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Check out our music! Trippin' Wet

• the songs
• the band
• the recording

about the tunes:

• spy song

  A dark tune in "A" minor that shows my love for the delay pedal.

• november

  This tune is based on practicing melodic minor modes and coming across an idea that worked itself into a song, one of my favorites on the record. I like taking an angular approach to melody and giving the listener a bit of a surprise.

• stratosfear

  This is my ode to Bitches Brew. We decided to improvise something at the end of the session as we had some studio time left. It turned out to be a pretty cool track. Our attempt at taking on the unknown.

• modus operandi

  Once again, we have my love of the delay pedal. In the intro, I use major 9 chords descending in major 3rds. Whenever I play major chords I always seem to make them sound melancholy instead of happy. My own little quirk and this song is a good example of this.

• rubber band

  I love bending strings up and down in half steps. It gives kind of a Hawaiian sound. If I could, I would play every note bent up or down a half step. One day I will.

• amian

  Influenced by John Coltrane's tune Naima, my tune is inspired by his use of a pedal point, with chords that change around it. I've had many an attempt at writing a tune I like that is based on a pedal point and this one turned out to be my favorite song on the cd.

• a minor jam

  This song is all about creating a sound scape over a static bass line. It shows my love of certain electronic music. My idea was to take the music to different heights, building it slowly throughout the song and climaxing at the end, kind of like great sex.

• monkeys

  This shows my appreciation for some of Mike Stern's more chromatic song writing like Chromozone. He was an early influence when studying jazz music and I think he will always be in there somewhere, coming out of my fingertips every once in a while. This tune is also a vehicle for working on the whole tone scale. It helped to make the song less R&B and gave it a weird angle that most of my songs seem to have.

about the musicians:

ryan drolet ---- dan graham ---- tim proznick ---- brad ferguson

Dan, Tim and Brad all did an amazing job on this recording. I love the way they didn't over play. They kept the music simple and uncluttered, a perfect compliment to these particular songs and my style of playing. In my opinion, a good musician knows when to hold back and let the music breath, this band did just that.

about the recording:

When recording Trippin' Wet, I knew I wanted to take a minimalist approach to the project. All of my favorite recordings are the same way. I wanted that Kind of Blue kind of sound. Not even the sound but more the approach. I kept the tunes simple and gave the players a lot of freedom to add their own stuff. I love dark and moody music and I think that this recording really captures that essence.

I also wanted to capture that Bluenote sound, back when records were recorded live off the floor. I made a conscious decision to record it on the fly with minimal rehearsal before the session. Thelonius Monk never did more than three takes of a song and I wanted to do the same. Most of the songs were either a first or second take and only one overdub was recorded (for the solo on A Minor Jam). I left the flubs in the recording to give a less computer like sound. The more human the better. I'm not a fan of cutting and pasting parts in songs.

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Copyright © 2004-2005 Ryan Drolet. All Rights Reserved.