Connect with us

Features

Interview – Dreaming Spirits with Mark Egan

Published

on

Mark Egan sat down with us to discuss Dreaming Spirits, recording the album, and to share news of upcoming endeavors.

Mark Egan, our July 2014 featured cover interview, has joined with percussionist Arjun Bruggeman to release Dreaming Spirits.

Mark’s signature bass tone washes together with Arjun’s wonderful tabla and frame drum playing to create expansive, meditative soundscapes that decorate the album. A prime example of the duo’s interplay can be heard on the track, “Mombassa”.

Mark and Arjun, who are longtime collaborators with Kirtan artist Krishna Das, are joined by guest guitarist Shane Theriot.

Shane’s playing integrates seamlessly with the duo and offers chances for great conversation with Mark’s bass lines, as in “Wave Motion”.

Mark sat down with Bass Musician Magazine to discuss Dreaming Spirits, recording the album, and to share news of upcoming endeavors.

I understand that you first started working with Arjun when you both played with Krishna Das?

Yes. I first met tabla player Arjun Bruggeman in 2008 at a recording session for Krishna Das in New York City. Guitarist, composer and producer, David Nichtern asked me to play on a project he was producing with Krishna Das. For those that don’t know Krishna Das, he is a spiritual teacher that performs Kirtan, which is a form of meditation in the format of all-and-response of Indian prayers and scriptures. He’s written, recorded and performed many songs with an instrumentation that is usually Harmonium, Voice, Tabla, Bass, Finger cymbals, guitar, violin and cello.

Since that first session with Krishna Das I’ve recorded and toured with he and Arjun in the United States. Bassist Mark Gorman also plays and records with Krishna Das on the west coast and in Hawaii.

From the very beginning, Arjun and I have had a great musical rapport playing together and have always talked about recording a project. Finally, last year in January, we got together and recorded all of the music that’s on the new Dreaming Spirits record.

What was your vision for the record, coming from the duo perspective?

Arjun and I had had spoken about what we wanted to do before we got together in the studio. We decided on some different time feels and different tempos; Arjun had some great ideas for tabla grooves and tone drum possibilities.

In preproduction I also had made some bass loops from a Roland RC3 Looped. I made some very long, extended ambient loops with volume pedal and two Lexicon PCM-42 delays with 10 seconds of delay. I also used the Strymon Time line effects delay pedal as well as the Strymon Blue Sky reverb pedal. These harmonic waves/beds are similar in some ways to the way that tabla functions in Indian music as a drone. Arjun and I improvised over these pre-recorded bass waves for some of the original sessions.

Additional pre-production ideas that I focused on were thinking of different key centers and tempos that I thought would be fun to experiment with and improvise over along with some specific bass line sketches and chord sequences that we could develop.

Most of the recording started as improvisations based on the above ideas and the basic concept was “Let’s do something in this tempo and in this type of feel and in this key and possibly around this tabla groove or bass line.”

We’ve played a lot over the last ten years and we know the different directions that we can explore. Our main focus was to be creative and enjoy doing it.

Arjun had a lot of ideas that he wanted to experiment with various drums that he had brought to the session. Arjun was originally a drummer so he not only plays tabla, but also frame drum that he plays on “Spirit Blues” and “Framonics”. He also played drums on some of tracks, tom-toms, cymbals and shakers. He also played tone drums, which are wooden drums that look like a box with carved wood tone bars that he plays these with his hands.

He came in with two songs that were basically solo pieces on the tone drums. One we later titled “Joy Ride” and the other is called “When Spirits Dance”. He recorded these pieces first solo and I then transcribed them and found bass lines and melodies and made the arrangements around his tone drum performance.

As post production evolved it seemed that we needed another voice for the instrumentation so I contacted guitarist Shane Theriot who I have been playing with for the last few years in the New York area. Shane is a very versatile guitarist and was the perfect choice to enhance the music that we had pre-recorded.

From the original two recording sessions with Arjun and myself and the addition of Shane’s great overdub sessions we had about two hours of music that now needed to be arranged and edited. I then spent about six months orchestrating, editing and producing. It was a lot of fun and creative to experiment with different bass melodies and effects. I was able to play my Pedulla 8-string fretless and 5-string fretless on backgrounds and melodies along with experimenting with different ambient effects. Even though I played bass on the original tracks, I added more bass melodies, effects and harmonies to the tracks and edited various jams into new pieces.

In the sessions, after the preproduction, you were playing together in the studio?

