NEWS

Ocote Soul Sounds is bringing the full band on the road to the West Coast this fall and we need to raise some extra funds to make it happen and keep up the momentum for future touring. Please check the video below and support us with a pledge on Kickstarter.com. The campaign is 30 days long. There is a variety of music, pins, t-shirts, music lessons, and a private concert for various levels of support. Your pledge will go through once we hit our fundraising mark. Thanks in advance!

As of this post, were ALMOST 1/4 of the way to our goal but there’s only 22 days left…so I’m kinda biting my nails here….please help however you can!!

Just finished a two day session with Austin’s The Lost Counts….great soul/jazz organ trio. Fun shit, great guys, two days, eleven songs.

Just wrapped up a 3 day marathon at Big Orange with DC’s Funk Ark. Sam Patlove aka Sammy P aka Holes held down the engineering for a new record of theirs which I’m producing. 12 tracks in 3 days….old school style. These dudes just came off tour and are nails tight, we hardly did more than 2-3 takes on anything. Great band and great guys, we had a really good time and the finished product will make you lose your balance, there’s some tough shit for sure. Stay tuned for more info, I believe the record will be out early 2012.

I have officially begun writing a new Echocentrics album…starting to flood Tita and Nat’s inboxes with demos and we’ll start cutting ideas very soon (like this week). In the meantime, I’m working on an instrumental Echo EP to drop this fall. It will be the first in a series of tributes I’ll be doing, I’ll reveal the first one pretty soon, who knows it might be ready by next update at this rate.

September has me producing an EP for Memphis soul-jazz organ trio The Lost Counts at Jim Eno’s Public Hi-Fi studio, excited about this for sure.

Tryna stay busy as usual, might even fuck around and make some hip hop again for old time’s sake. I’m not the biggest fan of the “gimmick” mash-ups or whatever but did recently get inspired by Max Tannone’s “Ghostfunk” project. Check it out if you haven’t.

Lots to report around here… just finished the first round of 8 songs for Argentinian/Brooklynite songstress Natalia Clavier‘s new album which I’m producing. The songs are coming out beautiful and reflect all of her influences nicely. The music was performed and recorded here at LOS by myself and the usual suspects (John Speice on drums) and features some “remote” contributions from LOS mainstay Will Rast from Washington, DC (more on him later), Nat’s brother Pablo Anglade from Buenos Aires, Argentina, her husband Fede Aubele from their Brooklyn home, and also from the BK, Victor Axelrod aka Ticklah (Antibalas, Easy Star, etc). We should be wrapping up after some touring commitments she has to Thievery Corporation later this fall, stay tuned!

Speaking of touring, getting ready to hit the road for a couple of weeks with Grupo Fantasma. We’ll be spending some time in France and then opening for the inimitable Gogol Bordello in Amsterdam and Germany!

Immediately upon return, I’ll be producing a new record for DC’s The Funk Ark (featuring frequent collaborator Will Rast). It’ll be marathon sessions with engineering help from my man Sam Patlove and my first time working at EAR studios (CORRECTION: We’ll now be at Big Orange.) Their new song demos are killer and they’re a great live band, few takes and few overdubs should do the job, we’ll be hitting that tape hard. I’ll be posting pics and such mid-August.

For all you gear nerds, check out my “review” of Neve’s True Tape 5042 Portico for Gear Wire magazine. Rupert Neve’s company (based in Wimberly, TX!) has been very supportive to me and great to work with. *Yes, that is a Tascam 4 track in the above pics, lo-fi to hi-fi at LOS, whatever works and whatever sounds good, no snobbery here*