S.O.U.L Magazine Feature

Check out my 3rd Degree Burn Interview with SOUL Magazine here Special thanks to Pay for reaching out and supporting gOOd music!

fish are jumping

So this summer has been real good and real bad to me. In the spring I accepted this full time gig in the real world because I needed the financial support to pay for some of these tuition bills. I can't believe I'm heading into my forth and hopefully final year this fall. (Although I wouldn't mind staying in college another year or two after getting a taste of corporate America) Time flies when you're having fun, am I right? Any-oo, I took some vacation off to work at the Litchfield Jazz Camp, and let me tell you, I love that place. The people are great and the players/faculty is KILLIN. Its a great hang and its so inspiring. Its hard to find a group of people that are all on the same page with music and life, and you can definitely find it in that environment. Next year I think I'm going to be on board again and I'm already looking forward to it. My playing grows every time I'm there, so I'll be heading back for as long as I can.

On a related note, this summer I have basically been enveloping myself in jazz music. This has really worked out, as this next album is going to require some new gear to accomplish the sound I want, and since I've sold my soul for a couple months I'll now have the funds to back it. So I'm going on a shopping spree in a couple weeks and then the recording will begin. I'm hoping for another late fall early winter release, but its hard to say at this point when anything will be ready.

Love from Across the Pond and Beyond

Its been crazy how as the summer has taken off I've been getting drops on blogs all over the world. As an album that came out nearly six months ago that's not too bad. (The cover is snow? How "summer" could it be?) Lately I've actually been getting more hits and downloads then ever. I guess it all just speaks to how I'm pretty shitty at the whole self-promotion thing. I've always believed that an artists music should speak for itself and that six-packs, photo-shoots and press-kits shouldn't be "speaking" for their art. (not saying I don't have abs tighter than Usher, just saying its not going to make my music any more enjoyable to listen to)

I just wanted to take a second and acknowledge a lot of these blogs, djs and general fans of good music that have been dropping and spreading my art. Its been crazy some of the lists I have been put on... For instance, right now I'm #1 on the soul playlist of 22tracks. (right next to Dwele, Corrine Bailey Rae and Robert Glasper to name a few.) If you're not already a reader of 22tracks, become one. They are an incredible source for music ranging from indie to electronic and they have a killin blog. Not only that, they're kinda a big deal. And I'm part of that big deal, no big deal yet though (whatup defjam? psh.)



As if that wasn't enough, my music has been breaking language barriers this summer. Recently I was contacted by JoNaY, a DJ for SoulCall, a spanish radio station based in Tenerife. Apparently they have been playing my EP and it has been getting a lot of love from the djs and listeners alike. They even wrote up a little review on me in their blog. Unfortunately I haven't taken enough years of spanish to understand all of the review but google language tools are handy these days:

"Not lying when I say that this is a really brilliant project, since you hear the first song you realize the sound quality of the enigmatic Ken Ross, and we do not know much about his life and career, but as this blog is not a heart (?) gives us the same, and therefore we only focus on their talents and enjoy a perfectly mixed EP with soulful hip-hop, a combination that SoulCall worships."

Those are some kind words, I think the general consensus from blogs and reviewers these days is that my music is real great but no one knows who I am haha, Suggestions? Please let me know how to better convey myself as an artist. I'm dead serious, e-mail me. JoNaY has asked me to do a radio drop on SoulCall as well, so if you're over there in Spain tune in to hear my sultry vocals!


As always, I want you guys to know that I'm humbled and blessed by all of you who have shared my music with others. It always gets back to me and you have now idea how encouraging it is. I'm sure you all already know, but its not easy to be an artist full-time these days, so we really have to do our best to support those who's work we appreciate.

And with that I strive to write another post this weekend to update you all on where I'm at with my life and with my music.

BamaLoveSoul

Somehow I found my way onto this blog that I read pretty frequently. If you're into good music and you like hearing about new artists I suggest you check here often. Its funny cause I actually submitted my shit to this blog and some others that I like, but unfortunately never heard back from. It looks like this is an issue of miscommunication as their post about the EP describes how they're pretty curious about who I am. They will be hearing from me soon.

check it here.

