BRR Team

“Listening to vinyl is a very physical experience… It’s about actively participating in
your music experience.” These are Dr. Craig Monk’s words, MacEwan’s provost and vice-president Academic. They reflect his deep passion for music and particularly of vinyl records that was sparked while he was working in a record store in the late 1980s. That passion hasn’t waned since those early days and he makes a point of visiting a used record store in whatever city he finds himself in.

Earlier this year, Bent River Records held a contest for design students to submit their ideas for the new albums being released in 2020. After Dr. Monk saw these designs, he was inspired. “I hadn’t realized Bent River produced vinyl, and it got me interested in the ways that album production could involve different program areas across campus.” This realization led to Dr. Monk making a generous major gift of $50,000 to fund Bent River’s production of vinyl and to ultimately encourage a cross-disciplinary engagement amongst students to create these albums, like the previous design contest.

This gift enables Bent River Records to engage with students across MacEwan and offer them opportunities to contribute to the many releases the label is working on. Dr. Monk’s gift will have a huge positive impact on Bent River. All the associates, interns and artists at Bent River would like to extend our deepest thanks, for it is donors like Dr. Monk that keep local artists and arts organizations like Bent River Records alive and well.

If you’re interested in hearing what inspires Craig Monk on a daily basis, listen to his Top 50 Vinyl Listen’s on Spotify!

Last Thursday, we had a recording session in the studio with Josh Sahunta, Canadian songwriter based here in Edmonton, AB. The song  that was recorded is called “Be Alone” (Live Version). Josh describes his music as R&B/Pop: “kind of like if Ed Sheeran was in a band with Justin Timberlake and the Tennessee Kids.” His Influences are John Mayer, Ed Sheeran, Drake, Daniel Caesar and Anderson Paak.

Josh answered some questions for us:

What is your musical background and how long you have been playing music for? 

I’ve been into music since I was very young and always had a natural aptitude for it. I played drums and piano growing up but didn’t really start taking it seriously until later in my life. I picked up the guitar to impress a girl in high school, and that became my main instrument from that point on. While I was studying psychology in University, I was practicing and playing some small gigs here and there, but it wasn’t until I graduated in 2017 that I really started putting my all into it. 

Can you tell us more about the song you recorded? 

It is a live version of a previously released single. “Be Alone” is a song I wrote as I reflected on being away from home a lot last year because of touring. It’s a song about trying to hold a relationship together while you’re on the other side of the world and kind of just the realities I faced last year of being absent from so many of my loved ones lives for such a long period of time. 

I wanted to record a live version because the song has done so well on Spotify and has gotten over 100,000 streams, so I wanted to give my listeners a little treat as a thank you for their support on the song. 

Could you tell us about your experience in the recording studio during the session?

I’ve worked in this studio before and it was great as always. It’s truly something to be able to work in a room that has the equipment that the MacEwan studio has. It’s a gear nerd’s dream. I’ve only ever used software versions of all the equipment MacEwan has and so seeing and using the real deal was special. I’ve always had a great time working with Paul Johnston and he’s always been so supportive and accommodating to my goals and vision. I’m very appreciative of him and I look forward to working with him more in the future.

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The recording session took place in MacEwan University Recording Studio A. The instrumentation is composed by vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and drums. The tracking in Studio A was all done through the studio on-board hardware, taking the signal through the pre-amps and equalizers built in the console and taking them out from a direct output into the software. Students from MUSC 467 in the Music Department assisted with the session as a way to learn more about the recording process.

The winner of our 2019 ATB Financial Recording Competition, Nisto, has just released his new single entitled “Folk Song.” This past Monday, Macewan University unveiled their newly built TV studio. As part of the the celebrations and to mark the release of his new single, Nisto performed “Folk Song” live from the new studio and audiences loved his unique voice and songwriting.

Bent River Records would like to extend our deep thanks to ATB Financial for their support for Nisto and the recording competition. During the recording process, Nisto mentioned that in Fort Vermillion (his home town) there is only one bank for miles and miles, and that bank is an ATB branch. ATB has been important for the whole process and to Nisto for years!

You can find “Folk Song” by Nisto on CD Baby, and you can listen to his other single “Los Sin Dios” on Spotify. If you’d like to hear him live along with other wonderful Bent River Records musicians, be sure to come to the 2020 Artist Spotlight on April 28 at The Aviary!

Check the coverage of this event from Global News:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6533959/global-news-journalism-scholarship-edmonton-macewan-university/

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Padraig Buttner-Schnirer, who works as a member of the Bent River Records Team, for his nomination for the Juno Awards! Padraig recorded the album that has been nominated in the Vocal Jazz Album of the Year category. The album is called Montréal by artist Elizabeth Shepherd. He recorded this album with Elizabeth and her band back in November 2017 at a studio in Montreal called Studio 451.

Padraig gave us some insight about the project, and answered some questions:

Could you briefly talk about the recording process of the album?

The album was recorded over two days in November of 2017. I had worked with Elizabeth before on another album that she was producing and she had really liked the drum sound I captured. She asked me to do a similar type of set up for this session. I made sure to provide plenty of sound-texture options for the drums including some special microphones I put up specifically to add character and grit to the recording.

I knew most of the band members very well and had worked with them on previous projects. There was lots of music to get through and quite a bit of pressure on my shoulders since I was working alone without an assistant, but everyone in the band was so great that it really felt like I was hanging out with friends. Rémi-Jean LeBlanc was the bass player on this session and also happens to be an artist with Bent River Records. He’s an amazing musician.

Elizabeth is a dream to work with. She’s extremely focused and knows exactly what she’s after from the recording. She’s also a delightful person and that makes working with her such a pleasure.

Were you aiming that high when you were working on it? And how do you feel now that a piece of your work has been nominated for this prestigious award?

I don’t usually think about awards when doing projects like this, and I’ve learned over the years that’s it’s hard to predict which projects will be nominated for Junos and other similar awards. But it’s definitely a great feeling when something you’ve worked on get’s this kind of recognition. I’m also very excited for the artist because I know how much they’ve put into the project.

I’ve worked on other projects that have won Junos in the past, but my role on those was fairly minor. This will be the first time that an album on which I’ve done the majority of the recording has been nominated, so that’s really exciting.

Click here to check out the album.

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For the third consecutive year, Constanza Pacher’s Typography II classes have designed concepts for real projects from Bent River Records. This year, each class had the opportunity to design the vinyl album packaging for Allan Gilliland’s Dreaming: The Prague Sessions, and Mike Rud’s Salome’s Dance: The Mike Rud Trio Invites Peter Bernstein.

With such a wide variety of concepts to choose from, it wasn’t easy for Mike and Allan to make their decisions! After much deliberation, we are very excited to announce which students will receive the honorariums and have their designs sent to press:

Allan Gilliland – Dreaming: The Prague Sessions
Winner: Ashlin Kellough
Honourable Mentions: Lisa Cox, Kayla Agustin

Mike Rud – Salome’s Dance: The Mike Rud Trio Invites Peter Bernstein
Winner: Alan Ngo
Honourable Mentions: Nick Zylstra, MyHanh Nguyen

Congratulations to Alan and Ashlin, and to all the design students who participated! And a huge thank-you to Dr. Craig Monk, whose generous support of the record label makes this project possible! Stay tuned for more information about these exciting new releases! You can read more about the project in this article from The Griff: https://www.macewan.ca/wcm/MacEwanNews/NEWS_DESIGN_BRR_ALBUM_20