sounds  like  tree

Troels Folmann at 8dio asked me to make a demo for their new dubstep sample library.  8dio make fantastic virtual instruments; I’m a huge fan.  A lot of the string work you hear on my tracks comes from their Adagio libraries.  So, I figured, this is as good a time as any to try to make a dubstep track: an invitation, fresh sounds, and the genre is huge right now, but will fade soon.  I actually much prefer the notion of “post-dubstep.”  “Post-anything” allows one a certain genre-obliviousness – a perspective I find most fertile.  So with dubstep, I figure: Let’s celebrate all the fun possibilities that the genre brought us – a new taste for wild synthesis, sound warping, insane low frequency techniques, and (imo) a bridge from the avant garde electronic music of yesteryear into popular culture. It has opened our ears.  And deafened more than a few.

Now, I say, let’s breathe back some dynamics into this kind of music.  Let’s create exquisite subtleties to complement the aurgasmic climaxes.  After all, you really don’t get much bang for your back if it’s All Climax All The Time.  I tried to invoke this sort of expanded dynamic range a bit with this track – while still staying within the genre as it exists now.  I had fun making it.  May it find its way to receptive ears…

Last night, Brass Menazeri, the Balkan Brass band with whom I’ve been playing for the past 10 years, played its final show.  We were joined by hundreds of loving fans and collaborators at The New Parish in the Oakland, CA.  We played for nearly four hours.  There were too many emotional high points to even make sense of it all.  I’m filled with a deep gratitude for my fellow bandmates and all the multitudes of deliriously dancing friends we’ve shared moments with over these years.

Here is the DJ set I played in between the two Menazeri sets:  30 minutes of fresh Balkan brass remixes – including sneak peaks of some of tracks which will be released in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned – I’ll let you know when the individual tracks are available for download.

Although Brass Menazeri will not be performing any more shows, there will be several albums of material of all kinds – pure acoustic, remixes, and hybrid collaborations – all coming straight to an eardrum (or two) near (or in) you!

Until then, maybe this will help tide you over.

Love, eO

© 2012 Eric Oberthaler