Does it get any better than playing a Northfield EleOcto electric octave mandolin accompanied by a Polyend Play+ and Loopy Pro? I’m not sure it does. Watch and see if you agree. Okay, you probably won’t but you have to admit it looks fun, huh?
Does it get any better than this? Read More »
So, which is my favorite track on my album, Regretfulnot? It’s Lost Found Lost. It’s the fourth track, if you listen to the album in order, which you should because the tracks represent sequentially the feelings and types of experiences I felt discovering, living in, and leaving Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lost Found Lost tells a story about community: needing it, not having it, finding it, losing it, and building it again. It’s an experience I’ve had over again in my life. I’m pretty good at connecting with people once I can meet them. But it can take me a while
My favorite track on Regretfulnot Read More »
This is a video of me realizing I’d really enjoy having a fretted electric cell. (Yes, they exist.) Or I’m too lazy to pick up my bass. Oh, and yes, I do tune my bass guitar in fifths like a cello (though an octave lower, I think).
Apparently I want a fretted electric cello Read More »
I composed the track The Merry Times, which is on the album Regretfulnot, to convey the joy I felt getting to know the maritime culture and geography of Nova Scotia, Canada, as well as the love I developed for the region and residents, which I still feel today after moving back to Seattle. The track The Merry Times includes five field recordings I took in Lunenburg and Halifax, Nova Scotia. This collection includes all of the original field recordings taken by me and any processed versions used in the track. Two recordings were used without processing other than trimming (i.e.,
The field recordings I used in The Merry Times Read More »
I’ll be honest: I can feel a bit weird about deciding to do music and art full-time at this point in my life, especially when my social media network knows me from academia and disaster management or maybe podcasting. Posting about music feels out of place when I know these folks connected with me for completely different reasons. Music has always been part of me, though. When I was choosing a college major, I had three directions: civil engineering (that’s what my dad did), psychology (maybe I had an inkling I was neurodivergent and bipolar), and music (it’s what I
Doing music full-time can feel weird Read More »
The Merry Times is a techno-inspired track that expresses the joyful significance I felt while experiencing Nova Scotia’s maritime culture, first vacationing there and then living there. I took the field recordings on the shores of Lunenburg, Halifax, and Laurencetown, Nova Scotia. I highly recommended a visit to all three places. (Lunenburg’s a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.) I recorded the mandolin, which is the source of the track’s looping hook and granular, glitchy ear candy, on the field recorder in my living room. I never thought I’d use the field recordings or the mandolin noodles in a track on a
The Merry Times is a track inspired by The Maritimes Read More »
Super excited to say that you can listen to, stream, download, and even buy my album “Regretfulnot” now. Like, now! Check it out here.
My album “Regretfulnot” is out! Read More »
While living in Nova Scotia, I made hundreds of hours of field recordings. I captured these recordings without knowing they’d become an album about moving to Canada. Producing an album of any kind wasn’t on my radar. I recorded the audio snapshots as sonic memories for myself—maybe for some interesting audio samples for future sound design experimentation.
How did you document and process a big life change? Read More »
My debut album as Big Stitch is a six-track EP titled “Regretfulnot.” The album is tightly thematic. It explores my experience of (re)discovering, living in, falling in love with, and leaving Nova Scotia, Canada. That experience led to a peculiar emotional state of joyful disappointment. (Or disappointing joy?) Making the album was an existential reflection centered on the idea of regret. It’s about processing regret when I don’t believe in regret (or at least its validity). In other words, the album simultaneously represents regret and the absence of regret—the paradox of both being equally true. My spiritual center is Buddhism.
“Regretfulnot” is about simultaneously regretting and not regretting Read More »
So what is Big Stitch? Well, it’s me and exploring musical ideas, audio processing methods, sound sources, and social messages/meanings that I’m curious about right now. Specifically, I’m interested in combining acoustic music/instruments with electronic music, as well as field recordings and found sound (typically spoken word) focused both relatively timely issues of the day and universal themes across those issues. Of course, people and algorithms want tidy genre labels. There are four ways I can answer that. The first is what genre tag I chose when I submitted my upcoming album (it’s done! …more on that below) for distribution.
What is Big Stitch’s genre? Read More »
I am kicking off my music project, Big Stitch. This kick-off is for me more than you. I need to uncork this thing so I can start sharing & leaning into Big Stitch. The website is enough: it’s live. If you go there, you’ll see my first album is done too! https://scottmiles.studio
Big Stitch is a go! Read More »
