Thank you for listening and glad you enjoyed it!! It means a lot to me!

Sasha Vie - "Prelude + Fugue In B-Flat Minor" (Youtube)

Sasha Vie - "Prelude + Fugue In B-Flat Minor" (Spotify Apple etc)

This is my attempt at a Baroque style piece on an organ

Classical purists have mentioned that they don't hear a Fugue in there, but it's my take on what I learned (or remembered at least) as a child having to play The Well Tempered Clavier on the piano

I composed and recorded this on a MIDI keyboard using an Oberheim sample library clone (from Brainworx) that I tweaked

The video I rotoscoped footage of rolling sunflowers on a blue sky in honor of Ukraine (my ancestry is Taiwan so my family and extended family have been watching what's been going on there... very very closely)

Enjoy!

One of my "Sovietwave" tracks inspired by memories of the 1980s era Eastern Europe (not from there but traveled there as a child)

The track was produced entirely using Logic Pro's stock instrument libraries, performed on a small MIDI keyboard, as well as some vocal samples I recorded of myself (designed to sound like synths, not actual human vocals)

The animation in the video was rotoscoped footage I did by downsampling(?) it to about 5 frames per second (fps) and then converting each photo still into an illustration (which you can probably do more of in the future with AI tools)

Sasha Vie - "Training Day" (Youtube)

Sasha Vie - "Training Day" (Spotify Apple etc)

Enjoy!

Here's a synthwave track entitled "Signal 18"

I was aiming for an early 80s inspired vibe, as if this were made in East Germany - electronic music that isn't gloomy but melancholic as if it were perpetually overcast and wet outside but cozy inside

All synths were composed entirely using Logic Pro's stock instrument library (though I used 3rd party plugins to mix it) on a mini Arturia keyboard while I was on vacation with just a laptop

The video was rotoscoped footage of a train ride somewhere in Europe

Sasha Vie - "Signal 18" (Youtube)

Sasha Vie - "Signal 18" (Spotify Apple etc)

Enjoy!

This Latin-inspired burlesque track was a ton of fun to put together!

What sounds like an organ vamp is actually an Eastman AR403 archtop guitar, which seems to have this warm, bloomy vibe unlike any guitar I've ever played, which I recorded straight through a Fender Twin (with only a Wampler Tumnus pedal - a Klon clone - just to give it a boost)

The bass on this one was an Ibanez Mikro (which I've since sold for a Fender Jazz) into a Fender Rumble amp

The drum and horn section were composed using the stock library in Logic on my MIDI keyboard, using the jog wheels to simulate the sound and feel of a human playing a trumpet

For the video, I rotoscoped footage from the 1928 film "Toasts of Texas"

Sasha Vie - "Go!" (Youtube)

Sasha Vie - "Go!" (Spotify, Apple etc)

Enjoy!

Thank you for listening and glad you enjoyed it! It means a lot to me!!

Here's a lofi track inspired by the sounds of a Prohibition era speakeasy staffed by burlesque dancers

I used an archtop guitar (Eastman AR403) into a Fender Twin, along with the Ibanez Mikro bass into a Fender Rumble, with the drums and keyboards composed using the stock Logic Pro libraries

For the music video, I rotoscoped footage taken from the 1942 short film "Dance of Shame" starring Faith Bacon as a burlesque dancer

Sasha Vie "Easy" (Youtube)

Sasha Vie "Easy" (Spotify, Apple, etc)

Enjoy!

I'd say most humans wouldn't be able to handle the mess of wires of a typical j-box haha let alone AI

It takes an *experienced* handy or electrician to open up a spaghetti of wires, identify all the mickey mouse jobs done by previous homeowners (or incompetent handys, or generations of patching around various workarounds), and then solve it haha

Everything is "easy" to fix when it's new construction or near-new

Glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah I was trying to convey that dreading sense of unease lurking underneath, something I've been feeling over the past few years lol - sort of like how things on the surface (personally speaking) seem okay, but underneath there's something a little "off" that you can't quite put your finger on, like that creeping sense of dread before a big scare in a horror movie (but the scare not coming, so it's just low-key dread)

The use of tritones seemed to just work (at least for me) to convey that

Thanks for listening!

Here’s a lofi track with rotoscope animation I made about those isolated nights doomscrolling and wide awake - I was experimenting with tritones a lot in this to give it an off-kilter feel

Sasha Vie “Sleepless” (youtube)

Sasha Vie “Sleepless” (spotify apple etc)

Enjoy!

Way too early to say

It's like saying Patrick Mahomes could overtake Tom Brady after last week's Super Bowl

Check out my chillout track “Night Lights” - I’ve been mixing in real live playing (a strat through a pedal board into a Twin Reverb) in with beats I’ve been composing hopefully to create a more organic, loose feel to this boom bap-ish song. Enjoy!

Sasha Vie - “Night Lights”

Thank you for listening! :)

Sasha Vie - "Good Evening"

An instrumental chill track that sampled my voice as well as aboriginal singers from Taiwan, and an ode to my days of playing NES and Sega

Animation was done by rotoscoping video footage of Taipei rush hour traffic in the evening

Enjoy!

Piano

It's the ideal instrument because it covers the widest ground in terms of music concepts, from melody, harmony/chords, and rhythm

Drums is a great 2nd instrument but I wouldn't start on the drums if given the choice as your exposure to music as a whole is focused entirely on rhythm and its interaction with the rest of the band or orchestra - your exposure to melody or harmony is not direct (because you're not playing melodies or chords on drums)

Violin, viola, cello and other "monophonic" instruments like winds and brass (monophonic means you can only play one note at a time - no chords; yes with strings you can play double stops but most of the time it's focused on one note at a time) - the focus is on melody lines which is great, but your exposure to harmony is more limited than piano

Guitar can be a good alternative to piano because you can play one note melodies, chords, etc and as such will get direct exposure to all facets of music

Think of it this way: the ideal instruments to start on are those where you can play an entire arrangement on that one instrument alone - those that can play melody, harmony AND create a sense of rhythm/beat overall at the same time

Also, it becomes a little if not a lot easier to learn 2nd and 3rd instruments if piano is your 1st one

Here is a dance track inspired by my love of the Hotel Costes series back in the 90s

I tried to go for a more melancholy, longing feel - the kind of headspace I'd imagine so many folks are in at a dark lounge, alone in their thoughts.

The animation was done by capturing video of my friend on an iPhone, then rotoscoping at around 5 fps

Sasha Vie - Après midi de pluie

Enjoy!

Here's the first track I made last year after a long time away from recording music. I've focused on instrumental electronica music - a mix of guitar-based lo-fi and chill/lounge. Enjoy!

Sasha Vie - "Mornings"