Jessy Ribordy - Small Nothing [1B]

Solo tune, that I dig quite a lot.

As I embedded below from his Instagram, hopefully there will be more of this down the road, but for now, I'm going to keep enjoying "Small Nothing."

Not exactly The River Empires, The Gloomcatcher nor Falling Up, but maybe a little of each?

View this post on Instagram

New song I wrote this week. Link in bio. Might just kind of do one offs like this until I block time out to do an album.

A post shared by Jessy Ribordy (@jessyribordy) on Nov 14, 2019 at 9:34pm PST

The Gloomcatcher - Blade in the Belfry [EP] (2017-2018)

12/8/17

it's released today and it;s totally sublime. Could be my top record in the early season already, even for an EP.




1. The Night 03:42
2. Four
3. Kai
4. Heather
5. The Host
6. Marin

11/23/17
Wow, this was not expected, but this new EP from The Gloomcatcher is being released on December 8th, 2017.

The 1st track "Night" is streaming.

Very excited to hear this, and pretty much any music from Jessy Ribordy. I suppose 1 reason why this could be a project to see more from sooner rather than The River Empires is The Gloomcatcher of course is an offshoot of TRE; music that was originally written for TRE but didn't quite fit with the aesthetic and concept? of TRE at the time, so The Gloomcatcher was created.

But it has been more acoustic and more of Jessy doing mostly everything.

At any case, this is the 1st release from The Gloomcatcher or TRE since 2011. Starla Over the Fences was their last release which I recall liking a lot back in 2011 and I should revisit.

Also the cover art? it says it's temporary on bandcamp, but who knows.

edit: LOVE this new track. Man, I'm stoked for this!




1. The Night 03:42
2. Four
3. Kai
4. Heather
5. The Host
6. Marin

Northern Abbey - Glimpses (2017)

New track from Northern Abbey. Nick Lambert of Falling Up's project which I have always enjoyed, even as sparse and limited the releases that have come.

But with Falling Up's retirement, I imagine Nick has more time to work on this stuff. Great acoustic/attmospheric/chamber folk/rock, etc. Somewhat similar to The River Empires for whatever reason.

This tune specifically does remind me of the last FU album in some ways. But I do wonder if the title "Glimpses" references more to come soon.




Northern Abbey is a solo project by Nick Lambert. (Falling Up Guitarist) He loves all the greenery, forests, rain, lakes, and people that the northwest brings together, and writes music as a sort of soundtrack to all of it.

Vague News: The River Empires+Gloomcatcher+Unnamed Project

https://twitter.com/JessyRibordy/status/810210940016685057

I've been trying to follow everything Jessy has been doing after the end of Falling Up a couple of years ago, and I noticed a game Bethel Woods, a new board game I think based on some of his recent writing, was released:




But the potentially BIG news, is that twitter question above confirming there are still *plans* for The River Empires, The Gloomcatcher and this unnamed new project to happen.

But, 7 years since Epilogue came out,..the time frames on all that stuff I suspect is still unclear.

This new project, may be the thing with the soonest arrival time given its new and thus likely something with current motivation.

Blah Blah Blah...it's all just hope right now I guess. I do know Jessy has been busy doing other things other than music (writing, and likely the development with this new game), so that just makes sense to remain patient as possible. A bit like Matt Mahaffey and sElf, after hearing that podcast this week, it is totally understandable why there hasn't been all that much sElf music the last decade, because he's paying his bills doing other things outside of the band I/the fans love.

But that post above does at least bring some light to The River Empires and The Gloomcatcher not being 1-album wonders, etc.

I suppose if I knew some people to play it with (unlikely my wife), I might want to look into Bethel Woods at least. I should try reading up on it I guess.

And as far as the Unnamed band, I still can't help but hope somehow Casey Crescenzo could be involved, but despite his moving to the state of Washington which is geographically closer to Jessy (whose in Portland, Oregon) than in SoCal of course, per Casey's schedule and few times I've heard him talk about Jessy and TRE in questions/interviews, I don't know if he's in regular contact with Jessy. But I'd love to find out he was and just being quiet about it (or not asked recently enough, etc).


edit:

Jessy just followed up in a post from a minutes ago, Noon 3/15/17 . Like I posted above, I suspect he's referring to the new unnamed project.

I'm waiting to announce until the first single and artwork are ready so that it's special. Keep holding tight. You're all the best!

Falling Up - Falling Up (2015-2016)

11/11/15 6:35AM

There's the track list below. Preorders from the Kickstarter received a download on Sunday, and I've been listening to this record a lot this week. I'm really enjoying a lot of it, probably more than I expected. I can tell Jessy and the band did put a lot of time and thought into it, as I can hear the emotion sprawling out of many of the songs.

Early favorites: Boone Flyer, In the Woodshop, the last couple of minutes of Hydro, The Insect and some others.

Early 2015-2016 leader? could be along with Mutemath perhaps..



1 .Boone Flyer 5:51
2 . Flora 7:08
3 . The Green Rider 5:53
4. Hydro 4:49
5. The Woodworker 5:13
6. Wild Bird 5:35
7. Typhoon 4:13
8. In The Woodshop 3:02
9. Rangers 6:20
10. Up In Houses 3:18
11. The Insect 3:52
12. Flares 6:28

11/7/15 11:04AM
http://fallinguplives.com/

http://fallingup.bandcamp.com/




This Self-Titled album, the final Falling Up album, is being released next Friday November 13th. You can preorder it now at the links above. Track list, and some thoughts to follow.

For now, the 1st single "In the Woodshop" is both below per YouTube and on their website linked above.

Falling Up documentary (from 2011)

Falling Up Documentary from caleb thomas on Vimeo.

I noticed this shared on the Falling Up Fans Group the other day on Facebook, and I don't recall having seen it previously.

