 For more information on this album and its contributing artists, please visit the official album page |
Kuutana
About Kuutana
Kuutana is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer with more than twenty albums released in the Ambient, New Age, Chill, EM, and Psychedelic Progressive Rock genres. Kuutana also founded the Borders Edge Music Label in 2010. Kuutana is a member of the part-time faculty and also teaches music and digital media interest students at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Canada where he was previously schooled in Digital Music Production.
Background
A multi-instrumentalist and producer, Kuutana has been composing original music since a very young age. Choosing the less conventional path of timbral exploration instead of interpretation of existing composers, Kuutana was initially pulled into music synthesis (with modular synthesizers) in the 70’s though he also was avidly interested in playing the keyboards, guitar and flute. During that period, Kuutana was also introduced to the ambient works of Brian Eno, using tape loops to create ambient soundscapes. While Robert Fripp was presenting to students at McGill University in Montreal, Kuutana also had an opportunity to talk with Robert about his "Frippertronics" loop-based ambient projects, an event that further fueled the passion for what was to come.
A multi-instrumentalist and producer, Kuutana has been composing original music since a very young age. Choosing the less conventional path of timbral exploration instead of interpretation of existing composers, Kuutana was initially pulled into music synthesis (with modular synthesizers) in the 70’s though he also was avidly interested in playing the keyboards, guitar and flute. During that period, Kuutana was also introduced to the ambient works of Brian Eno, using tape loops to create ambient soundscapes. While Robert Fripp was presenting to students at McGill University in Montreal, Kuutana also had an opportunity to talk with Robert about his "Frippertronics" loop-based ambient projects, an event that further fueled the passion for what was to come.
Through the 80s and 90s, Kuutana developed skills in MIDI programming and combining sounds from analog and digital synths, as well as developing his interests in the guitar and flute. During this time, recordings were primarily for personal use and sharing with friends. Kuutana also performed at local venues during special events open to new sounds and the emerging genre that was New Age music. Strong influences during this periods were Brian Eno, Tomita, Kitaro, but also Tangerine Dream and Larry Fast (Synergy). On the Psy/Prog. Rock and Fusion side, influences included Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Jeff Beck (to name a few). Despite strong interest in music technologies, Kuutana took every opportunity as he traveled in several Asian countries (Okinawa Japan, and China in particular due to his 40+ years of practice in martial arts) and in India to find and collect locally native instruments and explore native sounds and compositional approaches.
Sundown Cafe, is a collaboration with known Chill genre artist Celestial View. The Sundown Cafe project started a few years after releasing the first Sequential Dreams albums. Beyond traditional Chill, Sundown Cafe initially borrowed some elements of Sequential Dreams, but gradually shifted towards including Smooth Jazz elements, including signature sounds such as the Tenor Sax.
There has always been a penchant towards New Age, and so use of flute is also readily found.
The end of 2014 also saw the introduction of Kuutana's first published Progressive Rock project, called "Midnight Airship". Heavily inspired by the irreplaceable prog/psychedelic-rock band "Pink Floyd", listeners will find many of their familiar sounds, though all tracks of the intro album "A River Once Flowed Here" are original compositions. In fact, Sequential Dreams listeners will also find a touch of SD in the track "Midnight Airdrop" to be found on the album.
By the end of 2014, Kuutana had released Six albums with the Kuutana title, four Sequential Dreams albums , three Sundown Cafe and one Midnight Airship albums, as well as co-authored tracks on published albums by other artists such as ambient artist Cousin Silas, EM artist Wolfgang Roth, and produced as well as figured on other EM compilations.
Due to a very busy schedule, I don't get around to updating this page as often as I would like. For the latest, you can also visit my Facebook page.
Kuutana Serenity Available for Licensing
Kuutana Serenity album tracks are available for licensing for your audio/visual production! Please click here for more details! |
Serenity Album Available for Digital Download
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Kuutana's Serenity Album can now be purchased from these online vendors:
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Serenity Album - Mirage
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An excerpt of the track titled "Mirage" is used as the soundtrack of this video animation of the Serenity Album cover.
Video art by Jean-Luc Charron |
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