www.gathermanproductions.com
www.myspace.com/sentinel

Sentinel – Kites Without Strings
Produced and recorded by Dennis Bestafka and Tarabud

Sentinel’s latest offering, Kites Without Strings, follows their 2007 EP, Sequels and Hunches. The album’s dream-pop sound exists enigmatically with a defiance for normal principles: it’s ambient and gentle, but energetic and without silence. Inspired by the band’s exposure to the cultural and natural beauty found in the Bay Area, this mix successfully describes its four members’ experience in living one thing and its opposite.

The eight-track album opens with “Ohlone,” leading in with a catchy pulse of rhythmic drums and synth that builds into a driving chorus drenched in polyphonic vocals. The track starts off the album well, providing an upbeat indicator for the following songs. Midway through, “Spades” serves as a percussive awakening from the dreamlike wistfulness of the album’s initial half. Drums drive and keys stand out via repeating riffs adding a refreshing zest, while ambient vocals fill where synthetic sounds sat on previous tracks. It feels organic and vibrant, like sunlight breaking dawn.

The album concludes with “Heroine,” a sultry song crawling in Phrygian. The imagery created from Sentinel’s lyrics model the band’s exotic, modal sound, which is especially meaningful as it represents guitarist Dennis Bestafka’s experience as a soldier in Iraq: “There is a tribe on lonely land / Shadows cast the shapes on evening sand.” It’s a profound escapist end to a profound escapist album.

Filled with sumptuous synth, ultra-reverberated vocals and saturated guitars, Kites Without Strings erupts like one long, happy wall of sound. Most of the songs on the album employ a similar upbeat pop vibe, creating a cohesive quality that might make differentiating them difficult. Thankfully, there isn’t a single bad track here, so this little bit of homogeneity proves itself more than welcome. (Self-released)

www.myspace.com/sentinel

-Keane Li (more…)

http://www.festizio.net
http://www.hydestreetstudioc.com/

My band, Festizio, is currently finishing its first studio album in historic Hyde Street Studio C with engineer, Jaimeson Durr. While the long studio days were excruciatingly tough, it’s been a fantastic experience. Also, recording on a grand piano in Studio A, where artists like PJ Harvey, Prince, Green Day, Tupac, Shaq (I don’t know…) and more have recorded, was a momentous occasion in and of itself. Most importantly, the atmosphere is friendly and professional, and the crackwhores outside pretty much keep to themselves.

Highlights
- Getting asked by a hobo if I had a girlfriend.
- Realizing the hobo was actually asking all of us.
- Being upset and not speaking to hobo for days until hobo learned to appreciate my company.
- A culinary tour of TL eateries during lunch breaks.
- Seeing shit in a crate and pondering what it really meant to me spiritually.
- Successfully backing out of the thin driveway without scratching my car (yes, I have a car… how many times are you going to act surprised?).
- Accepting hobo forgiveness over a select sampling of crack rocks and diet cola.
- Recording an album.

A bit of Hyde Street history, courtesy of Mix Online…

San Francisco-based engineer/producers Justin Phelps, Jaime Durr and Mike McGinn have reopened Hyde Street Studio’s legendary Studio C, the first room to go online when the facility opened as Wally Heider Studio in April 1969.

Engineer Matt Kelly has occupied Studio C’s live room for the last few years to record Digital Underground, the Hieroglyphics confab and many other hip hop, rock and rap acts. The control room has served as not much more than a storage room since the departure of Sandy Pearlman, who worked out of Studio C as Alpha and Omega studio from 1985 to 1990.

But when Kelly decided not to renew his lease on the live room, Phelps and crew took over Studio C, including the control room. They renovated the space, moved in some outboard gear from Studio B, as well as their own equipment, and installed a modified Sony MPX 3000 console with Hardy mic pre’s and Uptown Automation. The room also offers a Pro Tools|HD rig and a Studer A820 analog machine.

Jefferson Airplane christened Studio C in April 1969 when they recorded Volunteers with producer Al Schmitt, booking the room before it was even finished. The wildly popular Wally Heider Studio then served as the recording site of such classic albums as the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty, Santana’s Abraxis, four Credence Clearwater Revival albums and Crosby, Stills Nash & Young’s Deja Vu, all in studio C. Through the years, the studio hosted projects for Joe Satriani, the Dead Kennedys, Exodus and many more. Recent visitors include Chuck Prophet, Rat Dog, Jerry Garcia Band, Secret Chiefs 3, Slough Feg, Matt Nathanson, Norton Buffalo, Crafty Foxes, The Court and Spark and The Girlfriend Experience.