Nils Westdal

  Clarifications, Works 1997-2000 originally titled Clarification was produced over a period of three years in Minneapolis, Boston, California and parts of Japan. This album was recorded utilizing mainly a Roland VS880 digital workstation at a time when a major shift in the recording industry was taking place which I was not oblivious to but maybe a little overwhelmed by.  For me this was an era of total experimentation and this album is a wholesome documentation of it. Not only because of all the different recording mediums used but the approach to creating music in general is almost totally different on every composition. Sometimes being influenced by a single sample that led to a multitrack monstrosity or simply writing chord progressions on an unfamiliar instrument. Letting go and having fun with technology was also a key factor during this growth period. However, simply picking up my bass guitar and letting it guide me has always been the more natural approach and it is e...

Yeah, another archival release from yours truly. This predates any of my ten72 or Keston and Westdal work. I had just finished working on a three year solo album project called "Clarification" that was never released when I started making these beats as sort of a more relaxing exercise. A desert after a long big healthy meal, if you will. I started listening to this little cluster of beats on my short commute to work. I realized that they made me smile. They sound so young and happy and so I decided that I should share this music. Here I am again cleaning up and mastering old art again that I thought was lost forever. I can't believe I thought all of this stuff was garbage when I created it. Now I'm finding myself absolutely cherishing it and digging for more. "Clarification" is my next release but this is a more serious one and I may call on Mr. Tom Garneau for a little mastering help. And I'm probably going to enlist someone else to do the art work. An...

Nils Westdal · Excerpt Three from Ephemeral Structures Live at Studio 667 Unearthed Music has release a surreal live performance from Ephemeral Structures,  an experimental trio including Kyle Herskovits(DJ Zen Rock),  John C.S. Keston and myself. We played an eighty minute set the night of March 26, 2004 for an intimate audience  at Metro State University. I had a good time mindfully cleaning up the audio and mixing it down to a more listenable forty-five minute,  nine song album. There were spots that were just too hot, distorted or had some extraneous weird electrical anomalies from living inside a MiniDisc (in my basement) for a decade and a half. Excerpt Three is one of the shortest pieces from the album that features a nice little Turntable and bass conversation. DJ Zen Rock

Nils Westdal · TAPE CASSETTE ARCHIVES 1995 - I Remember You (feat. Marissa Dodge) I finally started to digitize some of my old cassette tapes. I was most excited about this one in particular. This is a version of "I Remember You" that Marissa Dodge (Misty) and I recorded back in 1995. Marissa's vocals are so stunning and her piano voicings are super luxurious. I was going to EQ out some of the tape hiss but it kind of adds to the nostalgia of it all. This was engineered by Tony Axtell and I believe he actually was responsible for programming the brushes as well. He actually sampled the brushes and then programmed them. You can here how the bass and piano sound a little more human than the brushes. Sounds good to me though!

  Wake Up Smile is a meditative and dreamy debut album from Nils Westdal’s Abalone Beauty project. On this new crusade of calm, you might think Nils has gone “totally Yanni” on us by the first few seconds of listening. However, as it progresses the listener is gradually ushered into a very comfortable and mesmerizingly organic electronic and intriguing sonic dreamscape. One could conclude that it is a meditation workshop while another might purely enjoy it for the friendly and lyrical fretless bass that ties these four pieces together. Wake Up Smile is what you, the listener and passenger, make and take from it. Whether you decide to relax with it on a Sunday morning or bring it to bed with you in the evening, may it’s quirky healing sensibilities take you to the place that you need to be.

A Good Vintage is a collection of pieces produced utilizing only bass guitar, mostly around 2010. This assemblage is a time capsule of discovery at a time when I was looking for a way to perform as a solo artist with live looping and multiple layers. These songs are almost like little practice pieces that explore a multitude of different soundscapes and genres. Shortly after this period of my life I lost all of these projects and was left with only quick mixdowns and partial compositions. Shelved for nearly ten years, I gave these tracks a listen and decided that maybe this stuff should be heard. In fact I had never even thought of releasing any of this until last month while sorting through old emails trying to find a document. I stumbled upon a note I had written to my wife from May 11th 2008 asking her what she thought of the track I had attached. I had discovered a mixdown that I had no recollection of… cool! It ended up being the appropriately titled, May Eleventh. So, after some ...