Dusty Stray: New album and opening for Carice van Houten shows!

We just got confirmation that Dusty Stray will be the opener for the 3 shows by Carice van Houten later this month. These are the dates for the shows:

April 22 – Mezz, Breda – tickets available
April 23 – Oosterpoort, Groningen – tickets available
April 24 – Paradiso, Amsterdam – sold out 

Carice is an absolute joy to see perform live - she's got this really great band with folks like JB Meijers, Ken Stringfellow, Joost Kroon  - all Basta related in various ways. Dusty Stray is known for great live performances as well. When supporting Noah & The Whale on their 2012 tour of The Netherlands, Dusty Stray "perfectly warmed-up the audience" according to a concert review by 3v12.

Following these concerts, on April 25, Dusty Stray will have the release party for the brand new Family Album at Claires Ballroom in Amsterdam. More info here.

So, about this new album - Let's start by offering you a free track by Dusty Stray to download and enjoy:

The new album will be available in stores and on digital outlets as of April 22. This third release by Dusty Stray on Dutch indie label BASTA is a transatlantic co-production with the legendary American producer KRAMER (Low, Ween, Urge Overkill, Galaxie 500).

KRAMER expressed interest in working with Dusty Stray when he happened to hear debut album Tales Of Misfortune And Woe. He and Jonathan Brown, the man behind Dusty Stray, decided to not let an ocean come between them and started working together on a new album.

For Family Album, Brown wrote and recorded songs in his Amsterdam studio, then sent them to KRAMER for additional accompaniment, mixing and mastering.

Weird instruments
The end result is unlike any Dusty Stray release to date. While the songs are grounded in an intimate folky-acoustic feel, they tend to branch out into other less-charted realms complemented by KRAMER’s sparse instrumentation and bold production style. In addition to his usual guitar and banjo, Brown played a variety of lesser-known instruments such as the sheng, bulbul tarang and a small metal WWII ration box filled with broken cufflinks.

Outsider artist
The title track is an homage to American artist Morton Bartlett, a Harvard-educated bachelor who sculpted his own secret fantasy “family”: large, life-like plaster children who inhabited his Boston apartment and were only discovered after his death. … He made clothes for them and he would put them on their anatomically correct little bodies. He’d take pictures and then he would put them in what he referred to as his family album…

Murder ballad
The new album also features more typical Dusty Stray fare such as songs about love-gone-bad, drowning horses being swept out to sea, a “lullaby” in which a baby screams its head off, and of course no Dusty Stray album would be complete without a murder ballad. In this case a depiction of the religious cult Heaven’s Gate and its mass suicide awaiting the Comet Hale-Bopp. As an added bonus, Family Album’s decorative 20-page booklet is made up of photographs from Brown’s found family photo collection.

The artwork was designed by Sonja van Hamel - here's the cover:

Stay tuned by following this blog or by following us on Facebook. For additional reading, visit Dusty Stray's more than excellent website or Facebook page.

Mastering Esquivel!

In a few months, Basta Music will release an album with newly recorded music by composer / bandleader / arranger / pianist Juan Garcia Esquivel. In line with some other albums we did in the past, like 'The Beau Hunks Play The Original Laurel & Hardy Music' (Vol. 1 & 2) Gurdjieff's 'Oriental Suite' and Raymond Scott's 'Manhattan Research, Inc.', this is another very large project added to Basta's history.

Some interesting background information on the mastering process: Yesterday, I went to join Darcy Proper at Wisseloord Studios. The 'normal' mastering had been done already, it was just gonna be a few extra hours to create masters to be supplied to iTunes and get the 'Mastered for iTunes' label, as well as to create masters to be able to offer 24-bit audio files. Which are funny enough, close-to-the-same sort of files one needs.

One could argue over the need for this extra form of mastering. That arguing has been done enough already on the internet - and by offering this album on CD, on iTunes conform their mastering guidelines, on all other download sites as mp3s and most likely in a 24-bit audiophile version at a few download locations, we feel we are offering this in a taste for everyone.

