My Ladyfriend Rules, Peter's pretty cool too

My lady friend rocks pretty gosh darn hard. She just revamped my site, cleaning up my video player and my CV and my home page pics. So I figure I'll start blogging again.

Just to sketch my current situation:
MA in hand
drowning in debt
beautiful new apartment with great friends and the aforementioned lady
regular music gigs
MoMA shoot in a few weeks
animations for cultural non-profit
recording local folk genius
eating new and exciting dumplings
there's not enough coffee in the world

I'll do my best to keep this robot updated as my crops come to fruition. First off the folk genius. His name's Peter Englebert and this is what we're up to:
Sierra Madre (early mix)
We have some vocal harmonies to lay down over the next few weeks. We'll be moving on to moodier, more substance-induced works. Think Pink Floyd meets Townes Van Zandt.

Send me your track

Make with the Art

Here are my two latest creations. The first ditty, cheerfully entitled The Beast is in You, can be seen as a dark reflection of an old Ums tune called Broken Bones. Like the Ums song, Beast makes use of unusual chord changes while retaining an anthemic chorus and driving instrumental breaks. Dave and I used some fuzzy keys and percussive layers to build an energetic musical engine. Applecore Samba is a lighter number, though no less pumping. I'm pleased with the mix between the acoustic guitar, mandolin, and hand percussion, and once again Dave's work on the keys are just right.

Nothing would excite me more than to see some fine creative mind make use of my work to their own ends. Take a listen and see if anything ignites your imaginative organ.






The Beast is in You by Jesse Ricke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.


Applecore Samba by Jesse Ricke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Art Please

Hello Everyone. It's been a while since I've used this blog. It's been a long semester, making New York my home and rocking my grad program, but now that I have a month off I can focus on music. Dave Pinkham, the genius behind the controls, is finishing with the pieces we've been working on over the last year. Now I can't play out or print an album, but I don't want the stuff to just sit on my blog, so here's the plan: I'm posting the work here, you can download it from vimeo, put visuals/video/animation/etc to the tune, and e-mail me your creation. I'll post it, share it with my growing New York creative contacts, and see if we can attract some attention for one another. Mostly I just want to create something beautiful with other creatives. The music is licensed under creative commons so that no one can make any money off it, but feel free to make any other use of my music.

Here are the first two pieces. Beautiful Summer's Day is a little latin and a little dark, with a little waltz thrown in. I dig the syncopation and the loose ending. City is the simplest song I've ever written. Dave rocked the keys, providing a warm environment for my falsetto to swim in. Can't wait to see what you all turn out.






Beautiful Summer's Day by Jesse Ricke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.


City by Jesse Ricke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Solo Stuff - Yummy Num

Here's the goods, or at least a handful of them. Most all the tracks need slight adjustments but overall I'm rather proud of what Dave and I have gotten out of them. I find the music imaginative, eclectic, rockin', and a little dark. What do you think? More to come.

'Beautiful Summer's Day'

'City'

'We are Your Lovers'

'The Beast is in You'

Music for Website and Recording Update

So music has been moving forward, though there is still little to show off. With The Frigidaires recording, Everette has been out of town and we have been recording by ourselves with Alex taking charge of mixing. But it ain't bad having a house full of expensive microphones at our disposal. We go in, we throw up a mic, we rock, and we wallow in our rockfullness. We got one more tune to go. I got with Dave earlier this week to finish vocals for my solo stuff, so that's almost done as well. He also has great gear, a lot of patience, and resourceful mixing chops. Things are sounding weird and hip. I'll have some previews from both projects forthcoming.

In the meantime, I'm putting together some music for a landscaping website, incorporating natural sounds with my own brand of cool jazz. Just a few short themes to engage the user. Here's the main theme for the site. What you all think?

'Zito's Theme'

sneak peeks at The Frigidaires

Today Dave and I laid down a few more key tracks for my solo work.  With one piece called 'Slow Fuse' the choice of keys voice and the palm muted bass made for a sparse and sultry sound, which are qualities I very much cherish.  With another track the keys voices we added seemed somewhat wacky and disappointed me.  Dave suggested we break that song down to guitar and voice with some percussion, an inspired decision.  So after percussion, vocals, and a lot of mixing we'll have a product together in about a month.  At the same time The Frigidaires has completed three tracks for our release with a fourth in the works and another three to be started next week.  The songs are fun and intelligent, reminiscent of the Ums, but with some daring choices that I'm rather pleased with.  So check this out:

  

'Same Thing Again'

'All That Hate'