Jekks and The Priests of Heka

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#1

Hey guys,

Sadly I’ve decided to sell my shamisen and various other instruments of the world (except my sitar) and focus solely on being a guitarist and sitarist… this saddens me for now, but I’m hoping to one day be able to study with professional grade instruments under professional grade teachers with the time to dedicate to practise (as i work 10-12 hours daily mon-fri I am finding it difficult to keep up with all my practise) ANYWAY! here’s music from my band jekks and the priests of heka, we’re a world music/electronic fusion group from south east queensland in Australia, the tracks are free so download away, this is 50% of the album in no particular order, just the first 4 tracks that finished. I’d like some feedback on my tracks please.

This is one half of our album “The Cosmic Meditation” which is available for free download as the songs get finished and uploaded.

Just a preface. This is not glitchhop, it’s world music fused with electronic music, we go through a different genres and musical styles throughout our songs, while trying to keep the same vibe the whole time. I’m relatively new to ableton, using it as a live production uitility only, i’ve never really sat down and made a studio version of anything in arrangement view. I’m also relatively new to ableton, I’ve had it for about 13 months or so, only really used it for about 8 months, I’m slowely getting the idea of how to do more and more. A note on criticism, it is absolutely most welcome and all will be read and taken on board, but none of the tracks for this album will be changed, I want the comments so i can improve on the next release, which hopefully isn’t too far away.

All the live instrumental parts were recorded live at shows, nothing was recorded in studio.

Looking forward to your critiques and comments!

Also, if you are interested in collaborating on some tracks I would really love to work with some others in an online collab, I’m planning on focusing hardcore on producing some EPs over the next few months, contact me here or jekks@gmx.com.




#2

Travis,

I friggin Love your work! Jekks and the Priest of Hekka is really cool name for a group and “the Cosmic Meditation” is a perfect title for this stuff.

Sepulcher of Solomon part ii Symbols of the inner rings draws you in immediately and sets an unmistakable mood . You mentioned collabs in the future but when listening to the melodies unfold I couldn’t help thinking Damn! If only I could have doubled some of those on Shamisen (but that’s just me…it’s what I usually think when hearing music like this in general). More surprising was when the electric guitar kicks in. Totally in synch with the mood and stylistically unique as far as guitar (assuming that was a guitar and not some other instrument trying to sound like one)

Per ankh more or less continues the same mood but with enough variety to hold ones attention.

Hebert En Ba causes the eyebrows to move upwards as soon as the beat kicks in and starts off with more interesting muted stuff on guitar moving along with sitar interaction and eventually develops into a sonic landscape reminiscent of a good acid trip in some ways.

Alpu ilittu Zi atta a seems to start off differently from the other tracks and also sounds like some different tonalities are coming up
Eventually it sounds like the familiar harmonic minor mood is brought back with some more cool guitar sounds popping in and out. The octave jumping synth sound reminds me of old sci fi soundtracks from the 50s/60s.

#3

Travis,
It reminds me a little bit of…

#4

haha cheers Kevin! yeah it’s our slide guitarist Hughie, usually he does more rootsy stuff akin to John Butler and Xavier Rudd/Ben Harper type stuff, but i roped him in last year and he fitted perfectly in the mix. that jumpy octave jump is the slide guitar, hughie doing his thing with his pedalboard…

Yeah man, unfortunately this stuff have been more or less finished for a while just finalising mixes in my spare time, which i don’t have that much off as of late. but I will hit you up soon when i start writing the new stuff.

I finish with 2 notes. 1) ‘The Priests of Heka’ band is just a title for whoever plays with me, there is a live band that i use when i play around my area, but the lineup is subject to the individuals availability, which sucks at times, but is also great because we work as a largely improv group at the moment.

  1. with the above being said, I have been booked a great deal of times to play solo, where i pretty much use the recordings posted above (plus the remaining 4 from the album) and strip the sitar, vocals, dombra out and perform those parts live. The newer stuff I’m working on for future releases will be more focused on composition, theory and technical ability. I come from a Jazz and prog rock background so I’m wanting to take what I have with this sound now and mix it with the glories of ridiculous time signatures and changes while still retaining a good groove or sometimes making a distinct effort to destroy a groove and rely solely on the ability to count in crazy signatures.

Thanks for the response Kevin, great to hear your thoughts and will most definately chat to you about doing a few tracks together, maybe an exclusive shamisen vs sitar electronica EP might have to be penned.

