Tributary Records a Boutique Art label since 1998

[Tributary Records]

Hi MD Members….

Hope you all had a great Christmas and holiday season.

I just recently found out about this site and forum and wanted to make an introduction about our boutique label "Tributary" for those (probably most) who haven't heard of us.

I'm Mike, and co founded with John Miner back in 2000 after being an investor in the rock opera "Heavens Cafe'" which was staged at The Flamingo Theater (Las Vegas) in 1996 then did another run in 1997. It was then picked up by Insurgo in Los Angeles in 2003, if I remember right, although I wasn't involved in that run of six weeks out there.

Around that time we released an earlier work called "Mantra Sunrise" which was a very moving live band and they made a record that I felt compelled to help see some light, which it did. We worked with some other groups around the Las Vegas area with mixed results and released a few more albums during the mid 2000's.

One of the focuses has been collaboration outside or extending beyond just musicians and a band. We've enjoyed working with theater groups, photographers, film makers, painters, dancers, choreographers with varying degrees of success. It's been interesting if not challenging to find common vision and ground on cross pollinating projects. However, it does seem to be quite rewarding when it does work!

We've been somewhat out of the loop and a bit hesitant to fully embrace the internet age of music after we felt quite violated during the Napster, file sharing craze a few years back. We did actually do fairly well before that, being able to pay musicians and finance projects etc. Since that time, we have focused more on local events and embracing the communities that support us more directly.

That being said, again a hello to everyone!

I'll pop on here from time to time and post music, videos, interviews or other things that might be of interest to those here who enjoy the more eclectic side of the musical arts.

Mike

[Jerome]

Unfortunately nothing is sacred in the digital age. Everything and anything can and will be copied. There is no antitdote to this. Concentrate on performing live. That's the only real avenue left open to musicians to earn a living. Curious as to the music you are creating - can you post some clips or tell us where we can find this music? Anyway, welcome to the site.

[Jerome]

Found this - http://www.progressiveears.org/forum/sho...Scrap-Book) Listened to this piece. Drummer's timing is questionable in places. At times he's in sync and then other times he's off-tempo. He's a creative drummer but he just misses the mark every now and then. Music wasn't bad but I feel it's not really developing enough.

[Tributary Records]

Found this - http://www.progressiveears.org/forum/sho...Scrap-Book) Listened to this piece. Drummer's timing is questionable in places. At times he's in sync and then other times he's off-tempo.

We do all the recordings direct onto analog tape machines, the old way. There are some reasons for it. It does demand more from the musicians in that there is no fixing things. We look for a passionate or emotional take before something more sterile. This was all recorded live, and it's a complex piece of music.

It might be that you are hearing the drummer playing in several odd meter time signatures. The ending jam out is in 22/8 meter. A lot of the song is in 5/4 and some in 7/8. There is no click track used either, so it would wander around to some degree.

I agree that live performance is the only thing left, and we try to make sure that any recordings we produce will be an accurate representation of the band that one would go out to see…. for better or for worse I suppose.

We have some free form jazz stuff with Bindi's Wild Adventure, another band that only plays live "Art Rock Ensemble" and a few other projects in the works like this one.

It does seem to work in that there might be a refreshing feeling to present music in a more human or natural way as opposed to how much of the music today is being heavily manipulated by computer programs etc. Of course everyone has differing tastes that suit them. We just lean more to the natural organic performances, but certainly not simple music exclusively.

[Tributary Records]

Here is the most recent work as discussed above.

[video=youtube;X-aw2qynEjs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-aw2qynEjs&spfreload=10[/video]

[Tributary Records]

The Ensemble is a live band only. Art Rock Ensemble is a spin off of Art Rock Circus, but focuses only on live. It's also different players and The Ensemble uses zero effects, everything played clean…. so in that sense more of a jazz approach toward the material.

Only the guitarist is the same. Here are a few clips from a few of this years shows at various venues.

[video=youtube;2YOz60s_PPY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YOz60s_PPY[/video]

[Tributary Records]

Found this - http://www.progressiveears.org/forum/sho...Scrap-Book) Listened to this piece. Drummer's timing is questionable in places. At times he's in sync and then other times he's off-tempo.

A lot of that song is in odd time signatures, 22/8 7/8 5/4 to name a few. It was also recorded live with no click tracks or computers involved. It went right to tape machine, mixed with hands off the board for a natural sounding recording. It's honest and a bit of imperfections, but I think this was the best of 4 takes. We were looking for a good execution, but passionate playing was the main concern.

[Jerome]

And in return here's some eclectic music for you - http://www.auralscapes.com

[Tributary Records]

And in return here's some eclectic music for you - http://www.auralscapes.com

Thanks for posting. Some cool stuff for sure. It might sound interesting with some acoustic drums playing some odd metered beats behind the sound scopes like Oldfield did back in the day. We have a guy that could do that. Just food for thought.

[Jerome]

Funny you should say that - Oldfield is one of my favourite composers.