On a side note, props to Green Street for their new website launch and all the love they have been getting on blogs lately. Renaissance and I are cooking up some more heat lately so you will be hearing more about that soon.

Recession

The other night friend and talented vocalist Marley Dzis brought me and some other Northwestern University Jazz cats to a studio to record some joints for her demo. She was kind enough to give the band some extra time to record one of my original compositions entitled "Recession".

Download the joint here: http://www.mediafire.com/?2wgyyjmhez4

Michael Anderson: Tenor Saxophone
Katharine Hedlund: Piano
Cory Grindberg: Bass
Michael Westerband: Drums
Ken Ross: Guitar

hope you all diggg it, Michael Anderson goes INNN on his solo, enjoy.

In other news:
-This Thursday the Northwestern Jazz Orchestra is premiering my first arrangement for full orchestra. Check for more details here.
-A video to accompany the tune "New World" off Zzzz is under production, I'll post it here as soon as its finished!

Album Art

I've always been very attuned to album art. Those of you who have been *lucky* enough to be invited over my place know that I have some of my favorite's hanging on display, making the whole interior design process effortless. After some recent trips to the Art Institute I thought it'd be cool to electronically display some of my favorite works.

So, in no particular order:
(check out how some of them relate to or may have inspired latter ones)























(also: if you don't have any of these records you need to get them!!!)

On the Radio... for real this time.

Kinda funny because a couple months back I was writing about how I was "kinda" on the radio, but lately my music actually has been making it onto stations across the nation so I just wanted to give some shout outs to some of the Djs and stations that have been supporting me and playing some of my tracks.






so call up your local DJ and request KEN ROSS so that your favorite station can make it onto kenrossmusic.net!!! Wouldn't that be something...

FOX NEWS calls in the experts...

There are obviously a number of questions that come up from this video.
But some of my initial inquiries were:
1) I'm very curious as to where "Fox News Legal Analyst" Mercedes Colon got her law degree from.
2) God forbid Kayle's mom went down that street "butt neked" rather than Erykah, then we actually might have had a number of legitimate cases coming forward.

check out Badu's ENTIRE work here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCaCIstoOsU

(tips to Dooski)

Black Sheep Mag "Zzzz" Review

This review was just incredible for me to read over. Its really amazing when people dig your music even more than you could have ever expected them to... (Especially when its a critic!?)

Its a pretty in depth review and well worth your time to check out if you find a second:
http://www.blacksheepmag.com/reviews/album-reviews/item/1716-zzzz



special thanks to Daniella Robbins and the rest of Black Sheep Magazine

cooolest thing everrr lollll

No seriously. This was an amazing find, awesome for some creative procrastination, terrible for my paper due Friday. (it might take a long time to load but its well worth the wait!!) http://www.escapemotions.com/experiments/flame/index.html#top




Thanks to Chairman Rau for the initial tip!

This is also pretty sweet:

"Body Paint" Installation at "Clicks or Mortar", March 2009 from Memo Akten on Vimeo.

NBN Interview/Article

The Northwestern University Publication North by Northwestern did an interview/article on "Zzzz" that is a pretty good read for info on... me. I guess.

Special thanks to Lorraine Lee and the rest of the NBN staff!!!

PEEPs.

After all that mixing of "Zzzz" my ears needed a break, so I opened up my eyes...




So usually I use a "PEEPs" post as a way to try and highlight a specific musical artist that I dig, but this time I wanted to try and show off some of the visual art that I've been checking out lately.

for one, this design blog "the Roxor" is incredible. As I am a nerd for graphic-design and logo work this find was messy as I sent hours checking it out. (Yeah I've done a little bit of my own graphic designing... you know this music shit aint making me enough money.)

