*** A CD Baby Top Album Pick in New Age/Contemporary Instrumental and Electronic/Lounge ***
SURRENDER is Jeff Oster's fourth studio album. His new music is decidedly chill and downtempo, perfect for moments when you want to relax, go deeper in love, enjoy a perfect massage or just breathe a little deeper. Sexy and smooth, this music will make you smile...
His previous albums, RELEASED and TRUE, were both voted as Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Instrumental Album by broadcasters worldwide that report to Zone Music Reporter (formerly New Age Reporter.com). Songs from each of his albums won Independent Music Awards for Best New Age Song.
He is joined on SURRENDER by producer and engineering master Bryan Carrigan. Bryan co-produced SURRENDER with Jeff, and co-wrote eight of the songs on this album. Bryan has worked with such artists as Alanis Morissette, Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Aerosmith and No Doubt, and has done extensive film and television post production on such films as The Devil Wears Prada, K-Pax, Tropic Thunder, Marley and Me, and many more.
He is releasing several albums of original electronic music this year, and his latest album PASSING LIGHTS is available here on CD Baby and on iTunes.
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Also appearing on five of the songs on SURRENDER is singer and multi-instrumentalist Diane Arkenstone. Diane wrote her first song at the age of three and picked up her first guitar at the age of seven. Her album, "Jewel in the Sun," debuted at No. 16 on Billboard’s New Age charts when it was released in October 2002, peaking at number 11. In 2005, her album, The Best of Diane Arkenstone, went No. 1 on the New Age radio charts. In all, she’s worked on more than 45 albums, producing 28 under her own label, Neo Pacifica. Diane’s music embraces many styles, from Celtic, Trance, World and Native American, to techno, rock and folk.
Look for a new album from Diane early next year.
CREDITS:
JEFF OSTER - Flugelhorn, Trumpet, Vocals, Synthesizers, Loop Programming
BRYAN CARRIGAN - Sound Design, Synthesizers, Drum Programming
DIANE ARKENSTONE - Vocals
Produced by Bryan Carrigan and Jeff Oster
Engineered and Mixed by Bryan Carrigan
at Precision Sonics - Los Angeles, CA
Mastered by Steve Hall
at Future Disc Mastering - McMinnville, OR
© (P) 2011 Retso Records
All rights reserved
RR11004
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Here's a review of SURRENDER from John Diliberto, the host of the NPR radio program ECHOES. Echoes is a daily two-hour music soundscape, distributed by Public Radio International and broadcast on 130 radio stations from Maine to California. With host John Diliberto, a writer for Billboard, Pulse and other magazines, Echoes brings together a wide array of styles, from acoustic to electronic, jazz to space music, the avant-garde to rock.
Here's the review:
Surrender to Jeff Oster’s September CD of the Month.
It’s Ambient Electronica Lounge Sounds from Horn Player Jeff Oster as Echoes September 2011 CD of the Month
Until recently, you didn’t hear much trumpet outside of jazz in contemporary music. There’s Jon Hassell, Mark Isham and you’re pretty much done. But lately there’s been a cavalcade of trumpeters with electronic aspirations, including Nils Petter Molvaer, Ben Neill, Giorgio Li Calzi and Arve Henriksen. Jeff Oster should be on that list as well. Until his 2005 debut, Released, he was a journeyman horn player. Now he’s the go-to trumpeter for any number of musicians, including Windham Hill Records founder, Will Ackerman.
With this third CD, Jeff Oster enters edgier terrain with an even more personal sound. Surrender is an album of 21st century lounge music, morphed through soulful melodies, snaky grooves and film noir textures. “All That Matters” establishes the terrain with a swampy rhythm redolent of Jon Hassell’s sound from about 16 years ago, during his Blue Screen phase. Oster smears harmonized and echoing trumpet across the slow groove, intoning a dark, Miles-esque minimalist melody.
With a trumpet sound that seems as if it were blown in Rudy Van Gelder’s studio circa 1958 and then electrified, Jeff Oster has made music for dark nights and rain-swept city streets. But this is thoroughly modern music which is by turns growling, slinky, seductive and trancey. He spaces out completely on “53 Mirrors”, echoing his flugelhorn against a cycle of tuned percussion sounds and swirling, tremulous synthesizers. Oster loves playing these long, legato lines, leaving notes hanging sustained above the firmament like frozen skyways.
While Oster’s previous album, True, featured many guest musicians, Surrender is mostly a two-man show. He’s joined by Bryan Carrigan, who co-wrote all but three tracks and co-produced the album in addition to programming and playing keyboards. The lone signature guest is Diane Arkenstone who goes Donna Summers-breathy on the title track and plays the role of the affirming chorus of Oster’s philosophical musings on “The Voice.”
Jeff Oster might want to leave the lyric and poetry writing behind, but he’s found a personal voice for his horns. While the influences are apparent – Miles, Hassell, Isham – he’s synthesized them into his own mood-evoking music: a dark, smoke-filled lounge of liquid neon and tarnished chrome.
Surrender is the Echoes CD of the Month for September.
- John Diliberto
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A new review of SURRENDER at The Borderland (by John Peters)
http://www.the-borderland.co.uk/
There is a bit of a conundrum with Surrender, the new album by multi-instrumentalist Jeff Oster - for a start is it Jazz or New Age, or perhaps exotic electronica? Truth is you have to listen to it yourself and decide which musical category it falls within. For me it is a very exotic mix of Jazz flugelhorn and trumpet bedded into a series of electronica and ambient soundscapes, with added vocals. There are only three musicians involved on this album: Jeff Oster - brass, synths, loop programming, vocals, Bryan Carrigan - sound design, synths, drum programming, and Diane Arkenstone - vocals.
This is an interesting mix of styles and techniques, Mr Oster's aerie flugelhorn and trumpet float whispery over the ambient electronics, sunk sometimes so low into the audio mix as to be a ghost of what should be, the notes aerated and detached, seemingly hanging in the air. To this voices whisper, Ms Arkenstone's delightful vocals drift through and it all means... What? I'm not sure really, but I like the intrigue it engenders. Mr Oster's brass playing is reminiscent of late period Miles Davis, melodic yet otherworldly, and the electronic soundscapes are very chill out room. And there is an innate coolness running throughout the album, the music is just begging to be used in some art house movie soundtrack.
I've played Surrender several times now and it just grows more interesting each time, the flugelhorn, in particular, has a dynamic and sound so unique and dramatic. The eleven track titles are: All That Matters, Você Quer Dançar, Nikki's Dream, The Voice, Essence of Herb, Surrender, 2 Di 4, The Theology of Success, Beautiful Silence, 53 Mirrors, Enlightened Darkness. I'm not sure what it all means, but I like it and it's an album that invites you to investigate it again and again.
Highly Recommended.
- John Peters
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