Sean Armstrong

I’ve been pretty busy this month, but I found time to start a few songs! Here they are in the monthly “2011 Sampler” I’ve been updating each month.

I’m most excited about “Salt & Sun”, as it represents a lot of things I absolutely love about house music. The direction in which that track has taken some of my productions is wonderful and I look forward to writing more stuff that is along those lines.

I also enjoyed the sounds used in “Rush”, and various aspects of each of the other songs.

The “Untitled Start” came completely out of the blue on the night of the 21st. I’m not sure how that will end up, but I like where it’s going!

Right now I’m listening to This Modern Depression (streaming teaser set below) and thinking about the fate of this project. Why is it that I haven’t taken the time to finish this collection of, in my opinion, rather good songs? They would allow me to step into vocal recording of my own and expand upon my production skills and techniques.

I think a big part of why this one has remained “in progress” for a few years now is the timing of when I wrote/worked on this album compared to my assessment of skill: At the time, I felt that I had to make a very large jump in skill of producing downtempo and house music in order to bring myself up to an acceptable level to start promoting my music.

While I have accomplished a lot in a short amount of time from last year into this year and have certainly learned and applied a ton of knowledge, I still feel somewhat sad/bothered by the fact that “This Modern Depression” remains unfinished and unreleased.

What I won’t do, is an old habit that I used to apply in making a deal with myself. I won’t say that “I won’t release x project until y is done” because I hate prioritizing my own art that does not have a firm deadline. However, that last word is the key: deadlines.

What has worked well for me in the house-music side of things is working under a deadline for a project to be completed. It’s a bit more significant of an impact when dealing with a whole LP instead of a single remix or EP, but I think I’m going to give it a shot as it relates to “This Modern Depression”. I need to take a closer look at my schedule and give myself a realistic timeline to complete the following:

Writing (a few songs need the lyrics finished)

Recording vocals

Post production/mastering

Art, PR… let’s say “the business side of things” since I don’t want to open my humongous checklist for an LP release.

2 months? 3 months? That sounds about right. It will conflict with my desire to work on my live performance set, though, and that is also important.. but the live sets display newer materials.. what to do?

Sometimes I wonder if I enjoy making too many forms of music… It’s all under one name though, because that’s who I am.

It’s that time again. Where the hell did March go, anyway?

A few more delicious bites of that chill meets deep house flavor I’ve been working on this year, along with another downtempo influenced track in there. You’ll also hear some of that adventurous sound of tech-house.

MOST excitedly, though, is the debut of a side project I’m working on with Matt Amberg. We call ourselves “Import.Export”, and are working on an EBM sound that will get asses shaking in the northwest. Check out the teaser clip (the first one of the set) which is an instrumental version of a song we are still writing for and working on.

I also have two remixes that are going under contract for two separate labels. Announcements of them and their release dates/clips should be soon-ish, so keep an eye out!