Yuvi Gerstein projects roundup 2012

2012-roundup

2012 is coming to an end this week. I’ve spent this year mostly in London, UK, working on various projects and keeping busy with loads of music productions and writing but also performing quite a bit and touring in Germany and Israel. Next year I will be mostly in Israel, building a new studio with a great producer and friend Ori Winokur (Asaf Avidan, Mika Karni and more) but for now here’s a round up of the main projects I was involved with in this past year 2012.

Penniless Cove EP – Out on a roof

“what you’re treated to is nothing short of an excellent, innovative and refreshing alt-folk fusion.” Dean Ruxton, MRU Magazine

Penniless cove was originally a duo comprised of Phoebe Osborne on piano and vocals and writing the songs and Luca Nasciuti on cello. I recorded and mixed their beautiful EP this year, recording a grand piano at Goldsmiths University, and then a lot of cello, some melodica, violin and back up vocals. The EP was just recently released and received some great reviews. the duo actually turned into a full band with four musicians (without Luca this time), which is now performing the songs from the EP and many more around the UK. Like them on Facebook.

Penniless Cove EP out on a roof cover art

Penniless Cove EP out on a roof cover art

http://pennilesscove.bandcamp.com

Hello Hibernator-The leaf world album and EP

Hello Hibernator The leaf world EP cover art

Hello Hibernator The leaf world EP cover art

    Alex Jeffery, AKA Hello Hibernator is a singer songwriter I met while studying at Goldsmiths university for my MA in Creative Practice in 2011. being a music producer I was looking for an interesting project to get into as part of my studies. I heard some demos from Jeffery and thought they were awesome. A compelling combination of ballads and more upbeat songs with a great vocal ability, intriguing lyrics and performance. We decided to work on this project together as our final MA project and went off on a journey to complete a full album entitled ‘The leaf world’.

After working on arrangements and picking the songs, we gathered some wonderful musicians and recorded the album at Goldsmiths university EMS (Electronic music studios). The full album was submitted as our joint MA project. In 2012 we chose the four best songs in our opinion from the album and we re-recorded some bits, then I re-mixed them to be released as ‘The leaf world’ EP which was released in May 2012. My favourite song off the EP is called “My name is Jesus”. Read more about the project here, here and here.

Here is the full EP to listen (free) and buy –

Here is a little video of the production process

Working with soul singer Leslie Phillips

  One of the best things that happened to me this year was meeting the wonderful soul singer Leslie Phillips. Phillips hails from Paris and based in London, she has a rare soulful voice and writes great songs as well. We had the chance to work together on a few projects, write songs together and perform them in London and in Israel. Phillips also collaborated with my band Coolooloosh, together we recorded our funky version of the famous song “Babe, I’m gonna leave ya”.
We also worked on a sold out performance at the Jerusalem theater in summer 2012. My role was musical director, writing arrangements for 24 songs, some originals and some old school classic soul songs as you can see here.

The highlight of my work with Phillips was a live in the studio video project we recently made at Offtape studios in London. We recorded three original songs live in the studio and it was filmed by a professional film crew and is now in the editing process. The songs recorded are entitled ‘Never enough”, Dans tes bras” and “Spiders”. They are due to be released early 2013.

Leslie Phillips and Yuvi Gerstein

Photography by Romain Kedochim

Visit Leslie Phillips on Facebook.

 Remix for RZA

I made this remix as part of a remix contest for the film “Man with the iron fists”. Have a listen and read more here.

 

Free guitar sample pack by Yuvi Gerstein

         Earlier this year I released a free sample pack of guitar riffs and chords. I use samples a lot in my music and so, decided to make my contribution to the growing community of producers sharing their samples. The pack includes high quality jazzy and quirky guitar and is still a free download here. Yuvi GersteinThe free pack received quite a lot of online attention and was featured on blogs and websites all over the world.

Pro tools tutorial popular on Youtube

       When I bought the software pro tools 10 I made this simple tutorial about its 10 main features. I don’t like long boring tutorials. I like them short and to the point. That’s how I tried to make this one. It proved to be very popular on Youtube and received over 55K hits since it’s upload.

AfroDJmac inspired 8Bit track

AfroDJmac is a cool DJ from New York, releasing packs for Ableton Live to be used by producers. A few weeks ago he released a Nintendo style pack and I downloaded it and was inspired to make this track with it, which was then featured on AfroDjmac’s blog. It’s a kind of cool weird 8bit style track with some panned guitars. check it out.

Coolooloosh tour in Germany – Mischpoke

      In September, 2012, I had a crazy fun time touring Germany with my band Coolooloosh, Along with some other great musicians such as Geva Alon, Sharon Levy and the young rock band Trademark. It was a 16 day tour of the whole of Germany promoting new music and at the same time attempting to improve the image of Israel and to show that great music is being made there and it’s not just war and disasters as people see on the news so often. Here is a little video of Coolooloosh playing live with the wonderful singer songwriter Geva Alon performing the song “Until the day” –

 Producing Oded Kafri EP Street life and live performance

Oded Kafri-Street Life

Oded Kafri, Street Life EP

For the past year I have been working with a brilliant virtuoso drummer names Oded Kafri. Kafri is based in London and puts on quite an amazing live show, using a massive drum kit and a drum pad connected to a laptop running Ableton Live for the backing tracks.

I produced a lot of tracks for Kafri’s live shows and also produced, recorded and mixed his latest EP Street life. The EP was recorded at Soho Sonic studios and aims to capture Kafri’s live street performance in a studio setting. Here is a video from his last tour of Europe (video which I edited as well).

What is internet anyway?

Some experimentation with video editing in Ableton Live and my fascination with the internet made me make this music video exploring how people viewed the internet when it first emerged. It’s funny looking back at it now.

Under your skin film screenings

The film ‘Under your skin’ was a project I took on in 2011, as part of the National Portrait gallery exhibition Road to 2012. The film was screened in 2012 at the London international documentary film festival,  as well as Kilburn film festival and others. It will also be screened in 2013. updates will be posted on this blog. Here is the film and some more information here.

Happy Holidays and a fresh new start in 2013 with loads more projects!!

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