Those Darlins blew me away at Pickathon a couple years ago. Their musical roots were in folk and roots rock, by the time I saw them live they were firmly in their heavy rock phase, melting the audience’s faces with chugging riffs and ripping solos when appropriate.

I hear they’re calling for an indefinite hiatus after quite a long haul, from my back of the envelope about 10 years. Enjoy some live clips and catch them on their January farewell tour.

Nearly 2 years of work has come to end, with the release of Plenty.  This 21-track production was recorded in a ski lodge in the Poconos, overdubbed in Philadelphia, and mixed and mastered in Philadelphia.  I’ll have more thoughts on the process, after the publicity campaign is wrapped up.

I’m fairly certain this will be the last physical CD I’ll ever produce. Based on my informal survey of friends and family, while considering my personal habits, I’ve concluded digital distribution is the easiest way to get music to the audience. During the physical package production, while it was exciting to design and print a beautiful package, it was hard to ignore the feeling of obsolescence. The challenge is to create the same excitement for digital without the physical. Artist Alina Josan did a great job at giving this album illustrations to help make it come alive.

Photos, videos and other stories still to come. Shout Magic is now spread far and wide, but we still have intentions to create! The internet will become the headphone extension of our new expatriated lives in Amsterdam, DC, Philly and Portland.

I’m really excited about Bandcamp, a new music site I’ve come across. It has me rethinking a lot of strategy for the new Chief City Recordings site.

Here’s some recent electronic instrumental music I’ve created this year. This is mostly unfinished sketches. You can listen to the past 3 years of random electronic music, mostly for films, at the NOTV site.

This might be the amp-up jam of this Fall.

(experimenting with blip.fm’s audio player)