Yes, for the original sessions we set up facing each other as I was going direct with my bass, so there was no sound leakage from my bass into the tabla mics. All of the tabla and bass was recorded simultaneously. We later overdubbed tablas on top of songs with frame drum and various bass melodies on top of bass grooves. A few of the tracks such as “Village Call” started with just Tabla as Arjun played three different high tabla creating the melody which I later transcribed, double on bass and added bass chords. Later, Shane overdubbed Acoustic guitar strumming, lap slide guitar and electric guitar solo on the out vamp.

The songs on the album have a feeling of conversation in them. They feel very organic.

Whenever Arjun and I play we are always listening to each other and very much in the moment. As I mentioned, we have spent a lot of time playing together with Krishna Das over the last ten years. His music is very groove oriented and we always are having a musical conversation when we play together. We’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in concert, so we know each other’s playing very well so being in the studio was an extension of that conversation and a very organic, evolving process.

One thing I really love is not only his sensitivity and the way that we can play together, but it’s not the typical odd-meter type of Indian music, which is sometimes more of the traditional music you associate with tabla. Arjun is an American and started playing drum set and percussion, and then he played tabla. He has a more Western approach to playing tabla even though he has studied and knows the tradition of classical Indian music. Arjun can play tabla with the sensibility of playing a drum kit with kick and snare.

But there’s another factor: the sound of my basses, the Pedulla fretless basses fit beautifully with tabla. Sonically the frequency range fits so well with the low tabla (bayan). When we lock in on a feel, it really becomes one sound with the bass and low tabla and I love that. That’s not dissimilar to locking in with a kick drum, but the tabla has a nice mid-range punch that I like with my basses. It’s a very alluring sound.

Your fretless comes across with a sound that resembles a vocalist.

The fretless bass can create a vocal sound because it’s like a cello; that’s one of the reasons why I’m so attracted to it. It has much more sustain than a fretted bass and you can play microtonaly around the pitch, which gives it that vocal quality.

Another reason the fretless bass speaks on this project is that the recording is very open and sparse, because of the orchestration. With such an open instrumentation it allowed me to be expressive with my fretless basses and fill in different spaces. Whereas if there were 4-5 musicians playing with a full drum set, I wouldn’t want to take up as much space and would play accordingly. In this case it was such an open canvas that it allowed me to really experiment and react to the tabla and guitar.

Let’s talk about Shane’s contribution to the album. How did he become involved?

After Arjun and I recorded the three days of duo sessions, I was starting to edit and do post-production by adding s bass melodies and bass pads over the tracks. I realized that we had recorded lot of music and it would be nice to have another voice on the project. I didn’t want to fill it up with all basses because it would have been too much and be monotonous, so I had the idea to add guitar. I had recently been playing with Shane in New York on a date at Richard Bona’s club called Club Bonafied with vibist Steve Shapiro. I asked Shane if he would be available to record at my studio in Connecticut to enhance what Arjun and I had just recorded.

I asked him if he played acoustic, which most guitar players do, but most just play it as a second instrument, but he really plays it as well as electric, just beautifully. I sent him some MP3’s of what Arjun and I had recorded along with some of the basic charts for the forms.

When he came to the sessions he had done a lot of homework and came up with several altered tunings for his acoustic guitar. Even though some of the songs were in E minor or D major or B major, that he could have just played on the [standard tuned] acoustic, he had interesting altered guitar tunings for the songs which created different timbres and made him play different parts. When you do altered tunings on a guitar or bass, it’s a whole different universe of chord and melody fingerings and you have to figure out different parts as you go. He came with altered tunings for each song. I was so impressed that he had spent a lot of time on it and really spent time learning the music.

He had great sensibilities about the guitar approach for each song. For instance, on songs where the bass was featured predominantly as melody, he came up with really interesting acoustic rhythm parts that added a groove that he then doubled. He then would add lap slide guitar in places, which created pads in the background somewhat like synth pads. We later added a lot of ambience with reverb and delay that created more depth of field in the mix.

There were times where I didn’t play a bass solo, because I didn’t want to play bass solos 3 or 4 times on the same song. Shane played some great solos and he totally fit into the feeling of what we were doing on the original tracks. He really had the vibe of what we had recorded initially with the duo – so much so that it sounds like we recorded the music all, together in an organic way.

That’s the sign of a really gifted player (Shane), that he can immerse himself and superimpose himself onto something that’s there and really become a part of it and be in the moment of it. He’s a very talented player.