And now that we're talking release formats: Yes - vinyl would be cool too. It's an option. We might do that when there's some moderate success with this album. And then there's also the option of 4.0 or 5.1 BluRay Audio.....but that's some expensive thing to do! Anyways - some mastering room impressions:

The mastering process itself is boring - even the mastering engineers admit that. It is, however, of critical importance because it determines the sound of an album. When a mastering engineer gets delivered top-notch mixes that are well balanced (in multiple ways), it comes down to detailed refinements. That's what we needed here. One aspect of the process is worth mentioning: we used the 'EMT140 plate reverb'. An EMT140S - for stereo - to be precise.

From StudioElectronics.biz:

In 1957, EMT introduced the 140 Reverberation Unit. The 140 consisted of a large piece of sheet metal, suspended from a heavy steel frame. An electrical transducer (similar to a miniature speaker) transmitted sound energy to the plate, which along with its drive and pickup amplifiers, was built into a heavy wooden enclosure. The 140 was about 4 feet tall and 8 feet long, and weighed about 600 pounds. A damping plate, controlled by a servo motor, allowed adjustment of the reverb time. Though it was much smaller than an echo chamber it was still sensitive to ambient noise, and had to be kept in an isolated space. Still, the “plate” was a great advance. Instead of building 8 echo chambers, a large facility could put 8 140’s in a small iso room. And it was the first cost effective answer for smaller studios, where actual chambers weren’t feasable. EMT 140’s didn’t sound exactly like a real room but they sounded very good, and remained the most popular studio reverb for many years. The early ones used tube electronics, but in the 70’s EMT began shipping them with transistor circuitry. EMT released a primitive digital reverb in 1972, the rack mount 144, but its capabilities were limited, and few survive. 

The 140S production-start dates from 1961, and this one has serial no. 3281. Just so you know :). We chose the stereo version instead of 2x mono, because using 2 mono chambers would possibly come up with unpredictable results, because one would be sending LEFT and RIGHT through different chambers. With the EMTs being partly mechanical devices: using double mono might disrupt what was carefully created during the mixing stages. Unpredictable results can have its charm, but was not what we were looking for for this album. Using the stereo version keeps the stereo image in balance and the center image stable. Easy choice.

The usage of the EMT added exactly what we wanted for this recording: a tiny touch of vintage, glueing everything nicely together while maintaining high detail and fidelity. I made some pictures of the 'EMT line-up' at Wisseloord:

That last picture serves multiple purposes: it shows the other 4 EMT's, it shows a very happy engineer Darcy ánd it shows Wisseloord provides their people with plenty of fruit!

When one listens to the masters now, there's such a richness in sound and the placement of the instruments is just amazing. Add to that the perfect play of the Metropole Orkest and all soloists, performing the explosive and catchy music of Esquivel - and you've got a winner.

Some more on mastering engineer Darcy Proper at Wisseloord Studios in The Netherlands:

From the Wisseloord pages:

Before becoming involved with Wisseloord, Darcy was senior mastering engineer at Galaxy Studios in Belgium and at Sony Music Studios in New York City. She has worked on a wide variety of music ranging from re-issues of early acoustic mono recordings to current 5.1 high-resolution surround releases for BluRay.

Early in her career, Darcy spent many years as a classical engineer/editor and brings much of what she learned in that arena to her mastering. Thus far, Darcy has been honored with 2 Grammy awards and 7 nominations and has won several TEC awards and Surround awards for her work. She mastered historical reissue projects for such prestigious artists as Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash, and André Hazes.  She has also worked on stereo & 5.1 front-line releases for many talented artists including Steely Dan, The Eagles, R.E.M., Donald Fagen, Porcupine Tree, Peter Maffay, Toots Thielemans, and Söhne Mannheims.

Next post about this album will hold album cover, track listing, soloists, release date and..... audio!

Album release: The Secret Year by JB Meijers

J.B. Meijers (1972) is a respected producer and musician. He has worked with an impressive list of names on the Dutch music scene, including De Dijk, Carice van Houten, Acda en De Munnik, Go Back To The Zoo, Eboman, Metropole Orkest, Daryll-Ann, and Frank Boeijen.

He has also shared stages and studios with such non-Dutch artists as Solomon Burke, Van Dyke Parks, Ken Stringfellow, (The Posies, REM), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) and Howe Gelb (Giant Sand). He recently produced albums by Dusty Stray, Sonja van Hamel and Eva Auad, all released on Basta Music. JB continues to be involved with Basta, this time as recording artist.

