Greetings Friends, Family, Neighbors, Bystanders, Passers-By, Music Aficionados, and Internet Seekers! Come with us on a journey to complete our first album, learn about our story and the causes we support, and join us in making a safer, more sustainable future for both humans and music.
29 October 2019 – Brooklyn, NY – USA
With Electronics in the wires, and Soul in the heart – Sierra Classic Sound melds hardened beats with sweet harmonies into a new hybrid of digital moods for analog humans.
Beyond “Neo-“ – Sierra Classic Sound is “Electronic Soul” – reflecting a world soaked in mediated electronic interactions – within ourselves and between others. It’s got us freaked out much of the time – even if we don’t want to admit it, or can’t quite articulate why. When music speaks – and helps us focus on the “still point” of our being – it’s like a reconnection to the heart and soul of who we are / how we want to live.
Influences are a tricky and subjective thing – but if we have to name drop our influences, they’re definitely artists who play in that space of darkness and lightness as a part of living – like the “Berlin-Trilogy”-era of David Bowie, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Peter Gabriel, Shuggie Otis, Roxy Music, Can, Massive Attack, Cinematic Orchestra, early ’70s-Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone. An intriguing place where electronic and ambient, rock, soul, funk, and dance music meet. “Electronic Soul” may not be a genre you select from a pull-down menu, but it should be.
Can you smell what Freedom’s cookin’? No, seriously – it’s amazing. With formative experiences as a graduate of Baltimore International Culinary Academy, and trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC, the chef and actor sides of Mr. Freedom Bremner bring a delicious drama to his career as a lead singer and performer. A Washington D.C. native – Freedom has toured internationally across South America, Europe, Asia and the US, and been part of collaborations with artists such as Moby, Me’shell N’degeocello, Bernie Worrell – not to mention Taylor Swift (Reputation Tour), Paul Young, Paula Abdul, Patti Labelle, David Bowie, Queen Latifa & De La Soul. He is also the former lead singer of the rock / funk group Screaming Headless Torsos – led by legendary guitarist David “Fuze” Fiuczynski. As a young singer, (well before shows like The Voice and American Idol), he appeared in front of an audience of 15 million people on the CBS TV show Star Search, came in second and landed a deal with A&M Records.
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If you’re a professional musician in New York City in 2019 and you need a percussionist (be it for electronica, jazz, rock, funk, or dub), you’ve likely heard of Yusuke Yamamoto. But percussion is only part of his story. Splitting his time between NYC and Tokyo – Yusuke is a natural-born musician. At only 5 years old he started playing organ, and at age 11 he joined a youth orchestra in Japan. By 1990, he won a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston. His notable recent performances and recordings include the Broadway musical FELA! (2010), “Strange Love” with Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which became the closing theme of the Disney movie Frankenweenie (Tim Burton, 2012), and Blue Man Group’s special events and appearances on TV. He’s also played live with funk legend Steve Arrington, Black Dub alum and vocal chanteuse Trixie Whitley, and was a contributing songwriter for the downtown NYC / jet set electronic pop darlings Brazilian Girls. In the fall of 2018, Yusuke was invited to perform a solo set for the concert series Ambient Church in Brooklyn. and began developing his ambient set, featuring vibraphone and gamelan with synthesizers and electronics. Based in Brooklyn, New York – Yusuke performs and records with several groups including Dizzy Ventilators, Channel U, Golden Monkeys and Chimp Beams. As an in-demand multi-instrumental player, Yusuke has toured and recorded in the US, Japan, Europe, Canada and Mexico. __________
Based in Brooklyn, NY – song lyricist, producer, arranger, co-writer Will Kreth is the founder and co-owner of MediaGroove Music – an independent Brooklyn / Portland -based record label with 7 releases to its credit. Most recently, the producer of albums by the Pittsburgh-originated Stick Against Stone (who’s album “The Oregon Bootleg Tapes” was featured in New York Magazine’s “To Do List”; positively reviewed in Pitchfork, Wax Poetics, as well as by Robert Christgau in 2014), and the expanded Stick Against Stone Orchestra (aka – SASO – a 13 piece no wave/jazz/scronk/world percussion ensemble that performed at Joe’s Pub in NYC in 2013 and Von King Park in Brooklyn in 2011). SASO worked with and featured guests such as saxophonist Michael Blake, drummer Tony Mason, bassists Ben Rubin and Jesse Krakow, keyboardist Joe McGinty and guitarist David Terhune (both founders and members of Loser’s Lounge), drummer Denny McDermott, saxophonist Moist Paula Henderson, pianist/percussionist Brittany Anjou and saxophonist/vocalist Danny Lipsitz. Will’s working on a biography of the late composer, singer, saxophonist, flautist John H. Creighton, Jr. and is a co-editor of “The Happy Mutant Handbook” – published by Riverhead Books.
–Neville Farmer – London-based TV Producer/Writer/Music Consultant – producer of the Globe Trekker TV series, soundtrack composer for Lonely Planet television, XTC biographer (published by Hyperion Books), and collaborator at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios (UK)
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1) SIERRA CLASSIC SOUND believes that society – that everyone – deserves the right to safe schools, workplaces, houses of music, houses of worship and public spaces. We support Everytown.org and the WearOrange movement to raise awareness of the movement to end gun violence.
2) SIERRA CLASSIC SOUND applauds Kickstarter’s pledge to become “Climate Neutral” (announced on 24 Oct. 2019) – and also believes the music industry (and the music loving public) needs to admit that making more NEW vinyl records is no longer a sustainable idea. The manufacture of PVC (poly-vinyl chloride) plastic (derrived from petroleum, shipped on trucks, sitting in air-conditioned warehouses) is not helping the planet – nor is the resurgence in vinyl acknowledging the fact that millions of people now (and in the future) will continue to discover and experience music digitally, and that many new vinyl albums never get played at all – making them worse than “single-use plastic” – they’re “never-used plastic.” Think of it this way: It’s as if you invested in a horse carriage company after trains and cars became the main mode of transportation across the world. Trust us: we love the old vinyl records that we grew up on – but we also need to confront the fact that making more new vinyl is not helping the Earth or making musicians better storytellers. There are dozens of ways musicians can tell their stories without making NEW vinyl albums (e.g. – animations, videos, short movies, posters, photos, books, lyrics, live concerts and shared music experiences – and even more will be invented in the future!). Hence – we’re starting the “Make Music Green – No New Vinyl Pledge” and we hope you will join us.
Based on first-hand experience, recording, editing, mixing and mastering a full album can often take years (!) We don’t really have that kind of time, and neither do you – dear reader/listener. No one should have to wait that long. One of the clear advantages Sierra Classic Sound already has in making this album: “Sub-Urban” – is that the 8 as-yet unreleased song demos already created have spent considerable time in multiple home and professional recording studios – fleshing-out the arrangements and developing the structure of the demos. Proper recording studio time runs about $750 a day (for a 10 hour block) – and each song usually averages about 1.25 days to complete (but we have a head-start, so that will help reduce the hours per song). With two of 10 total songs completed – the remaining eight songs will need special attention to become fully-realized quickly, for our ambitious release time-frame of October 2020.
While this may sound like a long time off, what it really means is that the album will essentially need to be done by mid-June of 2020, giving us about seven (7) months from November 1st, 2019 to finish recording, editing, mixes, remixes and final mastering. To properly launch an album (unless you’re Beyoncé or Drake – which we are definitely not), no less than three months / 90 days from completion are necessary to prepare for the marketing and promotion campaign for the album. That brings us to October 2020.