S+G :: Free Album Download
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Download the full album, S+G, from chilljam.com.
Our most recent release and the last of these archived album free downloads, S+G is the beginning of some work we were putting together for a film that Neil scripted. We began filming the work but ran into some technical issues that delayed our progress on it. However, we thought it was still worthwhile to release some of the music we’d put together for the soundtrack into this short EP.
To download the album:
1 Go to the S+G Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
Static :: Free Album Download
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Download the full album, Static, from chilljam.com.
Static is the most recent full length release that we’ve compiled as chilljam. Primarily consisting of jammed out journeys in sound, Static is a great collection of some of our most consistent instrumental material to date. Most specifically, however, Static marks some of the last songs we were mixing down primarily with Audacity. Shortly after this, we started recording and mixing the majority of our songs on Apple Mac machines using Garageband. However, because of the difference in how the software works, there are different elements of control that each type of software concentrated on so this led to differing sounds in the end products.
Audacity, in the mixing process allows for a much more segmented mixing process, so that we were able to choose very small segments of individual instruments and tweak them. This led to some interesting sonic layers, which you can hear in a lot of the works here. Additionally, the reverbs and effects in Audacity have a much more analog feel to them, often sounding as if you’re listening to the songs off a cassette tape.
To download the album:
1 Go to the Static Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
Cover Band :: Free Album Download
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Download Cover Band from chilljam.com.
One day, while we were playing in Neil’s loft, I noticed some lyrics on the floor for The Grateful Dead’s Brokedown Palace. I guess someone was jamming on the song with Neil at some point. While Jeremy, Neil and Jim were jamming on something, I decided to pick up the lyrics and just sing along to what they were playing using the lyrics. It worked out well and spurred us into trying some songs by other artists. We didn’t try to play the original song in music, but often, I’d listen to what everyone was playing and just look up the lyrics for something I thought would work on my iPhone.
To download the album:
1 Go to the The Flame Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
The Flame :: Free Album Download
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Download the full album, The Flame, from chilljam.com.
Space Explorer might be my favorite “albumâ€, but the title track from The Flame is my favorite single recording-even when I listen to it now I am surprised that it was entirely improvised (like just about everything we do-but this particular song really sounds pre-meditated).  At the time of recording this collection of songs Joe was playing bass most of the time, so there is less guitar, and the keyboards are really the focus. Joe’s bass playing is solid, and really helps my drumming too. This album is primarily instrumental, great music for headphones, since there is often a lot going on you won’t pick up otherwise.Â
To download the album:
1 Go to the The Flame Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
In My Other Life :: Free Album Download
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Download the album, In My Other Life, this week on chilljam.com.
In My Other Life sprung from a set of song ideas that spoke from the point of view of particular people who have lived in history. Although there are only 3 songs in this release, each stands as some of our most unique works and marks a transition for me into starting to use pre-written lyrical ideas and concepts. However, with these songs, I had yet to actually bring the lyrics with me to sessions to work with. Often, I would write some ideas for possible use as lyrics on my computer at home or work and would read them before heading off to meet up with with the guys. Then when we’d play, I’d try to work off of what I remembered in my head.
To download the album:
1 Go to the In My Other Life… Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
The Daily Routine :: Free Album Download
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Download the album, The Daily Routine, this week on chilljam.com.
The lyrical ideas for The Daily Routine came about during a period in which I was working directly for a government contractor in Washington, D.C. The album describes aspects of my daily commute into D.C. on the MARC train and Metro, my day-to-day work, and then the ride home during the evenings. As one can probably tell in the lyrics, I never really felt like I was the right fit for the job and culture of the position I was in. I felt no problems handling my responsibilities. But, as a web developer working for the government, I was really looking forward to developing something that I felt would be publicly beneficial. I ended up finding out the much of the work involved the politics of apathy. Most people I worked with simply didn’t care and were just there for the paycheck. Lyrically, this album describes my observations and thoughts during this time.
To download the album:
1 Go to the The Daily Routine Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
| Posted in Albums | No Comments »
Lonely Microphone Recordings :: Free Album
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This week we’re releasing my favorite of the chilljam albums recorded to date. Lonely Microphone Recordings were recorded during a period of transition for the project. The PC that we were using for most of our recordings to this point died on us, disabling our ability to record multitrack recordings for mix down in post production. However, we wanted to continue to capture what was going on so Jeremy brought up a recording device and we attached a single room microphone to it to basically capture all of the sound in the room as it happened. So effectively we had no way of mixing any of the instrument levels. This is basically a series of live recordings.
Despite this raw method of recording, I really loved the massive sound this album has, along with some epic songs and flowing structures.
