.

16/52: By the Sheer Serendipity of Brain Cells Making New Connections (Hello Mr. Moses)

This week #fromtheDL has been a blast.  

Andy T and I are finishing up the mixes for The Cyclical Nature of Things.  Of course, hard work calls for lots of break activities - hiking, carcassonne, and musicing.  So while youall are patiently waiting for the forthcoming Hello Mr. Moses release, here's some musicsounds we made earlier tonight...

Sound Sources: 
Keyboards
Percussion  
Whistle 
Bass (Andrew Trelease) 
Bark (Zoey)


#fromtheDL is the year-long project of multi-instrumentalist Dan Levenstein. A track a week(ish) for 52 weeks. Like what you hear? Follow along here or at http://fromthedl.wordpress.com/ and stay updated with the new track each week.

17/52: Tail of a Mango (ft. Andrew Trelease)

This week #fromtheDL, another Useless Creature with Tom Batista (you can hear the first one here: http://soundcloud.com/dlevenstein/11-52-dan-and-toms-useless).  Tom came to visit me and get our minds blown by Wilco at the Ommegang Brewery.  After the show we headed back to the cabin - by 3AM, Nels had been born.

Sound Sources: 
Keyboards 
Whistle
Some Percussion
More Percussion (Tom Batista)

Like what you hear? Follow along here or at http://fromthedl.wordpress.com/ and stay updated with the new track each week.

18/52: Nels. Dan and Tom's Second Useless Creature (ft. Tom Batista)

This week #fromtheDL was in fact neither written, recorded, or mixed in any way this week.  It is instead representative of the project that Andrew Trelease, Adam LoVerde, and myself have poured ourselves into over the course of the Summer.

Tomorrow marks the release of The Cyclical Nature of Things, the first album by Hello Mr. Moses available to the public.  Follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/hellomrmoses) for more information and all that jazz.

About the album:
The Cyclical Nature of Things is an album about the cyclical nature of things (life, sleep, chord progressions, and the eerily familiar romantic situation you may find yourself in at this very moment). Almost all of the sounds on the album were written and recorded simultaneously and spontaneously, during a series of loop-based improvisations at the Hello Mr. Moses retreat during the week of June 10th, 2012. The album is as impressionistic as its cover art, featuring intricately melodic bass and keyboards over a broadly painted backdrop of ethereal guitar and vocals driven by glitchy percussive sounds. The music incorporates influences as diverse as electronica, jazz, rock and latin, and re-arranges them to create a sound which is wholly new. Included with the album is a series of visual pieces by Tina Budnik, created during and inspired by the recording sessions.

Silizard is the third track appearing on the album, and one of two for which I was able to record violin, during the short window between regaining shoulder mobility and shoulder surgery.  It's one of my personal favorites.

Sound Sources:
Keyboards
Violin
Percussion
Bass (Andrew Trelease)
Guitar (Adam LoVerde)