The 2010 NewSong contest was full of incredibly talented and dedicated artists, so it was no surprise to us to learn that the winner was someone as phenomenal as Amber Rubarth. To understand what sort of music she's writing, you need only understand what sort of person she is. She's soft spoken with a great sense of humor and genuinely cares about the people around her. She's not self-centered, but still manages to focus on the things that we all need as individuals; love, companionship, understanding, empathy, healing... To sum it all up, Amber is a wonderful person to be around and the songs she writes are a direct reflection of her.
It was announced months ago that the winner of the contest would get to work with famed producer Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Norah Jones, Tom Waits, etc.). No one could have predicted that he would have been such a perfect match for the winner, though. Amber's simple songs were treated with a degree of integrity and honesty that we've rarely seen here at our studio.
Together, Jacquire and Amber spent the first two days demoing and tweaking her material, changing only a few words and slightly altering the structures to make them flow easier but keeping as much of the original content as possible. The third day brought some incredible musicians to begin the bulk of the actual recording. Adam Levy (Norah Jones) came in for guitar duty, Marco Giovino (Robert Plant) filled the roll of drummer, and Frank Swart (Patty Griffin) held down the bass. For a band assembled in the studio, they sounded as though they'd been playing the material together for years. Amber's voice melted into the arrangements and everything was easily paired down to around 16 tracks on the console. Watching them work was a real lesson in choosing quality over quantity and emotional response over precise playing. In the end, everyone was so jazzed about playing the material that they wound up cutting two songs more than what they had set out to do. The rough mixes already show what an organic, honest collection of songs this is going to be. Everything went so smoothly that they were able to wrap up a couple of days earlier than they'd planed.
The session was a constant atmosphere of relaxed pace, tea, flowers, and candles. It's always a blessing to us to be given the chance to work with such talented and delightfully kind individuals. All of us here at Saint Claire want to wish Amber the very best in what lies ahead and we know that her EP will be an early highlight in her career.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
New Albums!
A couple of albums that were done here came out this week, so we wanted to make sure and let everyone know! Natalia Zukerman's newest, produced by our dear friend Willy Porter, just hit the stands. Links to her iTunes and Amazon.com stores are right on her website's homepage, which you'll find here: http://nataliazukerman.com/ Also out this week is the new project from Peter Kiesewalter, Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata. B.R.O. was mixed here by Neil Dorfsman.
Click on either of their album covers to be taken to their respective amazon.com pages.
Check out the new music from these amazingly talented artists and stay tuned for more from Saint Claire!
Click on either of their album covers to be taken to their respective amazon.com pages.
Check out the new music from these amazingly talented artists and stay tuned for more from Saint Claire!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Something New
The nature of our business is such that we find ourselves involved in projects of wide and varied degrees of talent, budgets, skills, notoriety, and complexity. The people who come through the doors of our studio range from full bands that leave here and play the Late Show the following week to self-funded solo acts with nothing more than great aspirations to their credit. The most recent project to come through our doors, however, brought with it something new that we hope and expect to see more of in the not too distant future.
Zach McNees, a great up and coming engineer who has brought many projects to us over the years, called to check in towards the end of 2010 to talk about a potential recording he was in the early stages of coordinating. We spoke at length about the usual particulars (how many memebers in the band, what type of music, how long the gig would be, travel plans, rates, etc.) and he revealed that this self-funded project had something very unique going on in the way that it was being financed. The relatively unknown musician, Seth Bible, was gathering the money for his project through a campaign at http://www.kickstarter.com
We've known of Kickstarter.com for some time now and we were aware that there were people out there trying to get funds together for various projects, but this was the first time that our studio actually came into direct contact. The choice to turn talent into a professional endeavor is difficult for anyone, especially when the funding for it has to be generated by the people taking the chance. Like so many other independent artists, Seth and his wife Sarah reached the stage where a critical decision had to be made regarding the level of commitment there were going to make to music. This is where Kickstarter entered the picture for them. Immediately after making the decision to commit to a career in music, Seth launched a campaign to raise money to help make an album, started a blog to chronicle the progress of the project, and sent messages to everyone he knew to let them know what he and Sarah were trying to accomplish. A few short months later, they had exceeded their goal of $11,000 and were in the studio making the dream a reality.
For Saint Claire and for Zach, this project was especially exciting to work on because Seth's material is downright exceptional. He's got great lyrics, catchy tunes that are really well put together, and he hired excellent musicians to play for the recording; a perfect storm in the world of music. It would be remiss of me to gloss over the quality of Seth's talent and ability in the course of this story as that is much more important than their road to financing the project. In fact, I believe that it is because of Seth's music and personality that he was able to make the Kickstarter.com attempt a success. In a time when labels are shrinking, budgets are disappearing, and independent artists are finding it harder to find stability, what Seth and Sarah have accomplished to make their dream a reality heralds a truth that everyone in the music industry is clinging to; the world is still thirsty for good music and there are still ways to make it happen.
Zach McNees, a great up and coming engineer who has brought many projects to us over the years, called to check in towards the end of 2010 to talk about a potential recording he was in the early stages of coordinating. We spoke at length about the usual particulars (how many memebers in the band, what type of music, how long the gig would be, travel plans, rates, etc.) and he revealed that this self-funded project had something very unique going on in the way that it was being financed. The relatively unknown musician, Seth Bible, was gathering the money for his project through a campaign at http://www.kickstarter.com
We've known of Kickstarter.com for some time now and we were aware that there were people out there trying to get funds together for various projects, but this was the first time that our studio actually came into direct contact. The choice to turn talent into a professional endeavor is difficult for anyone, especially when the funding for it has to be generated by the people taking the chance. Like so many other independent artists, Seth and his wife Sarah reached the stage where a critical decision had to be made regarding the level of commitment there were going to make to music. This is where Kickstarter entered the picture for them. Immediately after making the decision to commit to a career in music, Seth launched a campaign to raise money to help make an album, started a blog to chronicle the progress of the project, and sent messages to everyone he knew to let them know what he and Sarah were trying to accomplish. A few short months later, they had exceeded their goal of $11,000 and were in the studio making the dream a reality.
For Saint Claire and for Zach, this project was especially exciting to work on because Seth's material is downright exceptional. He's got great lyrics, catchy tunes that are really well put together, and he hired excellent musicians to play for the recording; a perfect storm in the world of music. It would be remiss of me to gloss over the quality of Seth's talent and ability in the course of this story as that is much more important than their road to financing the project. In fact, I believe that it is because of Seth's music and personality that he was able to make the Kickstarter.com attempt a success. In a time when labels are shrinking, budgets are disappearing, and independent artists are finding it harder to find stability, what Seth and Sarah have accomplished to make their dream a reality heralds a truth that everyone in the music industry is clinging to; the world is still thirsty for good music and there are still ways to make it happen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