It's a good documentary, and pretty thorough. It is just Jessy talking, but there's a lot of good history, photos, etc about the Falling Up story, up to the release of their 2011 record Your Sparkling Death Cometh.

The interview with Jessy and the new EP along with the upcoming album has kind of rekindled my interest and time with Falling Up of late, and this documentary also added to that.

Conducting Interviews? some thoughts

Where to begin?

Well with the good fortune to do the interview with Jessy Ribordy this past weekend, the idea of doing interviews FOR this blog, as opposed to me LINKING OTHER SITE's interviews, etc came to mind. Really has come to mind.

Blech.

Okay, first things first:

The interview with Jessy I think could not have turned out any better, I say that mainly per how it was done via email. Why I mention the per email part is, well having seen and read countless interviews online and even in printed periodicals/newspapers, etc , the large majority of them are at least written (or transcribed) much like a direct, live conversation. I have seen some that are via email and sort of 1 list of questions to answer as the interview with Jessy was done.

I do wonder though, the interviews that are done via email that may not be done with just 1 long email, or rather read more of a conversation, are more of a live audio recording transcribed. In other words, the process of doing an EMAIL interview where you ask 1 question per email, then the person that is being interviewed answers back only to said question, and then you reply back with maybe a response (like a conversation) and then ask the next question, etc for X-number of questions; seems like it would be a bit of a long, almost tedious process for the interviewee, and it would be much easier to just answer a bunch if not all the questions in 1 email.

I guess what I'm getting at is conducting interviews that aren't live (like on the phone/video/audio etc,) unless it was like an instant-messaging thing or something (or on a message board like a Reddit AMA), seems like they will have to be the 1-long list of questions and then require 1 or 2 replies from the interviewee. But because of that, they really are more like a delayed Q&A, rather than having the whole *conversation* element. 

Even for the fact the interviewer isn't able to follow-up a question BASED ON the interviewee's answer, etc.

Blech, so that is kind of one thought about them.

Another is maybe kind of an obvious one: 

This blog has been kept to varying levels of activity, for 8 1/2 years, and the interview with Jessy the other day is the very 1st that I recall I actually did for it. Why that is?

1) Time obviously. What I am able to include in here (and with social media, including YouTube recently), takes enough of my free time up already. Doing interviews could change what I do include because of how much free time I have.

2) Legitimacy/Credibility. Maybe I have and still do sell myself a little short in regards to whether I could and should be able to interview, even relatively unknown musicians, maybe per the way I see this blog in some ways, sort of being journalism from a fan, or journalism for the fans/people, etc. Granted, based on that, I would be able to cover some topics/questions that other interviews may not. But maybe I'm shy, modest, and also wonder how to do it, who to get in touch with, etc. 

But while thinking about that and noticing other people on similar approaches to social media like That Drummer Guy and even altprogcore, the question seems okay to raise, if they do interviews, why can't I?

With all that in mind, considering how the Jessy Ribordy interview went, I guess I am thinking of trying to pursue interviewing some other musicians. Some names, like the Rush or Genesis guys, I don't suspect I'd have a chance in hell. I mean I'd love to obviously, but I'm a realist, and until I could at least cite many of the interviews I've done previously, I don't anticipate asking them. If they approached me? of course that would only happen in a parallel dimension, but I would of course do it in a heartbeat. 

Much like I did with Jessy, and it would likely never come up had Nick Lambert not suggested it on Twitter. It honestly never occurred to me, although Jessy Ribordy is someone I could probably ask dozens of other questions to, especially about The River Empires actually and just his background with music and other interests. Possibly even Portland and the Portland music scene; just notice this recent list on Rateyourmusic.com I made about all the Portland, Oregon artists I love.

So that leads me to mention, that while I cannot guarantee any interview in the near future at this point; I am thinking of sending requests out to some artists on a periodic basis. Not a ton, as I suppose if I won the Powerball this weekend, and I had an unlimited amount of disposable hours to use, I could do a handful of interviews every month, if not every week. But that of course hasn't happened, lol, 

But possibly a more realistic number would be a few a month. Maybe up to 5 if all can go well with them.

And that is also assuming the FORMAT of the 10-question email with a reply works. Which it very well may, but I suppose part of me will wonder and maybe try to if possible, conduct a more conversational interview. Could it happen before or after concerts? MAYBE, but at the same time, the ability to get that access could be hit and miss at best. 

Also just the time/timing of them could go late (why a before-the-concert thing would be ideal, but hardly expected with a lot of touring acts as their time can often be limited depending on their travel schedule, etc). And even in doing those kinds of interviews, via Audio? I may decide to just post the audio as an mp3 on archive.org or soundcloud, rather than transcribing them which can be rather TIME CONSUMING. But the more I think about it, VIDEO would maybe be the best and easiest, which I may find the only way to do those anyway.

But thinking about that, I need to compile a list of people to ask about them, some maybe more of a priority than others. There's one that I think seems like a decent possibility for, and seems pretty relevant. The challenge could be more of the content, namely because a new album is coming, etc and with many of these people I'd love to interview, the questions could range with their music history as opposed to a focus on their new music/album which in many cases, what the artist really wants to tell about (like the interview with Jessy).

My Interview with Jessy Ribordy about Falling Up's upcoming new Album (2015)

Here's the interview I just conducted via email with Jessy Ribordy about the upcoming Falling Up album. Some nice info about it stylistically and conceptually, how it compares to the rest of the Falling Up records, etc. I must admit, from Jessy's description, I am rather curious how it could be a blend of their more recent heavily layered records, and the more raw work of their further past.

Also of course this upcoming album will in fact be the last Falling Up album; why that is and how it is both similar and different in approach from even the more recent releases. The fact Jessy and the band are spending the extra amount of time in perfecting it has me intrigued per I often find when a lot of time and thought is made with something, it often does show in the quality.

