observantrecords

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Observant Records was born out of impatience.

When I was growing up, I thought the only way to get my music heard by people other than me was to get signed to a record label. As active as the Hawaiian music scene may be, I knew my kind of writing would not play well in Honolulu clubs or radio.

So I waited till I graduated from college and moved to the Mainland to get a lay of the land. By the time that happened, creating your music in your own home became a viable option. As technology improved and an independent infrastructure became more accessible, the record label system seemed more trouble than it was worth.

I wanted to make music on my own and distribute it on my own. And I didn’t care that it didn’t sound entirely professional just yet. I wanted it out there now.

A stimulus check from the federal government kickstarted Observant Records, which I formed on my birthday in 2008.

enigmatics was the first release, and I optimistically pressed 100 copies. I still have 86 of them in my closet.

The label turned 10 years old in 2018, even though it hasn’t be entirely active all that time. But it’s a long-enough duration to produce an archive, one that seems worthy of retrospection.

Bandcamp made subscriptions available to artists, which I haven’t found occasion to use — till now. I’ll be making available the old Work Release Program releases, early versions of the albums now available. I might even find a few infant demos and studio experiments. These releases will be subscriber exclusives.

Visit the Bandcamp pages of Eponymous 4 and Empty Ensemble to subscribe and to access these new old recordings.

The next Eponymous 4 album, Travis, comes out on March 30, 2018, and the first single from the album, “August“, arrives on Aug. 4.

Eponymous 4 announced the release of a new album. Originally scheduled for a September 2017 release, the album will now come out in 2018. Titled Travis, the album deals in part with the theme of escape and overcoming obstacles that prevent it. Here’s the track listing:

Prelude: The Travis Lament
Timekeeper
August
I Want to Follow
Another Fiction
||: :|| (Repeat Signs)
世界の終わり (Sekai no Owari)
Surplus
The Man Who Stopped the World From Falling
West
Interlude: The Travis Reel
Useless

Empty Ensemble officially announced the release of Gakusei and 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」. Gakusei arrives on May 28, 2016 with 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」 following on Oct. 28, 2016. Both titles will be available through the Empty Ensemble Shop on Bandcamp. Here’s the track listing for both titles:

Gakusei

String Quartet No. 1: I. Allegro
String Quartet No. 1: II. Adagio
String Quartet No. 1: III. Allegro (reprise)
Palomino
Three Prayers in Irish Gaelic: I. Ar nÁthair
Three Prayers in Irish Gaelic: II. Naomh Mhurie
Three Prayers in Irish Gaelic: III. Glóir don Athair; Amen
Disintegrating Jig

「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」

弦楽四重奏曲其の一一番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一二番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一三番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一四番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一五番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一六番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一七番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一八番
弦楽四重奏曲其の一九番
Soliloquy of a Vampire

Back in November 2014, Eponymous 4 announced the Retrograde Single Series, six singles released monthly from January to June 2015. The first single, “engimatics IV“, is now available on Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon MP3 Store, Google Play, Spotify and Beats Music. The remaining singles in the series will be released on the last week of each month, with the b-sides collected on Retrograde Songs arriving in July 2015.

Original Confidence is now available from iTunes, Amazon MP3, Spotify, eMusic and many other digital services. You can also buy a CD from the shop or bundle it with a digital download from Bandcamp.

One week down in the Ex Machina Series, nine more to go!

With four albums, four EPs and one compilation coming out starting in September, it’s daunting to figure out which of these many releases by Eponymous 4 would appeal to you, the listener.

To help you decide, Observant Records presents the Ex Machina Series Matrix. Find a genre or a similar artist, and see which album matches.

The Ex Machina Series arrives on Sept. 10 with the release of Original Confidence: An Overview of Eponymous 4.

When the Observant Records web site first launched in Nov. 2011, it was little more than a placeholder. The shop had only one release, and the blog a mere two entries.

Now that the Ex Machina Machina Series has been officially announced, the Observant Records web site has been expanded to include a Releases section. The shop has also gone through an upgrade.

And now the blog has four entries!

More will be coming as the Ex Machina Series gets closer to release.

Starting in September 2013, Observant Records unveils the Ex Machina Series, a set of 9 releases by Eponymous 4, consisting of 4 albums, 4 EPs and a compilation album.

In 2005, Eponymous 4 sole member Greg Bueno bought a used version of a MIDI workstation he owned in the 1990s, replacing one stolen in a burglary in 1998. That purchase spurred him to finish building a bedroom studio.

A creative dam burst as a result, and it continued flooding Greg with material through 2007. By the time it subsided, he had four albums and three additional EPs of music (not including one he completed in 1999.)

Eager to bring this music to the public, Greg launched Observant Records in 2008 and released enigmatics on CD. In 2009, early demos of Imprint, 「風の歌を聴け」 and Restraint received a digital release in a series called the Work Release Program. The original plan was to release six volumes, with Revulsion, A Ghost in My Shadow and 「健忘症」 following in 2010.

The economic downturn of 2009 halted those plans, and Greg’s life underwent a number of transitions from 2010 to 2012. He switched jobs, dealt with a death in the family and moved from Austin, Texas, to Seattle, Wash.

Amplifier modeling software also changed the course of the Work Release Program. Before he encountered Native Instruments Guitar Rig, Greg fabricated his guitar parts with MIDI and sample libraries. He re-recorded a track with actual guitars and liked what he heard. A few additional upgrades to his studio, and it became apparent that his demos could sound much closer to what he had in mind.

So the Work Release Program was rechristened the Ex Machina Series, and Greg embarked on the arduous task of remixing more than 80 tracks.

He could have spaced out the work — concentrate on one album, release it, repeat — but as soon as he finished remixing a track, he would post it online. He kept working steadily until all eight original releases in the Ex Machina Series were complete. At that point, he figured he may as well just release them all at one time!

Ex Machina Series starts with a compilation, Original Confidence. Subtitled “An Overview of Eponymous 4”, this collection presents a cross-section of Eponymous 4’s diverse work. The tracks range from driving rock to jazz pop, Japanese punk covers to avant-garde electronic music. The compilation also teases tracks from two cover albums to be released at a future date.

enigmatics follows. Greg wasn’t satisfied with its original release, so he remixed the tracks to give them more dimension. enigmatics preceded the Work Release Program, so for the Ex Machina Series, it gets a volume number of zero.

The next three volumes in the series — Imprint, 「風の歌を聴け」 and Restraint — parallel the original Work Release Program order. All three releases have been extensively remixed, some tracks from the ground-up.

The final four volumes in the series — Revulsion, A Ghost in My Shadow 「健忘症」and 「光がない」 — are presented for the first time.

Original Confidence is available on Sept. 10 with each volume of the Ex Machina Series following every week thereafter. All releases in the series will be available on Bandcamp and Google Play for digital and the Observant Records Shop for physical.

Gakusei

「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」

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