Hunt 17 tells the story of predator and prey and how their roles can be reversed given particular circumstances. The story begins with one character hunting another deep in the jungle. However, after the hunter fails to kill the prey despite leaving him/her as dead, the prey turns around and comes back after the original hunter leading to an eventual confrontation between the two.
See What’s Inside, Open Gate and Locked Door were all recorded with Beavis the following weekend. These 3 songs are some of the best jam sets that I think we’ve ever done and each song flows easily into the next with some great peaks and valleys.
To download the album:
1 Go to the Lonely Microphone Recordings Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
Tracks :: Free Album Download
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Tracks was the first album that we did that I really felt was really cohesive and solid from beginning to end. Done during the period of time while Cory Goodwin was still playing with us regularly, you can really hear a lot of Cory’s amazing and crazy sonic experiments. I also heavily used an awesome effects pedal on my voice and played around with odd ways to warp the sound of my voice. I often remember times where Cory, Neil and Jeremy would somehow find just the perfect mixture of sound textures in a way where I’d just have to stop and listen.
As to lyrics during this period, many of the songs didn’t have them. I’d just make something up off the top of my head and go with it. At first, I was just jamming out vocalizations, making crazy sounds and things. Just using vocals for additional instrumentation and having fun with it. Sometimes, I’d get ideas going in my head and maybe come up with a story or a scene and just describe it as it ran through my head at the time.
This way of singing led to Track 5, which was the first semi-solid song we really did. It was initially dubbed, “The Song”, because it was the only thing we felt we could come even relatively close to repeating more than once.
We were also playing out occasionally during this period, sometimes utilizing motives and ideas from these songs. We’ve never really done a song the same way twice, but often during this time, we figured out how to start off a song with a certain progression and then take the journey from there.
Usually this would lead us to very different places by the end of the songs.
I still remember the first show we tried, we actually played Track 5 (“The Song”) several times because so few people were there during the first performance that we felt we should play it again after people actually showed up.
I love Track 3 from this album as well, which we often referred to as the “Snow Ballad”. It’s a very sweet ballad with a slow pace. Something born in Neil’s attic on a snowy Sunday afternoon.
To download the album:
1 Go to the Tracks Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
Space Explorer :: Free Album Download
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Explore the album, Space Explorer, for free this week.
Space Explorer was the album that Ryan, Jeremy and Neil put together right before I joined the project so I have very little to say as to the album’s creative process. However, I do remember the day Jeremy came to the session with the CDs to hand out to everyone. I was very new to the project and was still trying to figure out exactly how I fit in. I think I was bringing in a different instrument to try just about every week at the time.
During this period of time, every session was essentially a set of very, very long jams that would meander from one style of music to another. I know Neil’s mentioned that it wouldn’t be unheard of that they would jam constantly for 45 minutes or more at a time! Often the sessions were just explorations in sound. We were just coming up with some of the craziest sounds we could make with the instruments we had. Thankfully, we had quite a few neat toys to alter sound in a ton of strange and interesting ways. Most notable on this recording in particular was Ryan’s bass and the giant effects processor that he was using at the time to come up with different ways of altering bass guitar sounds. I really love a lot of the crazy slides he coaxes out his bass on this recording.
Fun times with exploration.
Check it out.
To download the album:
1 Go to the Space Explorer Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.
| Posted in Albums, Instrumental Originals, Music | No Comments »
Knick Knacks :: Free Album Download
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This week’s free album download is Knick Knacks.
Knick-Knacks represents what the name implies. When we first started up chilljam.com, we weren’t quite sure what do to with the site. We had no real organized method for producing the songs and weren’t quite sure of how we wanted to organize the releases. However, shortly afterwards, we started working on thematic ideas for groups of songs. These organized releases eventually became themed albums such as In My Other Life… and The Daily Routine.
However, at the same time, we didn’t want to stress too much about producing such premeditated works so we produced a number of songs just for fun. These stray songs eventually worked together into the album, Knick-Knacks.
Although these works weren’t approached with quite as much forethought as the other themed albums we did around the same time, Knick-Knacks contains many of my favorite chilljam.com songs. The Photographer was the first song I remember singing along to one Beavis’ guitar lines and was the first song I remember purposefully concentrating on positive subject matter for a chilljam.com song. Corner was a fun little ditty I remember playing in my basement one day. And Drops was a fun, free song that Jeremy and I worked on at his house.
To download the album:
1 Go to the Knick-knacks Listen :: Album page.
2 Scroll down past the player and you’ll see a link labelled “Download this Album”.
3 Simply click on this link and the album is yours, complete with the album artwork.