I of course plan to post more specifics about this album when it is made available. And I have embedded the new House Full of Caverns EP below which is available to download. I also have some other stuff to share soon, namely a documentary about Falling Up I saw posted on Facebook the other day with Jessy. And some stuff about interviews, doing them, etc (why I have not really done them in the past? and doing more in the future, among other thoughts about them that are related).

But here's the interview below, and as I also posted below, I want to thank Jessy Ribordy and Nick Lambert again for allowing me to do this interview.




AllMR: 
Jessy,
          First off, I want to thank you and Nick for getting in touch with me as I have been a big fan of yours (Falling Up and your other projects too like The River Empires, The Gloomcatcher and Northern Abbey). I try and do everything I can to help support and promote them

Please tell me about this upcoming album from Falling Up:  When is it anticipated to be released?

Jessy: During the Fall. We don’t have a specific date yet, but the goal is during the Fall. Originally we were hoping for Summer but we’re just really trying to get this thing perfect. 

ALLMR: Is there a title (maybe even a working title?) or even a theme that you could share about the album?

Jessy: It’s most likely going to be self-titled, since this whole thing kind of represents all that our journey as a band has led up to. The entire theme is a secret as of now, but I can mention a major element within the album a few questions down!

ALLMR: What format will it be released on? Digital, CD and Vinyl? and if it does get released on Vinyl, might that influence the chance of some of the previous Falling Up albums to be released on Vinyl as well? (Fangs would be one I would personally love to own on Vinyl)

Jessy: Digital and CD for sure. We are printing Vinyls for Kickstarter, and hope to print another order just to sell in general. They are just so spendy! But yes, hopefully we can get the new record printed to Vinyl. And I’d really love Hours and YSDC too. Fangs would be rad except it’s difficult to get the master from our old label. If everyone came together and bugged them though I’m sure we could get the master to print! 

ALLMR: How does it differ from even the most recent Falling Up records like Hours, Midnight on Earthship and Your Sparkling Death Cometh, and how is it similar? 

Jessy: Well I’ve taken a lot more time to write this album than the others. YSDC I wrote in about three weeks ha! This one I took three months to really get the songs the way I wanted them. Not to say that the songs lacked anything on those older records. In fact normally I write better under pressure and in a shorter amount of time. Sometimes when I have too much time I second guess myself way too much. But it was different with this album. Time was a good thing. I needed to be in the space that my life was in at the time to really absorb inspiration. But it’s similar in ways of recording. Since we’ve become independent we’ve lived by the standard of not holding back with our albums. We let the songs be the songs that they are meant to be instead of trying to form them into anything for any other purpose than just being music.

ALLMR: Is there a lot of use of synthesizers and layers?

Jessy: Layers yes, synths are a little more sparse this time around. There is programming on this album but we’ve sampled a lot of organic layers and have been manipulating them with fx; basically making our own synths. And there are more pianos on this album. But that’s not to say there are more soft songs. Most of the heavier tracks have piano in them. I’m also still in the middle of keys/synths so there could be a lot more than I’m thinking by the end of it ha!  

ALLMR: Is it, or could it be considered a concept album? If so, what about?

Jessy: Alright so here we go— yes and no. I’ve realized that pretty much every album we’ve done is a concept album. Fangs was the only one self proclaimed as a concept and Hours was the only one based off an actual story I penned. But with all that being said, I feel that concepts are just kind a part of what we do. Most other bands will do regular records and then have one concept album that sticks out. Since concept has a been the major role in all albums, I can’t really say this a concept album, it’s just a Falling Up album, and it comes with the territory. That’s another reason we are excited about having this album as our last. It really does show everyone who we’ve truly been this whole time. We are Falling Up; we don’t write songs, we write musical stories. And with that being said I’ll mention a fun thing about this new album that I promised a few questions above— the whole album takes place inside a house.  

ALLMR: Does the new album have any influence from your recently published writing (Hours?)

Jessy: Influence with certain parts of the universe that Hours is set in, yes. But as far as the story, no. The story of this album is very different than anything I’ve written in our other albums. I hesitated with this story at first because I was hoping to tie together everything, so that Fangs was completed and Hours was completed, but it’s too special for that. I wanted to open up a world and then leave all of you there at the beginning of it as we leave it. This album shows all of you through the doorway (literally and metaphorically) while we exit. 

ALLMR: It sounds like there was a lot of music written and recorded for this album (per the extra Pre-Album EP House Full of Caverns), how long is the album? How many songs do you anticipate to be included?

Jessy: So far it’s looking like 12 tracks, but there will probably be closer to 14 with transitions and what not. Once I’m in the creative atmosphere I usually just go for it and it’s hard to stop ha. 

ALLMR: As for the House Full of Caverns EP, it is an almost all-instrumental EP, with a lot of chamber-music kinds of instrumentation from what I can tell. Does the upcoming full-length album have much of that?

Jessy: There are many transitions on the new album that have some flavor of House Full of Caverns, but I think to a lot of people’s surprise, there will be just a lot more whole tracks than even YSDC. It’s hard to explain but we have been playing with a new approach of doing an album chronologically rather than transitioning throughout the songs like YSDC. I always hesitate to describe the instrumentation because it changes as the recording process progresses, especially near the end. But so far we have been trying to keep things pretty “band” oriented— guitar, bass, drums, vocals and piano. Trying to touch back into our garage roots. 

ALLMR: The music on House Full of Caverns EP sounds like it could be on a soundtrack to something. Was there anything cinematic in mind with it and with some of the music on the new full-length album?