De Dijk is observing a sabbatical year in 2013, so Meijers is releasing his 2nd solo album: The Secret Year (the first was Catching Ophelia, 2009/V2). He will be touring throughout the year. The album, recorded in Brussels’ ICP Studios, contains 10 self-written and -produced songs. Meijers chose to retain a raw, unpolished production sound, which betters reflects the emotion and spontaneity of the studio performances.

Here's the great, explosive album cover:

Here's also one of the tracks on the album for you to enjoy:

Available as of March 22, preorder from Basta here. We'll publish the tour-dates soon!

Raymond Scott Songbook

Our respected friends at Daisyworld Japan recently released a limited run of "The Raymond Scott Songbook". The deluxe box set comes with a 100-page book packed with photos & info, replica reprints of classic sheet music, posters, and ephemera, and is packaged in a retro-inspired Capitol Records 45 box.

Raymond Scott Songbook Special Limited Edition 5250JPY(tax in) + Shipping

2-CD set from Daisyworld / Li'l Daisy in Japan

DISC ONE: includes previously unreleased vintage recordings of • 30's Quintette era, • 40's Orchestra era, • 50's Jingle Workshop era and early Scott recordings before he formed his Quintette.

DISC TWO: new Scott covers by • Jean-Jacques Perrey   & Dana Countryman • Cabo San Roque • Miharu Koshi • Benoît Charest featuring Kid Koala • VAGABOND cpa • Hirofumi Tokutake • Gen Hoshino • Ego Plum • Haruomi Hosono • Tomoko Kataoka Octet   + Beth Sorrentino • Benoît Charest • Midori Okamura (a.k.a. Mint-Lee) • Optiganally Yours • Noahlewis’ Mahlon Taits • Harmonica Liners • The American Icons of Rebellion • Koji Ueno Ensemble • VAGABOND cpa + Gak Sato

The box is only sold via their own website and Amazon Japan.

More info here

Album release: Music for a 1950s Video Game

Today, the debut album by Schnauzer Radio Orchestra has been released worldwide.

 
Schnauzer Radio Orchestra is a young Dutch ensemble influenced by 1950s music, instruments and arrangements, filtered thru video games, digital recording techniques and abundant humor. SRO's music is wide-eyed and energetic, dominated by quirky sounds from vintage Philicordas, Omnichords, Wurlitzers and Moog Synthesizers. The results are festive soundscapes providing a Fellini-esque soundtrack for modern activities. The Schnauzers evoke Klaus Wunderlich updated with modern techniques. This is music you would have heard in a video game if they had existed in the 1950s.  

On a less formal note: Very catchy and well produced music that will make you smile. 




Here are 2 songs from the album to enjoy:




The artist also made a short video, showing what to do after receiving the album:

We had the honor to use artwork by Jim Flora:

Album cover for "Music for a 1950s Video Game

Another Edison award?

After winning an Edison - the most prestigious price in the Dutch music scene - in the jazz section november 2012, Basta Music is up for a possible second one. This time, the album "'t Begin van het Einde' by Theo Nijland is one of the three nominees.

The show, taking place at the Heineken Music Hall, can be viewed via the Edison's Live YouTube channel here.

Here's one of the songs from the album.

Schnauzer teaser

It's coming soon: the debut album by Schnauzer Radio Orchestra. Check out the first installment of Schnauzer Radio Orchestra's 4-part behind-the-scenes series, in which we are demonstrated the usage of one particular instrument:

Follow Schnauzer on Facebook here. More clips coming soon! Album out February 25.

Edison Award for Martin Fondse

Tonight, Martin Fondse receives an Edison Award. The Edison is the 'highest' reward a musician can receive in Holland. Fondse, who worked with Basement Jaxx and Pat Metheny, a.o., receives the award for his album 'Testimoni', for which he teamed up with the Matangi Quartet and Eric Vloeimans.

 
During a show at the Muziekgebouw Frits Philips in Eindhoven, Fondse will perform with the Metropole Orkest and Eric Vloeimans. Many more artists will be performing.

More info on tonight here.

More info on Martin Fondse here.

The music: