Hi folks, Yarred here. It's hard to believe that in less than two months, it will have been a whole year since the release of Garden Journey! A lot has happened in my life since then...the most important thing being the birth of my baby girl Glorianna! I've also had a pretty full workload (what? musicians need to make money? perish the thought!) and have been putting a lot of extra effort into my new iPad-themed startup, Mariposta. So, sadly, not much time for music...

BUT, I have some ideas. :) For starters, I have enough music almost ready to go to put together a nice little EP. I had hoped to release a track a month under my "Passport" moniker, but I think I will end up bundling a few tracks together for a Passport EP release, and then focus my new energies on:

Garden Journey II

Yes, my dear friends, I have decided to begin work on a sequel to my debut album. In industry parlance, it will be my sophomore effort. Truly it will be a followup because I intend to keep much the same basic pace, instrumentation, and format. A little newer, a little shinier, but mainly another 60+ minutes of sonic bliss. Something like that anyway.

So there you have it: the latest from the world of Yarred. Oh, and while I'm typing away here, I'm also getting my new Bandcamp store set up. I'm pretty stoked about it. iTunes is just not very interesting when you're an indie -- it's nice to be on it but so are a bajillion other artists. On Bandcamp, you can carve out your own little storefront and set the prices to be whatever you (or actually whatever your fans) want. It's just that cool.

Have a lovely rest of your March, and I'll be back soon with more updates!

Shalom,

Yarred

I've been eyeing Virb for quite a while as a potential platform for building sites, and I've decided to give it a try for Yarred. The previous Yarred site was a simple static HTML site, and I had to decide whether to upgrade to WordPress which I've used quite frequently in the past, or try something different. I chose the later. :)

I live in beautiful Sonoma County, about an hour north of San Francisco, CA. We have such a peaceful landscape and good food and wine around here, I feel like I live in a garden!

Ha ha, no. Here's what I believe: God created the world and it was Very Good. We humans tend to muck things up. I believe that to be good stewards of God's amazing gift of Creation, we need to protect the environment in the midst of our civilizations, eat healthy and organic food whenever possible, and take time to be renewed and refreshed in our spirits so we can live with compassion for others. I am also a follower of Yeshua (Jesus) and His teachings. A man who claims to be God, lives a life of complete love and servitude, dies a horrible death, then three days later appears in the flesh to his followers having been raised from the grave as was foretold — all to take away the shame of my faults, bring me divine peace, and give me new life forevermore — well, I take this man very seriously.

The term “ambient” refers to music that is generally more abstract in nature, usually comprised of slower tempos and dreamy or otherworldly soundscapes. It can literally provide an ambience for your mind to wander, perhaps during meditation or relaxation. A lot of ambient music I hear tends to be “dark” in nature, rather cold and empty like space (in fact there's a sub-genre of ambient called space music). My aim is to create Light Ambient Music that is very human, ethnic-inspired, yet transports you to higher realms of spiritual awareness. I hope, in my own little way, to help you imagine what kinds of sounds we may hear in Heaven some day.

I use a variety of computer software synthesizers and effects, as well as acoustic instruments, all centered around my Mac Pro running Apple Logic Studio.

Acoustic:

• Native American Flutes by Geoffrey Ellis & Colyn Petersen
• MesaWinds - Native American Flute Samples by Orange Tree Samples (I helped develop this product)
• Irish low whistle
• Indonesian hand drum
• Sample libraries by Apple, Native Instruments, and others

Electronic: 

• Spectrasonics Omnisphere
• Waldorf PPG Wave
• Native Instruments FM8, Massive, and Absynth
• u-he Zebra
• Arturia Moog Modular and CS-80V
• Logic ES2, EVP88, EVD-6, and Sculpture
• Effects by FabFilter, Nomad Factory, Audio Damage, Camel Audio, and TC Electronic