Through the Roxor I came across this artist Erika Simmons. Right away I was blown away with her cassette tape work. check it:






When I was doing research for my album artwork I came across a lot of great Vector artists because I thought that it would be a style that I wanted to roll in. Eventually with the help of a Nor'easter I opted for photography, but I still dig and follow a lot of these websites/artists:

Blood Sweat Vector
Through Blood Sweat Vector I came across these great not-necessarily-vector artists:
Retro, Hip and Soulful: Sean Qualls
Eric Carl on N.W. Native American Hood Crack: Jonny Wan
Good spot to keep up to date with urban art: the Little Chimp Society

"Zzzz" Press/Drops

So I've been getting some press drops the past couple weeks and I just wanted to post some of the links to these reviews/drops/blogs that have helped me out! (you all should start checking these spots out as they are refined enough to support good music like "Zzzz"... no but seriously.)

BEATCACKES - "the entire album is very relaxing and laidback."
BETTER BLENDS - "an impressive debut from the young college student and musician."
HOLD MY COAT - "incredibly talented singer, guitarist and more, and all of his strengths come out on the mixtape."
SOUL 11 - "What's truly amazing about this EP is that Ken plays all of the instruments on the tracks minus two songs"
the SOUL RESERVOIR - "Ken Ross has a Nicolay x Flying Lotus type of heat!!"
the EMERSON POST - "I must say he achieved something wonderful."

There should be more on the way as other publications/editors have contacted me about doing stories/reviews so I'll make sure to post them as they come in, make sure to follow the twitter or facebook pages as those are good spots to keep up to date on everything!

If you or anyone you know writes for a publication and are interested in doing a review/story on Zzzz please e-mail kenrossmusic@gmail.com , appreciate it!!

Extended "Zzzz" credits

There are many people that were essential to this album's creation but who's names unfortunately didn't make it onto the back album art.

First off, I want to thank all my fellow musicians/friends that encouraged me to even think about putting this out. In particular everyone over at Green Street, and my buddy Ian Wells aka producer/mashup artist Deskhop. There is also a long list of non-musically affiliated friends that helped me out and offered support by promising they would dl my shit even if it was whack as hell, but unfortunately none of them have cool enough websites... but you all know who you are, I think?

I can't thank musician and professional photographer Kurt Von Stetten enough, who generously helped me out by shooting the album art in his Airwalks not once, but twice during a nor'easter. This was the same guy that went with my mom way back in the day to help her pick out my first guitar, So I guess in some ways he's really to blame for all of this. I can't forget my sister from a similar mister, Kathleen Ross, who donated her skills as a graphic designer to literally help a brother out.

I gotta thank Gary Mei, Jon Lu and all the talented individuals at A Lucky Movie who made a well done promo video that really helped me look legit minus the messy bedroom in one or two scenes, but that was hardly their fault... And last but not least my buddy Armen Nazarian for helping me code all of my website!!! Okay and now time for more shameless promotion below!!!

Zzzz Promo Video Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnLUBifeBP8

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel now too, I'll be posting videos soon of me in "the studio" making my next project.

the Official Zzzz EP Post

First things first, please download it here: http://kenrossmusic.net

Alright. Well... that took longer than expected.

I mean, I think the last time I actually put out an album, mixtape or EP was 2004? So this EP/Mixtape/Album or whatever you want to call it was well overdue.

I always dig when artists talk about what inspired their albums or talk about the developments in their artistic process, so because I want to be cool and legitimate I'm going to talk about my experiences in the creation of "Zzzz" in this post... So readers beware: lots of words will follow and if you could care less, you can just chill, catch up on your "Entourage" and I'll make sure to post an Eric Carl picture-book to break it all down for you in the near future.

I guess this album would have to go all the way back to '05-'06, when I wrote this song called "the Truth", which is on the album under a slightly different title, "True to You". It was the first song I ever wrote with a jazzy neo-soul vibe, and it was almost there. The problem was I couldn't sing that hard r&b-like stuff for shit. A couple years later, not really by singing more but honestly just by listening and playing more, I tried my pipes at it again and it didn't sound nearly as bad... So I thought: "Hey... maybe I could try this recording music thing again."

Surprisingly, the majority of the album was all conceived in about two months over the past summer. Back in June of '09, after re-recording "True to You" using the individual tracks that had been recorded nearly four years earlier (including Malc's killin' solo), I made a track with Alexia Blakley called "I'm Still". I was striving for a contemporary take on a Tammy-and-Marvin upbeat duet. Shortly after this recording my computer hard-drive crashed, and I was pretty... fucked.