Jessy: I can’t say for the new album yet! But yes with the EP. I wrote a little story that will most likely be published per the kickstarter short story reward tier and it’s what the EP revolves around. It has a lot to do with blanket forts. Sounds silly, I know, but it’s neat. There are two characters in House Full of Caverns, Aron is one of them. When he arrives at the house, he rides in on the wind. I know that’s all very ambiguous but it will be revealed a bit later. Not with the new album though— thematically and conceptually the EP and LP are completely there own things. I guess the only common trait is that there is a house in both. But the house in the LP is cooler than the one in the EP. 

ALLMR: Does Falling Up look to tour to support the new album, and if so, where may the tours come? I live in Minnesota and would love to see Falling Up play live sometime, so I guess I'm biased to hope for a concert in Minnesota or somewhere in the Upper Midwest if possible.

Jessy: We are planning to play around Portland a lot. I would love to do a national tour again, one last time, we just need to find the right amount of support to do it. Even if we tagged onto another tour that was happening, that’d be rad. Even if we could only play three or four tracks a night off this new album, it’d be worth it! We will see I suppose, like I said, we would absolutely love to but have no plans as of now. We will be doing some UStream shows though online. I think those will be pretty neat.

ALLMR: It has been mentioned on Social Media and with the successful Kickstarter Campaign, this will in fact be the final Falling Up album. If you feel it's okay to explain anything about that, what are the reasons for it being the last Falling Up album? Is it for artistic reasons, i.e the members of Falling Up just find they want to focus on other kinds of music now? Or could it be for time, money, family purposes?

Jessy: Well for the past four or five years, the band has become more of a side thing in everyone’s lives. Wives, kids, careers, etc., became the priorities. And I’ve been ready to write and record some music separately from Falling Up for a long period of time. I think I’ve just felt like I needed to be able to end one chapter in order to start a new one completely. I’ve always been the type of person who focuses on something completely and I can’t feel happy about it if it’s not 100%. I’ve been doing 100% Falling Up for over ten years and I just recently realized I wanted to focus that energy on something different. Even with The River Empires and The Gloomcatcher, they weren’t projects that I was able to really focus on. Falling Up was still my priority, and everything else sort of fell behind it. But I’m ready to end it. I’m really excited to have people experience a new musical project that I will be putting just as much attention into, if not more, than I did with Falling Up. 

ALLMR: Thanks again and have a great 4th of July weekend and Summer!

http://fallinguplives.com/
https://www.facebook.com/fallingup
https://twitter.com/fallingupband
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fallingup/new-album-1

Northern Abbey - The Sounds of Glowing [EP] (2013)

1. Portrait 04:59
2. The Trail 02:38
3. A Lonesome Road 03:10
4. Glowing 05:02
5. Of Lights 02:58
6. The Several Seas (Bonus Track) 02:34



Wow, this sort of came out of nowhere! Although, given I got in touch with Nick Lambert after my end-of-year blurb from last year in here, and he mentioned there was more music coming soon, this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

 But as the link shows, he plays and writes more or less all of it. Jessy Ribordy of The River Empires and Nick's bandmate in Falling Up, it shows produced and mixed it along with writing a string arrangement on "Portrait," the opening track.

But I really loved the 1st/debut EP from last year from Northern Abbey. So, this is really cool to see this now become available. The artwork is a little puzzling, being sort of a faded/cloudy white/gray, but I imagine there's a good reason for that.

The River Empires - Cellar Door (Series)

10/17/12 8:19PM


​CELLAR DOOR

Five teenagers discover mysterious glowing orbs that hold a great power. They soon run into a group of others who possess the same type of orbs, joining them in constructing a spaceship to leave the earth and search for answers.  

Cellar Door is a television series with a finished pilot episode script and a treatment of the entire first season (7 episodes). For my protection of the story and idea, I didn't want to post the pilot episode or the treatment online. The trailer above is designed to represent the pilot episode and overall concept of the series. If there is any interest in either the treatment or the pilot episode script in PDF, please contact me personally through the email on the site. Thanks!  ​

I've said it a number of times, but I just wish I could help get this off the ground somehow, but having a cousin whose a wardrobe buyer in Hollywood doesn't exactly give me one of those *connections*. It might even be worth just posting something to Kevin Pollak on Twitter, except both him and his sig other/producer Jaime Fox probably don't even remember me. :-\.

I mean take Coheed and Cambria or The Dear Hunter. Neither of those have been made into a series/movie. Coheed has the graphic novel, but given how much bigger both of them are to TRE's, this may all be just false hope.

But Jessy has to try of course. And Mars/Brighton II hopefully is coming soon regardless. It sounds like the 2 mediums (Albums and TV Series) are moving further apart, than originally Jessy intended. No biggie, but it's interesting to notice.

12/22/11 4:28AM
See this post on Facebook with Video Trailer

I am going to presume this is for a series, my guess would be a Web-based Series, just based on budget and interest levels. I'd love to be wrong and have this air even on some smaller Cable network like A&E or something, but I'm not expecting it.

But clearly, there's something soon to be announced, and how and whatever the format it is, it's titled "Cellar Door" from seeing that trailer. Hopefully there'll be more to know and add soon, like sometime early in 2012.



Also check out the new piece at jessy's blog

In order to help myself finish the end of my series pilot script, I wrote this piece. Right when it climaxes is when the last scene takes place, then credits will roll — in my mind.

And I did stumble upon this video a bit agoo on Vimeo, of Jessy in a studio last year sometime.

The River Empires - Five Circles (Free MP3 Download)

2/27/12 7:48PM


brief update on Facebook

Last week a brand new song was posted for free in case you haven't heard. A viable date for the new album will be announced in the next couple weeks! As well as some updates regarding the series...

So, it appears the next record, (titled presumably) Mars/Brighton II ,should be released relatively soon. And information about the Series Cellar Door.