#5

Travis,
Oh my God! Shamisen vs Sitar electronica project?
That’s something I’ve dreamed about for years…
There’s some corny Shamisen + electronica out there already
but to add sitar in the mix and to draw from all the stuff you mentioned (jazz/ prog and ridiculous combinations of time signatures ) .That would be Epic for sure!
Hey keep in touch ! Perhaps if the time is right someday we can talk more about it.

Oh and if you see Hughie be sure to mention to him he’s got a fan on bachido.com!

#6

Kevin, i see hughie on sunday, I’ll show the band your post, they’ll be thrilled, they’re all big fans, i’ve shown them the bachido videos, we’ve had many late band meetings over beers and sushi watching bachido blogcasts and watching old school SC3 vids haha!

#7

ahh zulfiqar! well i can surely say that SC3 are definately an influence. We’ve already had a little QA about that haha… thanks man! I will definately be making time in the new year for at least a few tracks (maybe 3 or 4) for an EP for shamisen Sitar faceoff… I don’t think epic is epic enough to describe what could potentially be!

#8

Awesome! Stay in touch man!

#9

Oh, man. Good concept for a band. The music of India and the middle east adapts so well to electronic music. For me, Per Ankh is the standout. Hypnotic like good Sufi, it builds to a nice intensity. That one had me grabbing my baglama to play an accompanying taksim. Or at least try.

#10

Chet, you play saz? sweet! I’ll be calling on you for some online jammerage soon! you have the ability to record i hope?
Yeah the style I call Per Ankh is Hekastep, only because we take from old school step rhythms and add our thing and the token “wobble bass” well, that helps define the stepness to the whole thing.

Thanks for the kind words. like i said, i’ll call on you soon for some online jamery!

#11

Cool! Glad Chet West joined in! Chet is another Bachido dude I would love to collaborate with someday! Maybe we’ll all end up on a track or two together in the future sometime!

#12

Once I figure out this Cakewalk thingie, yes, I can record. Or I’ll use my son’s computer.

I couldn’t resist, Kevin. A chance to collaborate with sitar is awesome enough. But sitar AND shamisen WITH saz?! Not only could that sound wicked-as-all-get-out, I don’t believe it’s ever been done before!

#13

Hey guys, my album is FINALLY finished, please check it out and it’s for free so feel free to download away!

Kevin/Chet, I’m pretty keen to get working on a few tracks for collabs… I might throw like three tracks together, just rough ideas… lots of odd time signatures and intricate riffs and we can knot it out from there… whadaya say?

#14

Travis,
So Excited to hear this! Been a fan of your stuff since earlier this year! Soon as I finish this sentence I’m clicking the link!

#15

Stay in touch regarding collabs! That’s gonna be sweet!

#16

will do kevin, thanks. let me know what you think. I’ll shoot you through an idea or two when i get my butt into gear

#17

Hey, Travis. Haven’t been on-site nearly enough this month so sorry for being a bit late to the party. But, in short, I say “yes!” I’d love to check out some rough tracks. Now let me go check out that new album!

#18

hey guys, been throwing around some ideas…
https://soundcloud.com/jekks/ghayat-al-hakim-fil-sihr-wip
this is the first idea… I’ve used an oud and a saz as the two main instruments in the piece. The basic Idea is to have one lead instrument and the other two playing the backing melody. This will cycle throughout the songs allowing each person to have their “solo” moment… I’m also looking at writing a song specific for each instrument, obviously if you want to you can have as much creative input as you’d like… I’d still like to release it under Jekks and the priests of heka, but obviously it will only be the three of us, so it’ll be a bit different… let me know your thoughts

#19

I think it sounds great, and I would believe Kevin would have great possibilities for playing shamisen to this tune.

One thing that struck me as a bit odd though. The cymbals feel a little bit out of place, especially since they seem to have more volume in the right channel. I would tone them down a bit and try to make them blend with the song more, or replace them with some similar sound that fits better.

Just a few thoughts!

#20

Hi Karl, yeah totally… that kit is a default kit on NI Kontakt, i was in no way intending it to be used in the final mix, just for knotting out ideas… there’s no mixing or mastering or EQ on this track at all… i literally just threw it together… on the actual tracks i’ll be using superior drummer from toontrack, ultimate trigger and sound control… i absolutely agree with you though.

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