Let’s talk about the recording side and how you recorded your bass.

I played my Pedulla basses direct through two Millennia TD-1 mic preamps with EQ. I also went direct through two Radial JDI direct boxes for some of the overdubs. I recorded in stereo using two lexicon digital delays along with effects such as Strymon timeline, Stymon Blue Sky and TC Electronics Chorus.

I didn’t use compression on the basic tracks but later in the mixing used a few plugins for compression and EQ.

Do you have dual pickups on your bass, then?

I have two pickups (P/J) but one ¼ ouput on my basses, so a mono output. I went mono out of my bass into stereo effects. In this case I used 2 Lexicon PCM 42’s and on some tracks I first went into a TC Electronics chorus. The left and right signals then went into two Lexicon Digital Delays which I used for delays and looping. Out of the delays I went into two Radial JDI direct boxes then into the mic pres. From the mic pres I went directly in the ProTools HDX system.

The bass is really less of a pure solo feature on the album and instead adds presence to the songs. The melodic content in your solos is amazing.

Thank you…

The music took on its own life when we started playing and recording. I think the sound of Arjun playing tabla and his sensibilities and the way that he grooves along with all of my past sensibilities and experiences made me react to the sonic spaces and play more impressionistically rather than just solo above everything. I felt like I played inside the sphere of the music and was just reacting to the spaces that we were creating. I had no awareness or desire to try to play with more of a solo feature. The music didn’t call for that and I generally don’t like to go in that direction.

When I did solo it was more from a melodic approach and inspired by the setup of the space.

I feel like this album is a very personal statement because of the openness of the orchestration and the overall tone of the recording.

On the first track, “Village Call” the bass improvises throughout the A sections over a Maj #11. The intent was more of a collective improvisation even though the bass is featured.

In recording this project Arjun and I weren’t trying to be commercial or come up with airplay material. The only goal was to sit down and play improvised honest music. It was all about what was in the moment and I love to play that way.

What’s coming up next for you?

We are producing a video of the trio about the making of the CD as well as some live performances in the studio that will be on YouTube and social media. We’ll hopefully be doing some live dates as a trio in the Northeast.

Another project that I’m working on is a duo record with Danny Gottlieb, drums and bass. Danny and I go way back to our days at the University of Miami and the Pat Metheny group experience. We have recorded several sessions that feature compositions and improvisations that draw form our 47 years of playing together. It’s a very open project with multi tracked drums and basses and features our experimental side of things. That will be released later this year.

I’m also working on a record with drummer Karl Latham and guitarist Vic Juris that is a follow up to Karl’s last recording “Living Standards” where we recorded modern standards such as

“Riders on the Storm”, “Tax Man”, “Day Tripper” etc. It’s so much fun playing with this trio as

Karl and Vic are team players and great musicians.

I am also a member of the Outreach Orchestra that performs every summer in Austria with great players from New York and Europe. It is a player/composers collective and very creative ensemble.

Follow Mark On the web:

markegan.com

wavetone.com

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Bass Videos

Interview With K3 Sisters Band

Published

on

Interview With K3 Sisters Band

K3 Sisters Band Interview…

It is very rare when I talk to a band where all the members play bass. The K3 Sisters Band is a perfect example of a group where Kaylen, Kelsey and Kristen Kassab are all multi-instrumentalists and take turns playing bass.

Hailing from Texas, these three sisters have been playing music since they were very young and have amassed an amazing amount of original music,  music videos, streaming concerts, podcasts, and content that has taken numerous social media platforms by storm. On TikTok alone, they have over 2.5 million followers and more than a billion views.

Join me as we hear the story of their musical journey, how they get their sound, and the fundamental principles behind these prolific musicians.

Here is the K3 Sisters Band!

Photo, Bruce Ray Productions

Follow Online:

k3sistersband.com/
TikTok
YouTube
Instagram
Facebook 

Continue Reading

Bass Videos

Interview With Bassist Danielle Nicole

Published

on

Interview With Bassist Danielle Nicole

Bassist Danielle Nicole…

Blues music has universal appeal. We all have our ups and downs and this particular musical genre often fits our reality. Just hearing that we are not alone makes us feel a bit better. 

Danielle Nicole writes and sings the Blues. She does an amazing job at delivering both exquisite smoky vocals but plays just the right bass line to drive the tune home. Danielle recently released “The Love You Bleed” last January and will be touring the album this upcoming year.

Join me as we learn about Danielle’s musical journey, how she gets her sound, her plans for the future and more.