I am of course incredibly curious about this, maybe more so about the Series. I'm going to stand by my belief that if the Series ends up anywhere beyond an ONLINE SERIES, likely Animated, I will be rather surprised if not shocked. I would LOVE for it to find its way onto any network. IFC, AMC, SYFY, FOX, or even G4, which was the network The Dear Hunter appeared on Attack of the Show.

But to expect it to happen? I guess I don't want to anticipate something too big.

And as far as Mars Brighton II, it immediately becomes my most anticipated record this year. Past Ne Obliviscaris, Ramona Falls, The Reign of Kindo, Mew and others. But based on that, I'm almost leaning toward expecting it to not be as good as those albums nor Epilogue. That way if it is, I don't have to put pressure on it and myself for it to be so good.

But given how great Epilogue is/was, by default, this becomes the biggest record on my radar now.


The new song "Five Circles" by the way, is totally sublime.

no I haven't heard it yet as I'm working OT at work right now. The title sounds familiar, as I think they may have played it live at that show that was shared last Summer.

Anyway, just gave them a modest tip. Seeing this is rather encouraging.

Northern Abbey - Northern Abbey [EP] (2012]

1 The Catacombs 5:29
2 Wayward Village 2:29
3 Paintings 3:29

Jessy Ribordy was passing this project along on facebook yesterday as it was just released. This 3-track debut EP from Nothern Abbey.

Wow, The River Empires much? regardless of how similar, this is SUBLIME. Damn.

Jessy Ribordy Chat

I just noticed this over on The Dear Hunter fans forum, a live chat I guess he did the other night.

Not a ton of details, but he's shooting for another album (Mars/Brighton II) for The River Empires this year. And he's writing the next Falling Up album.Apparently a new forum may come soon for fans of Falling Up and/or The River Empiers.



10:00 basic band info
10:03 music video in the works
10:05 Remix EP (like the quadra remix!!!) out in a month or so hopefully!
10:07 first show coming up soon (saturday?) portland, or
10:08 working on new music this year!
10:10 Q&A time
10:11 will play old FU songs in their shows
10:12 concerning YSDC: he's a fiction/sci-fi writer, so Fangs was natural. YSDC is fiction that shows emotion. "narrative is about hope in the most dire times."
10:15 story preview? more tweets incoming. fangs + river empires + cellar door info @JessyCalvin
10:16 second RE album? (duh.) shooting for release this year.
10:17 what does MSCRON stand for? mascaron (wiki it!) kid goes to hospital, finds out he has some sort of cancer, it's too late. "It's that moment when you find out you're not invincible." (my question, suckas)

10:21 fangs 2? definitely. wants to finish the story, of course. no eta.
10:23 gloomcatcher on spotify/itunes? maybe. semirant about pirating vs. spotify and how it benefits the artist. (possibly vs. probably not)
10:25 collab with owl city? (wtf.) tactfully denied.
10:26 uk dates? open to the idea.
10:27 hobbies? writing and music, hiking and camping. not a gamer. not big into sports. "I'm kinda a workoholic."
10:30 diamnds? just because. likes how the word looks without vowels. hahaha
10:32 talking about his writing, concept of finding the light in a dark situation.
10:34 what is Vates? it is a thing he made up, apparently. he won't explain more because it is integral to several stories. (!!!!!!!)
10:36 what inspired you to start the band? following his heart. he considers it his job. "doesn't feel like doing anything else."
10:37 story as a video game? he had an idea, but since he's not into gaming...
10:39 message at the end of darkspeed? story-related. he's planting easter eggs.
10:40 are you still a christian? gets asked that a lot. "It's not about what I say...(compares to C.S. Lewis, sci-fi/fiction with possible hints of metaphor)...i would love for people to maybe look at our situation...as waiting to see the whole thing."
10:44 something about demon hunter??? no idea, didn't listen.
10:45 was captiva a proto-fangs? (my q!) YES! FREAKING CALLED IT.
10:48 Circadian meaning? basically a "hold on, don't freak out yet." moment, "hear us out", so to speak. More about the music industry, and how it works/their place in it. "I can write a song, and it can kinda defend ourselves."
10:54 acoustic album? not likely.
10:54 why do the song titles make no sense? (lol'd) he likes watching trailers, sometimes more than the actual movies. to him a song title is like a trailer.

10:57 loses his place in the questions, hahaha.
10:58 pick one song from each album to keep. exit lights: islander. captiva: dark side of indoor track meets. fangs!: --QUESTION ABANDONED--
11:00 take lessons? not so much. watches and learns.
11:00 new merch? new t-shirts.
11:01 new fan-submission place? website in the works! new something sometime.
11:02 song titles from captiva? picked one: dark side of indoor track meets was written at an indoor track meet.
11:07 have you matured in your faith since starting FU? thinks yes. doesn't like the word 'maturing' necessarily. more like growing in a relationship.
11:10 meaning of The Dark Side of Indoor Track Meets? you can try everything, until you reach the point that grace has to step in.
11:11 gypsy in TRE? DENIED.
11:11 what in your musical career would you do differently? Not be afraid to do his own thing. (makes sense, given his troubles with popular perception and industry/labels)
11:14 uke on any sort of album? yes. his dad is hawaiian(!)
11:15 waffles or pancakes? NEITHER.
11:15 unofficial forum? greenlight. (I'll be making that shortly.)
--getting more sporadic. will update if he evens out.--
--confession: I am just being lazy. this liveblog stuff is tedious.--

11:23 josh shroy? still around, doing more mixing.
11:26 do you worry that your stories will tangle up/leave loose ends? sometimes. but optimistic.
11:27 inspiration behind Oceans? a basic love song. written before fangs! (!)
11:28 to collab with? paul mccartney
11:29 favorite topic to write about? sci-fi. idea of characters knowing something beforehand, allowing for very deliberate (and possibly confusing) actions.
11:33 favorite song to record? MSCRON. recorded in two takes with a "secret weapon pedal" for some swoopy synthy guitars.
11:36 influences: henry mancini. 80s & 90s pop. Ben Folds - Rock in the Suburbs. Incubus - Make Yourself.
11:39 closing comments. thanks for fannage. j/k.
11:39 thoughts on kickstarter? likes it.
11:40 watched lost? YES. rant time: lost covered so many subjects (sci-fi wise: time travel, mythology, aliens, science, ghosts, etc.) so new things that use the same ideas get compared to lost. (does sound annoying.)
11:43 favorite shows: firefly, mad men, dr. who, lost
11:43 signing off again. enjoyed teh chat. will set up again. "You guys are the best. You guys are awesome. I love you."
11:45 "Okay....have to find out how to get this thing off..." cut to black.

