News

Audesi’s remix of lvl’s track ‘Home’ is now available to purchase from FIXT Music! The release date was Tues, 13th Nov. The Home Remix EP also includes a revision by Klayton of Celldweller and remixes by Deprogrammed and Nonplus. Cost is $0.99 per digital download or $4.95 for the digital EP. Let me know what you think. Hope you all enjoy it! :)

lvl – Home (Audesi Remix) Streaming Sample

Appears courtesy of FIXT Music.

808
lvl – Home (Remix EP)

Audio Journal Entry

Audesi – Shallow Reminder

Kind of Phat (Beat)

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Shake It: Polaroid Kiss win friends with synth-y bleeps and boops but, so far, no label-maker.

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By Jenny Poplar
Posted 10/25/2007

In less than one year, Salt Lake City’s Polaroid Kiss has accomplished things that might cause musicians in more metropolitan cities to shake their fists in the air. How, they must be asking, does a band with no formal public-relations or marketing team and who’ve scarcely played out or even recorded a full-length album accumulate 26,000-plus MySpace friends? How do they receive international airplay and acclaim for their one single and receive requests to perform live with established European-based artists including Chris Corner, aka IAMX, formerly of Sneaker Pimps?

Polaroid Kiss guitarist Tim Burgess—the most recent addition to the quartet—shrugs and, with a slight smile, replies “I think people are getting sick of traditional guitar-driven bands. That’s been done so much in the past few years. They want something new.”

Or retro.

If the runaway success of Polaroid Kiss is any indication, synthesizer-driven bands are making a big comeback. Of course, that’s discounting those who never ever stopped loving electronic bands.

Producer, songwriter and jack-of-all-instruments Brandun Reed says that Polaroid Kiss has received a great deal of attention in Europe, especially in Manchester and Berlin.

“Germans love synth. The old joke is, when America had Lynyrd Skynyrd, Germany had Kraftwerk,” co-producer/multi-instrumentalist Earl Dixon says.

Reed and Georgia-born vocalist Tom Bennett founded Polaroid Kiss in December 2006 following a lively conversation about their divergent musical tastes at a local dance club. Reed and Bennett are both DJs who adore electronic music, but the bulk of Bennett’s vocal experience—true to his Southern roots—has been fronting folk, acoustic and indie acts including Salt Lake City trio O Discordia, a far cry from the abrasive post-punk music that Reed generally enjoys.

Reed and Bennett wanted to produce highly danceable music that begged for multiple rotations at the club. Intelligent, catchy lyrics were also a must. Reed eventually invited Dixon—who has been friends with Reed since the fifth grade—and Burgess to join Polaroid Kiss to ensure a fuller, more developed sound.

Reed and Bennett’s vision is finally starting to come together. Their first single, the moody-yet-infectious Faint, New Order and Nine Inch Nails-influenced “White Lines and White Lies,” has fared well online and in several local clubs where it’s often blasted on repeat. Reed notes that he has even witnessed several people singing along as they dance.

“We’ve really taken our time,” Reed says. “Although we had a lot of ideas from the beginning, we didn’t rush into the recording studio or start booking shows immediately. We made an effort to put a lot of thought into what we’re doing.”

Bennett says Polaroid Kiss is in the process of recording a full-length debut with (fingers crossed) Kelli Ali—another former member of Sneaker Pimps—as guest vocalist. “Her management contacted us because they liked our sound,” Reed says.

Word of mouth still hasn’t landed Polaroid Kiss a proper label, though, and they’re on the hunt for a home. “I’ve always been happy to work really hard and do things myself. I’ve always made my own merchandise, for instance,” says Bennett, who has fronted bands since age 15. “But it does get really exhausting, and it would be nice to eventually have someone to help us with that.”

Reed says Polaroid Kiss’ first major live performance will include a carefully choreographed light show and several other flourishes. “Even though our music is very danceable, I want to make sure we put on a really good performance. Sometimes electronic music isn’t the most exciting thing to see live. We want to make our shows very enjoyable for the audience.”

POLAROID KISS w/IAMX @ The Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Saturday Oct. 27, 10 p.m. 24Tix.com

Courtesy of  Salt Lake City Weekly. View the article here.

Yesterday, Polaroid Kiss did an interview for City Weekly. The photographer couldn’t show up, so we should have a date scheduled sometime before the IAMX show. I wrote Brandun a huge ass email about how I felt pissed off at how he acted towards me during the interview. I felt I had been receiving these very condescending glares, but I think it may have been related to his anxiety issues, although I tend to think I’m one of the most anxious people I know. Me and him have talked about it and I think we understand each other. He had apologised and is glad I expressed myself, so tension doesn’t build up down the road. Anyway, the interview fun to do, done in a relaxed atmosphere, and I’m interested in reading how it turns out. I think I handled myself decent during the interview. I think it’s a bit harder for me to do, with a group, than a one on one interview is. It was sort of like going to a job interview with three other friends, all of us trying to answer the questions. It was a good learning experience.