Follow Online

daniellenicolemusic.com/
IG @daniellenicoleband
youtube.com/daniellenicoleband

Photo, Missy Faulkner

Continue Reading

Features

Bergantino Welcomes Karina Rykman to Their Family of Artists

Published

on

Bergantino Welcomes Karina Rykman to Their Family of Artists

Interview with Karina Rykman…

Karina Rykman…The high-energy bassist discusses her path on bass, her upcoming tour, how she came to find Bergantino through another Bergantino artist, and more!

A lifelong Manhattanite diehard New Yorker, Bergantino welcomes new Artist Karina Rykman. Jim and Holly had the privilege of meeting Karina and her band in Boston to see her perform. She lights up a stage with her charismatic passion as a bass player and singer – a true powerhouse of joy and energy. On stage, she smiles from ear to ear, hopping, jumping, and dancing; the entire room overflowing with positivity! If you don’t know this titan of bass yet, you will soon enough. Karina’s JOYRIDE 2024 tour picks up this month with the debut of her new album. We had the opportunity to ask Karina some questions about her career so far. 

You have quite the career that began at a very young age. You have so much going on!! Can you share some of your musical path highlights you are most proud of?

Oh man, thank you! What a long, strange trip it’s been. I’m proud of still being so absolutely enthralled by music after playing in a million bands and finally ending up at this current juncture: being able to make my own music and tour under my own name. It just seems completely surreal – every gig, every recording…I’m on cloud 9 being able to continue to do this, and we’re just getting started. I’m extremely proud of being so young and being able to learn so much from Marco Benevento, without whom I’d be absolutely nowhere. Being put up to a large task with enormous shoes to fill, and stepping in even though I barely knew what I was doing at the time. Every gig with Marco is extremely special to me. 

Tell us about your new album release Joyride and your 2024 tour.

Joyride is my debut record! It came out in August 2023, and we’ve been touring behind it nonstop ever since. You only make your first record once, and I’m so proud of this one – it’s fun, searing, lush, with chantable choruses and, of course, incredibly thick bass and infectious grooves. It was produced by Phish’s Trey Anastasio, who also contributes guitar parts to 5 of the 9 tunes. 

What makes the bass so special to you particularly, and how did you gravitate towards it?

There’s nothing quite like feeling the subs rumbling under your feet in a venue and being responsible for those sounds is thrilling. I played guitar first, at age 12, but essentially completely switched over to bass when I was 22 and got the gig playing bass with Marco Benevento. I haven’t looked back since, except for a few gigs on guitar here and there (notably in the house band on Late Night with Seth Meyers and on The Today Show backing up Julia Michaels). 

People hate this question, but: If you were constructing your personal Bass Mt. Rushmore, who are the four players that would make the cut and why?

Geddy Lee, Cliff Burton, Bootsy Collins, Les Claypool. The list goes on and on, of course, but those four have imprinted their unique styles upon my brain since I was so young, and I’m perpetually learning from them – even in the case of the deceased Cliff (RIP), going back and watching Cliff ‘Em All videos is something I do all the time. Endlessly compelled by these four players and their original takes on the instrument.

How did you learn to play?

I never took lessons, but in middle school and high school, I just surrounded myself with equally music-obsessed people. All we did was play music and go and see live music, which is wildly accessible when you grow up in New York City. I had a really tight-knit crew of amazing players as my friends, and everyone would teach each other riffs and licks. I was fearless – playing with people much better than me and saying “yes” to every cool opportunity that came my way. I essentially learned from playing in a million bands and playing along to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin records. 

Are there any other instruments you play?

I started on guitar, and still love to write on guitar. I can get around on keyboards a bit, but you’d never hire me as a keyboardist. The same goes for drums – I LOVE playing drums but you’d never hire me as a drummer. 

Describe your playing style(s), tone, strengths and/or areas that can be improved on the bass.

I play both with a pick and my fingers, depending on the specific needs of / vibe of the tune. I love playing fuzz bass and writing bombastic “lead bass” moments, which are a staple of my live show. I’d say I’m about the least “traditional” bassist in just about every way – which is both a strength and a weakness depending on how you frame it. I play what I hear, what I like, and I adhere to very few rules. I’ve always hated rules, and I didn’t start playing rock n roll to follow them. 

How did you find Bergantino Audio Systems?

I’m pals with Mike Gordon, bassist of Phish, and his tech is named Ed Grasmeyer. Ed suggested he bring Mike’s Bergantino for me to try out at a show I was playing in Vermont, and I fell instantly in love. 