11/7/11 Micro-Blog:

-House of Fools upcoming 2nd LP Versus the Beast is finally mixed and mastered. How it's released, and of course WHEN still remains to be announced. If I had to guess, they'll Self-release it, and it'll come out no later than March, but possibly as early as January.

-The Steve Morse/Neal Morse/Mike Portnoy/Dave LaRue/Casey McPherson collaboration album is being mixed in NYC right now by Michael Brauer and as Portnoy announced, is expected to be released in March. The title of the album or even the band's name is still un-announced. Morse Code?

-I dug White Denim on Saturday, so much so I bought their new album on Vinyl rather blindly.

-Along with them, and The Dear Hunter's performance, I think if I can find the time today or this week, I'll try and write some things I got to chat with people there, including members of The Dear Hunter. Rob Parr specifically.

-1 note I can add right now about that is I did get to ask Casey Crescenzo about what he knows of The River Empires and their 2nd album. And what he said kinda stuck in my head and while I wasn't totally surprised, still disappointed. Pretty much involving TRE's questionable future. Jessy I guess is not as focused on recording music for it right now, and possibly other things like actual cinema soundtrack work, etc. But I am taking this with a grain of salt, given Casey is not the #1 source behind the band. At the same time having been through this with other bands so often, I am trying to accept their may never be another The River Empires album, or it could be a long time for now. But until Jessy announces something more official, that's just speculation.

-The Neverending White Lights album that is released tomorrow, November 8th, is going to run $10.19 just in shipping costs from Canada, lol. I'm scratching my head about that a bit, especially for a compact disc. If it was Vinyl, I'd totally understand. But I may hold on my hard-copy purchase for a little bit for that reason.

The albums of the year crunch time is now happening. I probably will post a few reports as I am able to make progress with it.

hopefully more to come soon.

The Gloomcatcher - Starla Over the Fences [EP] (2011) (1.0)

7/15/11-7/17/11-7/19/11 9:AM
it should be available this coming Tuesday, July 19th.

http://thegloomcatcher.bandcamp.com/album/starla-over-the-fences



1. Younger Wives 04:27
2. Junelight 04:40
3. Cinevexions 03:41
4. Sleep Now Westward 02:18
5. Horses 04:13
6. The Wayfarer's Daughter 02:43
5/29/11 11:48AM

facebook announcement

The new EP - Starla Over The Fences - will be out July 19, 2011

So, here's looking at an incredibly busy and prolific schedule this Summer for Jessy.

6/28/11: Falling Up - Your Sparkling Death Cometh
7/19/11 The Gloomcatcher - Starla Over the Fences EP
9/2011: The River Empires - Mars/Brighton II + Documentary

also he is to appear on The Dear Hunter's The Color Spectrum which is released on June 14th. Wow. They say I'M "a machine" with music intake. I don't seem to have much of anything on Jessy ;).




facebook post


"Guess what I'm currently working on??? A little EP that I was supposed to release in October last year."

I read a quote I thought Jessy Ribordy saying that he's working on this EP due to the fact the timing of the next The River Empires album was delayed more than he anticipated. Sort of as another thing to put out for the fans of his work until TRE's. And as that says, this EP was supposed to be released last year actually. I recall seeing a few posts from him or others about that.

Slow Chorale, the debut record from TGC was pretty good. I think the stuff on this EP is going to be some songs (or ideas for songs) that he hadn't finished, but were written (came up with) during the same time as the music on Slow Chorale. So to expect vast differences in the music on this from SC might not make sense.

But regardless, this is something to look forward to along with the new Falling Up record, and then likely in the fall sometime, Mars/Brighton II the 2nd LP from The River Empires. And soon, as it may even be released digitally before the new Falling Up record.

The River Empires - Complete Live Set 6/4/11

This is from from Stagedive.com. I have not watched this yet unfortunately, but soon should. Apparently a number of new songs were played at this.



edit: uh, yeah, these songs are excellent, but that does not come in any way as a surprise to me. However, they do want me to hear Mars/Brighton II and see them live all the more of course.

Falling Up - Your Sparkling Death Cometh (2011) (1.0)

6/1/11 8:41AM

Diamnds is here to stream. For me of course, in about 9 hours or so when I get home from work.


5/25/11 6:55PM - 5/30/11 9:58PM

Blue Ghost is here. Holy shit this sounds sweet. Gimme the rest, nao damnit!

5/14/11 10:07PM

Cover Art + Track List PRE-ORDER Link



1. Circadian
2. The Wonder
3. Blue Ghost
4. Diamnds
5. The Light Beam Rider
6. Oceans
7. Mscron
8. Vates
9. Forms And Shapes
10. Slow Waves

Official Release Date is June 28th, 2011.

kind of odd spellings "Mscron" and "Diamnds" but I imagine it's for a reason. That reminds of me of something Menomena has done.

4/3/11 7:02PM
So the title of the album is "Your Sparkling Death Cometh" and is expected in June (June 28th according to Wikipedia and possibly other places I haven't seen yet).