I was headed out to see Mandy this morning and I had been on the freeway for a short time and my rear tire had a blowout. Suddenly there was this huge rumble and my car slightly slipped as if riding on a small patch of ice. I thought either my tire blew out or my engine exploded. haha. Something was wrong. So I pulled over and attempted to put on my 50mph miniature spare tire, but it turned out the wrench I had was the wrong size and it was slipping as I was trying to turn the bolts. I had to call my dad, as he was getting ready to head off to work to come out and help me out. He had the right tool and we got everything fixed and I got home.. Sort of scary, I always worried about having a blowout. I’m lucky that my car was very controllable and I didn’t lose control. Anyways, it looks like I’ll need to hitch a ride to practice for a few days, until I get my tire fixed.

My studio has been portable and all over the place lately. I’ve started losing weight lugging everything around. hah. Here’s just a few random pics I’ve taken tonight in Mandy’s room.

Here are a few pictures from practice the other day. It was just me and Brandun going through White Lies and Love in Transition. I also helped put together the sounds Brandun will be playing on the second NI Kore rig. I think it’s going to be a nice setup. I’ll explain how I setup everything for the gigs when I have some time to get into the details. Here are just a few crappy photos, but it’s something. lol.

Tonight I have my rig over at Mandy’s and I’m preparing my patches and learning my parts for Stop Motion. For the last little while I’ve had a mobile studio that I’ve dragged around with me everywhere. We practice again tomorrow evening.

Now comes the fun part. Polaroid Kiss started practicing tonight as a full band, minus a drummer. We didn’t start practicing until about an hour and a half after I had planned, so we didn’t have as much time as was originally intended. I was experiencing problems while trying to get my controller keyboard to work with my laptop. I haven’t used it with my laptop for a while though, so I had to struggle with it. In the end, I’m not entirely sure what was wrong with it. It may have just been a faulty USB cable. You better expect the unexpected when dealing with electronic equipment, it’s like it has a soul of its own and sometimes it refuses to do what it should. I definitely must get to practice on time, or early next time.

It was good to hear the music performed with us all together and it was also sort of exciting. We only had enough time to get through White Lies a few times. The other night and this morning I only had enough time to prepare the synth patches for White Lies, so I will have my patches ready for Love in Transition the next time and probably another song or two’s backing tracks ready. I’ll practice a bit more by my self tomorrow and bring a hardware compressor and EQ to use with Tom’s vocals. Brandun will be recalling the original guitar and bass effects so that it sounds as close as we can get it to our original version.

PK is in search of a drummer in the Salt Lake City, UT area for live shows. We have a show quickly approaching and may have to do the first show without a drummer. If you have pretty tight timing, are into it, and have access to electronic triggers preferably with sampling capabilities so that we can give you the proper kit sounds, get in contact via MySpace. Thanks.

Audesi – The Quintessence

Click to listen

This is a demo track I created for Sample Logic‘s new sample library called ‘The Elements’. I created it using only sounds from the library. It ships October 15th and is available to preorder now for $299.

The Elements is a 13.5GB/4 DVD library that contains over 1,700 instruments, tempo synced loops, and multis designed with you in mind. It operates on both Mac and PC platforms and is delivered in Audio Unit, VST, DXi, and RTAS formats. The library comes preloaded with Kontakt Player 2 software and is ready to go out of the box as both a standalone instrument and plugin. The library can also be loaded and customized in the full version of Kontakt 2.

The Elements is a collection that will transform your work, pushing the envelope beyond today’s standard music and sound design. Since the instruments are broken up into 6 intuitive elements, you won’t waste any time browsing through unneeded sounds. These cutting-edge instruments were crafted to excite, inspire, and electrify, practically begging you to create.

The library is packed with deadly, ear scraping ambiance to serene melodic choirs; glitched out distorted beats to funky harmonic guitar licks; woofed out basses to spine bending transition impacts; traditional brass ensembles to psychedelic spirals of exotic colors. with a bunch of extra sounds made from unicorns, hobbits, and dragons, this library is sure to be fun for the whole family!

More info at www.samplelogic.com

The last few days I’ve taken a break from the production work I’ve been working on in the studio for various projects. It’s good to have a break, although I’m eager to get everything done and out-of-the-way, so that I can start concentrating on new material of my own.

I’m over at Mandy’s now. She’s asleep and I’m up working on putting THIS site together. I’ve moved all my old blogs and the sparse collection of newer ones since 2003 to this new site. It’s not public yet, but I’m working on it. Sorting through all the photos and entering the most correct dates I can find. I should have a huge collection of photos on here. I don’t really take photos like I use to, but maybe I can get back into it again. I will go through and add past entries and sets of photos that I’ve never released in blogs before.

Tomorrow (Actually today, since I’m not on a normal schedule), Polaroid Kiss starts practising for upcoming gigs. I’ll be playing synth. I have to stop by my house and grab some equipment, load it up. I also should go through some files to help prepare my parts, so I can have the sounds I need loaded up and ready to play. I think most of the day will be preparing synth patches and putting together the backing tracks instead of working on the full practice session. Preparing set lists and deciding on what parts who will play, etc..

I am going to start a production blog soon, which will contain some engineer type tests I’ve done with various plug-ins, etc.. I might also add some information about the DSP code I’ve been dabbling in. It could be interesting.
:)