You have been using the Bergantino Forté HP2 head. How have you been setting the controls on this and what changes to those settings might you make as you plug into your other individual instruments?

I love my Forté HP2! The versatility and headroom are incredible, and I’ve been having a lot of fun dialing it in at home. The real fun will begin this weekend when I take it out for 2.5 weeks of tour – dialing something in an apartment just isn’t the same as on a big stage with a PA and subs and all that good stuff. I like to roll my highs a bit and I keep “punch” on all the time. So far, it’s been a dream.

You are the inspiration behind Bergantino cab the new NXT410-C. Can you tell us more about this cab and your experience so far?

Firstly, I’m beyond touched to be the inspiration behind, well…anything! But this is truly insane, and such an honor. I love this cab. Not only is it light and extremely good-looking, it can handle all my loudest, most abrasive and obnoxious effects. My old amp didn’t come close, and could just fart out or I’d have to turn down to appease it. I’m a big fan of playing at earth-shattering volumes, so this is going to be a match made in heaven. 

We all love your custom-made Goldie Hawn bass guitar! Can you share more with us about this bass design and why it is so special to you?

Thanks! That’s made by “Zeke Guitars” – it’s the second custom bass he’s made for me! He reached out in the summer of 2019 and asked what my dream bass would be, and I said it was basically my 1978 Fender P-Bass, but lighter, whiter, with Lindy Fralins, gold hardware, and shorter scale. And, well..he did exactly that! I love that bass so much. And the gold, which is referred to as Goldie Hawn, was born in December of 2022, and has the same specs. I just love it, it sounds amazing and looks, arguably, even better. 

Jim and I were lucky to get to meet you in person when you came to Boston with the band. The members of the band are such a great group of people! Can you share more with all about the band and crew. 

I’m so lucky to keep such incredible company. My bandmates, Adam November and Chris Corsico, are not only unbelievable musicians but also incredible humans. We just laugh and laugh, and we’re there for each other when the road gets tough or we’re exhausted or whatever life throws at us. It’s the joy of my life to get to tour the world with these guys. And the crew! That night was Connor Milton on sound and Nick Koski on lights – we have a rotating cast of people who play those roles based on availability, and everyone who works for us are absolute consummate professionals and the sweetest humans. They are my team of experts and I just adore them so much. Shout out to Zach Rosenberg, Jeff Volckhausen, Dylan Hinds, Dom Chang, for being the best rotating crew a gal could ask for!  

What else do you do besides music? 

Not much! I love going to the beach! I love eating dinner! 

Because I am a foodie, I always ask people what their favorite food is!

Oysters, caviar, sushi. I’m a raw bar fanatic. 

At a very young age, Karina is a diligent hard worker. She juggles many balls managing her business and is savvy beyond her years. We are very happy to be working with Karina and are excited for her continued success!

Follow Karina Rykman:

Instagram: @karinarykman
X (formerly Twitter): @KarinaRykman
Facebook @karinarykman/

Continue Reading

Bass Videos

Interview With Bassist Ciara Moser

Published

on

Interview With Bassist Ciara Moser

Bassist Ciara Moser…

Ciara and I sat down for this interview a few months after the launch of her debut album, “Blind. So what?”

Blind since birth, she is a powerhouse of talent; she is not only a professional bassist, but also composes music, and is a producer and educator. I am just blown away by her talent and perseverance.

Join me as we hear about Ciara’s musical journey, the details of her album, how she gets her sound, and her plans for the future.

Visit online:

www.ciara-moser.com 
IG @ moserciara
FB @ ciara.moser

Photos by Manuela Haeussler

Continue Reading

Bass Videos

Interview With Bassist Travis Book

Published

on

Interview With Bassist Travis Book

Interview With Bassist Travis Book…

Bluegrass music has had a very solid following over many years and I am always happy to hear from one of the pioneers in that genre.

Travis Book plays bass for the Grammy award-winning band “The Infamous Stringdusters” and has recently released his first solo album “Love and Other Strange Emotions”. As if he wasn’t busy enough, Travis also hosts a podcast, Plays a Jerry Garcia music show with Guitarist Andy Falco, and is constantly gigging locally in his neck of the woods.

Photo, Seyl Park

Visit Online:

www.thetravisbook.com
www.thestringdusters.com
FB @ TheTravisBook
IG @ travisbook

Continue Reading

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Facebook

Trending