As Jessy wrote in their latest update, like on 2009's Fangs!, Casey Crescenzo will be producing it and help with tracking along with using his studio.

Details and some video footage shouldn't be too far away it sounds like.

1/27/11 6:24PM
new site with updates



oh, man. $13,665. I just read that Casey actually produced Fangs, which really does not surprise me at all. And this upcoming record is being recorded at his studio as they say there. I'm almost feeling as excited about it as the next TRE record, lol.

1/6/11 10:40PM


280 Backers
$10,848 pledged of $10,000 goal
13 days to go

I am a BACKER, and as those numbers indicate, this campaign has become a success.

Falling Up of course is the original band Jessy Ribordy and Josh Shroy were/are part of, of course before The River Empires started. I actually can claim to own a couple of their discs already, 2004's Crashings and 2005's Dawn Escapes by finding them for a few dollars at Cheapo in the last few months.

The irony is, I haven't really spent much time with them, mainly because of my interest (phobia) in heavily Christian-based rock. However, in my exploration of Jessy's background, I did inquire about Falling Up and the album Fangs was recommended and I definitely have enjoyed it the more I've played it. It's rather textured, and among other bands, they do remind me of Minus the Bear and The Receiving End of Sirens to a point.



I'm not sure if Falling Up ever was on a tour with either, especially TREOS, which may suggest how Jessy and Casey Crescenzo got to know each other.

But I guess the biggest thing with Falling Up, as you watch that video and listen to Jessy, I am rather intrigued what they could do next. Fangs is a good record, and less overtly Christian, that I can tell. And maybe the most optimism I have about this is the experience Jessy's had writing the music of The River Empires and The Gloomcatcher, might impact how good production-wise and songwriting-wise this record ends up.

Plus I really want to just support him and what he does. My contribution was not huge, but it's remarkable how many people have contributed there, and how much $ they raised. That is a big reason why I wonder why The River Empires campaign didn't quite work out, nor the numbers of fans at this point. Falling Up have a good size following already (over 100,000 listeners on last.fm). You'd think a reasonable percentage of those people would like and support Jessy's other work. But maybe it's just a matter of time. If this Falling Up record ends up reigniting their fans intests, many of them are bound to stumble upon TRE music, especially given they also have a record coming next year.

It should be interesting to see, and I am pretty excited to hear what this record will sound like. I even just found a hardcopy of Fangs on ebay just a bit ago.

The River Empires - Mars/Brighton Part II (2011) (1.0)

5/29/11 11:36AM

facebook post



Just a quick video I put together to show you we are still here and working on new music. about :34 you will hear a score that will be a part of the new album in some form or another.

yes :). Documentary and album. Can't-friggin-wait!



4/18/11 1:19AM

not much to include save for this Jessy posting a rather light instrumental piece on his blog the other day. http://jessyribordy.net

27 plays may not indicate much, but hopefully that number will go up a lot.


3/23/11 8:43AM

http://theriverempires.com

normally, this wouldn't really be much if any *news* but given how interested I and presumably many others are in this project, it's probably still worth passing along. It sounds like this record won't be coming until sometime in the 4th Quarter. More realistic, especially with Jessy's other work of late: Falling Up + The Dear Hunter Colors Spectrum contributions.

March 10th
Update!
Wow, sorry for the lack of updates guys and dolls. The truth is, I’ve been working really hard on getting this new album scheduled to be tracked. Trying to really secure a lot of finances to make this next album the best we can. Bad news is the previously announced release time will not be this summer. The good news is we are shooting for a 2011 release still, and the album is going to contain a very special addition that we are really, really, really stoked about. I will explain the very exciting details soon… for now, I just wanted to post something to show a little sign of life on our end.




1/7/11 12:32PM

short update Summer it sounds likely. It'll be amazing, if their projection of a record every year until 2015 happens.

The River Empires
So tracking time has been delayed a bit, hopefully starting up in April. But the new TRE album will STILL be out THIS SUMMER! So excited for this new album, I lose sleep every night thinking of it. Also all you guys and dolls are awesome.

10/24/10 10:15PM


Jessy's tumblr post

New music and other biznatch

So another journey into self funding and self releasing a project is underway. I am beginning to create plans for the tracking of the second album of The River Empires, entitled “Mars/Brighton Part II” (For those of you who understand that I am writing the 7 albums backwards from the end of the story to the beginning, you will have noticed that Epilogue was the first album, then M/B Part II is next, so naturally following that will be M/B Part I). And some insight for the nice tight group I got going on here following me, Mars and Brighton are essentially the two main characters in the tale. The tale being a love/mystery story between Mars (girl) and Brighton (boy).

The toughest part of self funding and releasing another album is the balance I have to develop between budget planning and writing. The journey, full of success and failures, excitement and disappointment, business and art, is a story in itself that could make for a movie (maybe years down the road I’ll have to write about this crazy process of remaining independent in an extremely shaky and tough industry), but for now the hard work is just something I have to live through and continue. I do have help and support from friends and family, and of course all of you who are interested in and purchasing the music. And I also have started a kickstarter.com account where I can attempt to gain donations by having exclusive material/happenings available for those who donate to the cause of the new album. I will be posting that account link for all of you to take a look at when it becomes available.