I had made a bunch of tracks but of course, backing up shit is not my forte. (As many people that have worked with me in the past know very well) So I lost like 4-5 tracks that I was working on for an album to be released initially in September of 2009. But there was no way that was going to happen after the massacre of all of my recorded files. So long story short, I recorded almost all these beats over the summer while back home in Boston and while teaching at the Litchfield Jazz Camp. When I got back to Northwestern to start up school I had a lot of music that didn't make much sense together, ranging from extensive experimental vamps (i.e. "Cherokee Dream Catcher") to Radiohead cover's like "All I Need"

So fall quarter hit me and all the music making stopped. I wanted to release the project initially before I left for the holidays, but trying to maintain a social life and a "sweet" real-world resume got in the way of me putting the my efforts into this project. Over winter break I kinda looked at all the music I had and still none of it made sense together really. Straight hip-hop songs like "Stop!" and soul joints like my adaptation of the American songbook standard "Darn that Dream" just didn't sound great in succession... But I did notice a theme of dreaming throughout the majority of my pieces... and Zzzz was born. So over winter break and up until last week I worked out all of the "Zzzz" interludes to help segment all the songs a bit. As a result these interludes actually kind of became some of my favorite pieces on the album, and really helped me develop my style that I'm going to further build upon in the near future.

As a nice touch, I wanted to kind of come full circle with the project. So I called up my friend Malcolm Campbell to record before I had to go back to Northwestern following new years. The day we recorded also happened to be the same day that the Lucky Movie team came over to film the promo video, which worked out nicely, as they got to film us jamming a little bit on "I Thought About You". But the real end product of this session was the first track on the album, "Zzzz". And there you have it, four years apart, the collaboration of Malcolm Campbell and Ken Ross to make some good jazz/funk/blues/hip-hop for your soul. I hope you enjoy it along with the rest of the album.

A lot of people have been asking me what my favorite track is and why, so I figured I'd put my thoughts out there too for any curious individuals. (Oh and by a lot I mean like ten...people and one child, but that's a lot right? Its all relative, I think?)

My favorite could definitely be "Zzzz 1.0" or "2.0", but if I had to go with one song I think it would be "Prayer". There were a lot of things that I was striving to do with this album, one of which was taking soul/r&b music back OUT of the box that its been put in, and I think that this song really accomplished a lot of that. Musically, I was really trying to combine all of the music that I listen to into one song or style, and I think I did that by using hip-hop influenced drums, greasey guitar riffing, distorted synths, and a jazz guitar solo at the end. Musically this song embodies a lot of the kind of music that I hope to make.

Not only that, but conceptually this song was on point. I was thinking back to the emergence of soul music; its movement out of the church and into more secular topics, many of which were part of the black power movement. I was trying bring soul music back to the spirituality which it came from and once radiated. So I made this song that's about prayer, which to me often becomes the struggle between being thankful for your blessings and being unsatisfied with your present situation. Lyrically the song ended up being a kind of satire for those who only look to their spirituality when in need, and not as a form of being humble or content. (hence the sarcastic quotations) Its something that I've struggled with and I think that its universal to everyone whether religious or not. So because both the music and the concept was there for this song, it definitely came out as one of my favorites on the EP.

"I'm a teenage mutant ninja turtle kid..."

and I need these. Now.




In other news. My debut album drops sunday and I'm f**kin nervous and excited as hell.


do me a favor and please like it? please?

@kenrossmusic is twitterific!!!

I gave in. I'm now twitting daily. Please follow my tweets or check past twats at my twitter page: http://twitter.com/kenrossmusic

EP Announced: "Zzzz"

Closing in on the release!

The promo video is done, the website is done, album artworks there, music videos are in the works, just need to finish up mixing one or two tracks and then add some transitional material... Its all coming together!!!

More to come in a week or two when everything's ready to go and I can start pushing this thing... But for now, here are some screen shots from the album cover shoot and the promo...