The Falling Room
Jan 25, 2010 Jamendo
I was recently contacted on Jamendo by a DJ at a radio show who wanted to know if he could play Ramp on his show. I, of course, said yes. He said that he thought I’d be a perfect fit for his show. Since you’re all here reading, that strikes me as meaning that you might enjoy his show as well. I figured that I’d drop you some details about the show in case you’er interested in tuning in some time.
Here’s the quick run-down that he gave me:
The name of the program is “The Falling Room”. It’s a one hour show broadcast live on Fridays at 8:00PM (EST) and re-broadcast on Tuesdays at 12:00AM (the rebroadcast time may change but the live airing will remain a constant) on CFBU 103.7 FM in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. You can visit the radio station’s website, at cfbu.ca and click under “program schedule” at the very top of the web page, to view when “The Falling Room” is scheduled to be broadcast. You can also the show live through the cfbu.ca website. There is a “listen online” link at the top of the page.
The focus of “The Falling Room” is to feature primarily independent artists who produce experimental, minimalist, ambient, spoken word and avant garde music that falls completely outside the mainstream of commercial music and radio. Since April 2009 I have featured over 70 independent artists that fit the format of the show as well as more well known artists such as Brian Eno, Pat Methany, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Tangerine Dream, Laurie Anderson, Jean Michel Jarre, The Golden Palominos and Michael Oldfield.
Also, if you have any friends who play experimental music, poetry, avant garde or minimalist music let them know about the show.
The last bit is likely so you can also submit your work. 
In any case, check it out! I missed this past Friday’s show, but I’m going to see if I can record the rebroadcast somehow.
Sinister!
Feb 23, 2008 Jamendo
I was just checking to see if Fountains had gone live on Jamendo yet (it’s done all the preliminary steps and is just awaiting moderation by their administrators — I expect that will take a few days) and I noticed that one of the top tags for Peristalsis and for Ramp as a whole is “sinister”. Hee! *rrr* Look at me, all sinister and stuff!
Current Jamendo Stats
Sep 24, 2007 Jamendo
I’ve started working on new material for Fountains, but it may be a while in coming as a major musical development is going to be hitting here shortly. Also, Logic 8 and Kontakt 3 will likely have me lost in “get used to the new software” land for a while when I get my hands on them.
In the meantime, I’ve received some reactions from Jamendo. Orchard Days has been reviewed on there in the past, as I’ve posted here. I won’t repost that now. However, some stats:
People who “starred” it: 5
People who put it on their playlist: 2
Downloads: 45+
Listens: 739
Average Rating: 7.0/10
Not bad! It’s been up there a while. Looking at Origin Stories, which has been up about five days or so, we see these numbers:
People who “starred” it: 3
Downloads: “+” (??)
Listens: 160
Average Rating: N/A (presumably still insufficient votes)
Still, three starrings and 160 listens is not bad. I’ll take that.
Peristalsis, also up for five days now, has been getting a little more attention, probably as it’s the only full length album up:
Starred: 5
Playlisted: 1
Downloads: “+” (??)
Listens: 349
Average Rating: 9.6/10
Holy crikey, 9.6/10!
Also, the following two reviews have been posted:
Very good! [5/5]
beatiful composition and professional sound
ciao- noisesoundnation
and:
To listen to [4.5/5]
I really like this album.
Each track tells us a little story and there is a lot of different moods in that music which is very rich.
Thanks for sharing!- nikila
All in all, I’m just happy that the material is getting heard, but this positive reaction is very gratifying.
I’ll be trying to get back to work on Fountains soon, despite my cryptic hints about apocalypse or something. I’ve been turning over the theme of the work in my head and coming up with some ideas, and I’ve put down some sounds. I’ve been pondering whether I should keep it an EP as planned or shoot for an album. What will really decide that will be how the songs pan out, but if you have any thoughts on that, I’d be happy to hear it.
Translation of Orchard Days Review
Jul 10, 2007 Jamendo
Although I was able to read most of it in a sad sort of halting way and my friend James helped me out with some clarifications, I got my cousin Alix to do a real translation of the French review of Orchard Days that I mentioned having been posted on Jamendo. Here it is, for those of you who are curious:
A fantastic development
Jul 7, 2007 Jamendo
Orchard Days received a review on Jamendo!
You can read it here. It’s in French.
What I can get from it is basically that the person likes the EP but thinks that it was a little too short and that in some places I went a little too nutty on the choice of sounds — they feel that there’s a lot of potential there if I work on drawing out my compositions and using more natural sounds.
I could just about explode with excitement. (Although, to be fair, so far Fountains is much nuttier in terms of sound. 
We’ll see how that goes, though.)
The exciting part of this is that although I know many people have downloaded my tracks, from here, from Jamendo and from the site where I was previously hosting everything, this is the first feedback that I’ve received from someone I didn’t know personally. Also, this is in a public venue where other people can read it.
I definitely have to get my butt in gear to get more material up both here and on Jamendo where people can see it.
If you’re here from elsewhere — from Jamendo, from google, from anywhere else — please drop me a line to let me know that you’re listening (and reading). It really encourages me to keep at it. (I’d do it no matter what, but I think without that encouragement it goes at a much slower pace.)
Jamendo II: Electric Boogaloo
Jun 22, 2007 Jamendo
My artist page with Orchard Days on it is now live at Jamendo!
If you like my stuff at all, please go check it out my page here and rate / recommend the EP!
And while you’re there you can find lots of other cool music for free as well.
Jamendo
Jun 22, 2007 Jamendo
Well, I’ve decided to finally start hitting the virtual pavement a bit. I’ve gone through most of the process tonight of submitting my work to an online, creative-commons-driven music sharing site called Jamendo. If you’re interested in checking out all kinds of neat music, by all means go there, set up an account and download to your heart’s content. The place is a Mecca of free tunes. Also, if you like my stuff, I’d really, really appreciate it if you’d review it and rank it on the Jumendo site once it’s available.
They accept submissions of “albums,” so for the time being Orchard Days will be going up, as that’s the complete release that I feel most confident in. Although I’m still planning to get Peristalsis up for you all to listen to (especially after an existing fan pointed out that one of his favourite songs wasn’t on my music page!) soon, but it needs some polish, track ordering and some consideration to which of the huge mess of songs that fell under its name will actually make the final cut. I’m expecting at least the oldest three tracks to get split out into yet another EP.
However, my first order of business is I think going to be to look forward rather than back and try to get Fountains underway, hopefully not losing all the momentum built up during the writing of Estelle and Paulina. Plus, I suspect that you’d all prefer new material to old standards.
I have a bunch of other sites that I’ll be checking out over the next short while in an effort to get the word out. When it all happens, I’ll be sure to let you folks know so you can head on over and do your thing!