In news involving the films…

I recently received some advice from Casey while complaining to him about my worries with the scripts. I was concerned that if I broke the story up into three scripts (trilogy) like I had originally planned, I would run the risk of only one script being picked up and the rest of the tale ending up untold. Although I wrote each script so that individually they could exist as stories on their own, I found it may be unfair to the followers of our band, because then the story just wouldn’t match up. I was also a little concerned that, after reading some articles about the way the film industry was moving, I had three very fringe ideas that may not be accepted as marketable within Hollywood (with the decrease of original ideas and the increase of 3D and remakes, sequels, vampire stories and book adaptations, my science fiction drama/mystery original concept has little chance). Casey mentioned a good icebreaker to begin the story was to create some sort of intro that kind of pitches the whole thing, so that The River Empires story can gain followers and attention, just like out first album did for the band. I took that into consideration. Then after further contemplation, I realized that if I changed the format from a film trilogy to a miniseries (one hour television drama of about 2 or 3 seasons max), the pilot episode could be a good intro and not only pitch the story to the audience but also the network. So I set about plotting out the story to be told over 3 seasons of a one hour long episode television series. Planning is done and pilot is finished, currently being pitched to networks. The series will of course be called “The River Empires”.

um, so 1st off the next album has this title, which is explained there. The story is being told backwards, so I wonder if in Epilogue this section "Mars/Brighton II" is referenced at the end of that record or not. I wonder if in a way, it'll be like The Good Guys or Pulp Fiction kind of "here's what has happened, and here's how we got to this point" kind of thing.

And of course the other big news there is about the Films. Doing a mini-series or MS -> a tv show makes realistic sense. The question being, WHAT NETWORK would go to bat for this. My suggestion would be 1 of the Cable networks and not a Major. AMC, HBO, Showtime or even SyFy would have better odds at the show lasting or at least not requiring demands that a network would. Sure, the financial part might be a lot better via a major tv network, but the odds of a mini-series receiving ratings that would have the network order it back (or order and AIR IT, even if it was a just a Mini-series) are not all that high.

The American Television industry, like the film industry, has become so watered down with Reality Shows and cheaply-made no-talent trash, the suits at the networks demand ratings become an overnight success or a show (and miniseries) often doesn't last.

Cable the odds are a lot higher. Just consider the many Miniseries over the last decade: The Lost Room, Alice, Earthsea, Tin Men, Battlestar Galactica, The Prisoner...not to mention all the ones like Angels in America, Dorothy Dandridge Story, etc and others that always show up at the Emmy's and Golden Globes.

I guess I'm hopeful about what happens, but at the same time, to actually witness these finally will be another thing. A lot of cases like musicians or small-budget film-makers now, end up making something that is put online. Even Kevin Pollak and his original programs like Vamped Out and Kevin Pollak Chat Show. WEB ONLY. I'd say that stuff is realistic in budget and expectations. But Jessy and TRE project is so ambitious, the idea of not at least trying to see them made in a more legitimate, wide-spread fashion might be selling it short.

I do wonder if making a Short Film might even be or might have been an idea that Jessy considered. Look at Cashback. It became an Award-winning short film, and then went on to become full-length feature. Napoleon Dynamite I recall as well.

I guess we'll see. The Pilot episode is already written apparently according to that. I wonder who might be in mind as far as casting, directing, etc. Hopefully that stuff will be known relatively soon.

The River Empires - TBA aka Volume 3 (2011) (1.0)

From their Facebook:

Thanks for all the support on our page guys and gals! Planning to track our new full length album in December, January and February

I'm not sure how excited I should get just yet, but the fact is, The S/T: Epilogue record from this year

a) really should have been released in 2009
b) was written, I imagine even before 2009. More in 2008 and earlier

so, the fact is, Jessy and possibly Josh Shroy and whoever else in effect have had 9+ months or more even to come up with new material for the next Volume. It's kind of the ole dredg and Kaddisfly situation.

Now, the other curiosity I have is, I'd assume it/this will be referring to Volume 3, but I'm not really certain if that refers to an expansion on the material starting at the beginning of Volume 1 specifically. It might, and if that's the case, this could be largely acoustic and instrumental record. But who knows.

I also suspect with work Jessy's done with the 1st film, some of the music tied-in and may have found it's way into form faster because as you brainstorm and create, it just seems logical.

so, but of course assuming it is the 3rd Volume and it's going to be tracked then, odds are it'll be released in 2011, possibly early, like by Summer or even late Spring. So, yeah 2011 is looking even greater and deeper. If I used a signature on this blog, I probably should have that in it.

Casey Crescenzo's role? I hope he is involved again, possibly even more. The Dear Hunter are pretty busy now (Colors Spectrum, Lifetime Memberships and Touring), although given he's on the West/Left Coast, perhaps working/traveling etc could be easier for him in a short-term thing. Also the fact Jessy just spent time in LA exploring what he could do for the films, it's possible Jessy spent some time in Casey's hometown or plans to soon as well along-with more work for the films in the Southern part of California.

The River Empires: Epilogue LYRICS POSTED

Rather than post an extensively long topic with the lyrics, it probably just makes sense for now to link Jessy's blog and to say go back a few pages to find every track's lyrics. Plus a bunch of great scene-ly photos and some short videos of the making.

among the photos there, this one kind of impressed me/surprised me a bit. They actually rehearsed and/or recorded some of this album outside, within nature. It seems rather virtual in some ways. Art-imitating-life or vice-versa perhaps.



Overture In Thales Summer, Our Neighbor The Earth, The Coventry, The Harbourland, A Toast To The Snake King, Catacombs In Orchards, Three Tigers

Lull Of Celeste, From Outside The Cellar, A Dimmer Lux, Witches Blossom, The Curse Of Maybel Cains, The Motorbike, The Backyard In Sparkes, Theon, The Fox

Marching Of The Clocks

I dunno, maybe I will after looking at how much text it is, put them up.

Also another note about the films. Jessy posted something last week about heading to LA to look into options for making the films. If you notice one of the images put up announcing the title "The Mnemosyne Tree" you see it as a Script. I take that to be it's at least a rough draft on a screenplay. So I imagine he's done at least some preliminary work for that. We may see the 1st movie being made as early as 2011. Who knows, maybe even it'll be out in 2011 if that much work has already been done on it.