Things I am Listening to:

Valley of the Hummingbirds by From the Mouth of the Sun

I am pretty discerning…. picky? When it comes to purchasing music. I veer toward cinematic music these days, minimal lyrics, its just where I am at and I love this album. The strategy is to fill up the cart, listen to things as many times as the guilt window in Bandcamp will let me and then do a final round before purchase. This one is a sneaker for me. I liked it, thought it was for me and I am now neglecting the other artists I picked up the other day.

I am on a string jag and and love what I would call minimalist structure of the pieces. Lots of space, big reverb, primitive drums (not a negative here, just not an 808 kit, they feel real like hands are hitting them), cool artifacts. Its a good place for my head on the ambienty side of the world. Absolutely worth a listen.

Things I am listening to “NOISES AROUND THE CORNER”

This was one of my favorite albums of 2023. It was released in 2019, but I stumbled upon it last year (heh, as we are not even two days into 2024). I have been on a strong downtempo, ambient/experimental jag of late. The work presented here draws from a variety of sound sources and has rhythmic elements (arpeggiated pianos etc.) that might disqualify it from casual “background” listening. That said, I listen to this primarily when doing focused tasks like post-production or research.

From the artists bandcamp site:

“Noises around the corner is the new work by Italian guitarist Corrado Maria De Santis, available from May 3rd 2019 in all digital stores (Into The Void Rec.). This work done at home, in the corner of a room, is played and recorded almost exclusively in the isolation of one’s headphones, an electric guitar, a laptop, a few microphones and a few amplifiers.
Inspired by the poem “Il Porto Sepolto” by the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, the descent into the buried room brings to light only indefinable, inexhaustible fragments. An intimate, immersive, essential journey. released May 3, 2019″

3Keay Bandcamp

Trying to find my music people. I have read that if you (meaning me) feel good about the music you’re creating, that it is worth sharing, there are people out in the world that will appreciate it too. Trying to navigate this via social media and music streaming sites etc is confusing and disheartening at best. Covid has precluded any thoughts of performing live, though I really enjoyed performing “Live” on Twitch over New Years as part of a Lines streaming event.

Now I am trying to share more directly via online radio. This process is much more like show submissions in the ART world. Sending mp3’s is a little weird, but some folks just ask for Bandcamp links, so I finally got around to populating a bandcamp page located at: https://3keay.bandcamp.com/

Creating it was a small thing, but I feel like getting that in place along with music on the various streaming services was an accomplishment. If you have read this far and like weird ambienty downtempo music, give me a listen.

screenshot of my page on BandCamp

Santa Teresa Park in the rain

Coyote Peak Transmitter

Ok, let’s start with the annoying. What is it exactly about how trails, pedestrian paths, sidewalk closures, etc. that the people managing these things can’t post a sign at the entry to the park or at the last fork in the trail where you could still change your mind and path? I see this all the time, there is trail work a mile down the trail, but the notice is placed in the last 50 meters of that mile. Now your stuck with a choice, turn around and retrace your steps or bushwack around the obstruction. Maybe I am the unreasonable one….

Regardless, got out for a hike to Coyote Peak in the storm today. Hiked up into the clouds and wet. Muddy with a capitol “M”. No great infinity views, just the hush of clouds, rain and wind. AND the airplanes in pattern flying over the hill, but unseen in the fog.

Hoped for some cool sounds for the entire hike, ears on full alert, but only got one fun little recording at the end. This is the final hillside and a herd, flock, group? of quail are all over the hillside under the scrub. Great wide field recording. I didn’t bother with noise reduction on this, no “clean” section to sample, so its a balance between the air noise and the quail.

Quail under brush and flying in, frogs….

Pauline Oliveros

Once upon a time, a million years ago, when lizards flew and dinosaurs walked the earth….well, sometimes it feels that way. College has become something of a blur for me.  Undergrad and later grad school, I can’t really tell which is which, but way back then I met an extraordinary woman named Pauline Oliveros. 

At the time I was working with Allen Strange in the School of Music and Dance, he made a point of announcing

Lake Ranch Reservoir

Lone frog

Lake Ranch Reservoir today.  A singular frog is croaking away.  I expect a greater chorus toward evening, but heading up there today was a bit of a lark.

Shotgun mic, but a lot of air noise, so I applied a solid bit of noise reduction.  The frog sounds ok, but you can hear some interesting distortions of the bird call following the very first croak.

It’s probably been a couple years since I was up there last.  They have done a lot of erosion control work. Matt and I used to run out here a fair bit, easy miles under forest canopy.

Audio Visual Experiments

Yuba 01 from Keay Edwards on Vimeo.

The Yuba video is a MAX/MSP experiment using Jitter. It distorts video footage of the Yuba river shot near Nevada City with an abstract audio piece created for it.

Steve Ferrera Shoot

Wrapped up post-production from my shoot with the super cool and creative artist Steve Ferrera. Here are some of the select images from the shoot.

_MG_8573 _MG_8660 _MG_8675

Keay Edwards Art, Photography and Craft

I am in the process of migrating from my keay3.net site to this one.

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