The name of this improvised jam says it all. It sounds like a contant build up through the entire song, kinda like The Lost Cymbol. It starts off with a dreamy rhodes and ends with loud drum rolls.

Endless Build by Chilljam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at chilljam.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://chilljam.com.

A mostly acoustic version of Strawberry Fields Forever played live outdoors.
A couple of weeks ago, we did a little jam set on Neil’s back patio. It was nice relaxing scene with a little chiminea burning and some tiki torches as our only sources of light in the darkening summer evening. I played Neil’s dreadnaught acoustic guitar and sang, Neil was playing an assortment of percussion instruments and Jeremy was playing through a little Fender bass practice amp I bought years ago. The recordings were done through a single omnidirectional microphone on the picnic table into my Macbook Pro.
Surprisingly, this setup yielded quite a few songs that sounded pretty solid on the recordings and we’ll be releasing those in the coming weeks.
One of these recordings was a version of Strawberry Fields Forever, by the Beatles.

During the recording of Cover Band, we actively worked to take songs that we enjoyed but play them in a way that we thought significantly differed from the original versions. It was fun to take lyrical ideas from songs we liked and set them in a different environment, perhaps even relaying some different ideas from what the original versions represented.
However, during the last couple of weeks, we’ve worked more on playing some covers in a more recognizable method, utilizing the original artists’ intended melodies and structures. However, we still want to play the songs as ourselves, in our own way, rather than simply mimicking the work of the originals.
This version of Strawberry Fields Forever is one of the results of these attempts.

Original song written by Lennon/McCartney.

Strawberry Fields Forever by chilljam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at chilljam.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://chilljam.com.

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.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and interest!

The Daily Routine by Chilljam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at chilljam.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://chilljam.com.

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.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and interest!

Lonely Microphone Recordings by Chilljam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at chilljam.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://chilljam.com.

We’re sorry about the late posting today. There was a flood in downtown Baltimore this morning and it totally changed the day around.

Here’s this week’s song, Dave Jones. A couple weekends ago, Dave Jones came down to jam with us. He’s been up several times to play music in the past but I’m not sure that we’ve had workable recordings of those sessions. On this particular piece, Dave played saxophone and created a haunting mood with it. Often, it sounds as if the sax is crying out from some unseen location off in the distance. It’s easily one of my favorites in feel and texture.
Primarily, you’ll hear the interplay here between Jeremy’s keys and Dave’s sax work.
Sedate in mood and with a bit of fog covering everything, this song feels so cinematic in nature.
It reminds me of some of my favorite film soundtracks.

Dave Jones by chilljam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at chilljam.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://chilljam.com.

It’s been tough getting the 3 of us together lately. Work, family and other obligations have come up recently in a way that makes it difficult to get together on a consistent basis to play music.
This isn’t new, it happens regularly that we have to do other extracurricular work in order to make sure we hit the weekly releases we post to the site. Regardless of all the things that need to be done, we still strive to make sure we are regularly releasing material to keep the site updated with new and relative content for all of you to enjoy.

However, a couple of weeks ago, we managed to get together for a great jam session in Neil’s attic for the first time in weeks. We didn’t have time to fully set up all the recording equipment as we normally try to do, however, we set up a single microphone in a sort of “Return of the Lonely Microphone” session. Funk E Jazz was one of the pieces that came from this session.

If I remember correctly, Jeremy came up with the motive here and we just kind of went with it. I really dig the very Medeski, Martin and Wood kind of sound that came from this jam. It really felt good to jam together in a full room jam again.

Hope you all enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed playing it!

Funk E Jazz by chilljam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at chilljam.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://chilljam.com.

I think we hit a milestone with this one.  The time signature in this beat is unlike anything we’ve done before.  The extra added storm effects in the end go right along with the lyrics and thundering drums.

Lazy Sun Melts is a trippy, shimmery work. There’s no real direction. There’s no purpose. It’s like a sonic representation of lazy.

This is a short mellow piece featuring saxaphone. The sax gradually takes the music into an abstract composition that dissolves in the end.