Pump House field recording session

Yesterday, I had the privilege to record the sounds of the old Pump House that serviced Richmond during the early 20th century with my friends Vaughn Garland, John Priestley, and Stephen Vitiello. Twas a good day.

disquiet reviews Winter Birds

some kind words from Marc Weidenbaum from disquiet.com http://disquiet.com/2016/07/06/winter-birds-steve-ashby/

review from Avant Music News

“a sonic image that recalls those moments at twilight when birdsong becomes particularly salient.” https://avantmusicnews.com/2016/08/15/amn-reviews-steve-ashby-winter-birds-crackles-and-codes-bandcamp/

Winter Birds out now

My newest album, Winter Birds has been out for a week now, and I would like to extend a huge thank you for the kind words, support, and appreciation I’ve received so far. If you haven’t yet, give it a listen.

silence and noise

Above ground. Below sea level. We humans make a lot of noise. Building an incessant distraction in the name of progress. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the developments of technology. I use it everyday in the music I make, and am fascinated by it. But not being aware of the damage that may accrue […]

music is flesh and bone

Over this past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending Moogfest in Durham, NC. One of the highlights for me were the performances and talks given by Daniel Lanois. The through line connecting each, was an emphasis on listening, and communicating with the musicians he played with. What he referred to as an “acoustic proximity”. Performing, […]

testing Murch’s “worldizing” delay

As part of this week’s Disquiet Junto, I volunteered to test out Murch’s technique of creating a quadrupled delay from a smaller space as described in this video: Here’s how I approached the idea: Using Ableton: Inserted audio clip into Ableton at a chosen tempo. My example was a voiceover reading so I just used […]

creating sound art

In the creation of a sound piece, I’m looking for an imaginative use of the raw material, the chosen sound sources, or prescribed themes at work. This involves hearing the inherent rhythms, textures, melodies within a sound, and then listening even closer to hear the sounds within the sound. That’s where creative intuition takes over […]

Crackles and Codes

Today, I’m proud to announce the release of my new piece Crackles and Codes. “The air was a chaos of crackling codes, voices, and music.” – Erik Barnouw The above quote describes Barnouw’s take on the proliferation of radio usage at the beginning of the twentieth century. This quote holds even more weight […]

Relational Listening

good read from Lawrence English http://earwaveevent.org/article/relational-listening-the-politics-of-perception/