Scott Petito - Sbass Music

TOP 20 on the NAV Top 100 Chart!!! 'With 'Sbass Music,' Scott proves that the bass can do things few attempt - inspiring music from just one instrument... he has mastered a niche of tasteful music, which deserves everyone's attention.' Tony Levin (bass player for John Lennon, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon) Scott Petito grew up near Woodstock, New York and studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He is the award winning producer, owner and head engineer of NRS Recording Studio, now located in Catskill,NY. As a producer, Scott's recordings have earned him Grammy nominations (Trio Brubeck) Top 40 Singles (Livingston Taylor, Amy & Leslie), European Gold Records (Rory Block, Mercury Rev) and frequent placement on radio charts. He has also composed and produced musical film scores for film and television. Scott has taught his successful 'Song Demolition' workshops at various locations such as the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina. As brilliant bass player, Scott's live and recorded performance credits include: The Band, Keith Richards, Allen Ginsberg, Bela Fleck, James & Livingston Taylor, Mark Knopfler, Tony Levin, Jerry Marotta, Happy & Artie Traum, Jean Redpath, John Sebastian, The Dolphins, Dave Brubeck, Jack DeJohnette, Fodor Suso, David Torn, Michael Franks, Tony Trishka, Tom Paxton, Stevie Wonder, Brian Setzer, and literally hundreds of others in all genres. Scott along with his singing partner Leslie Ritter, have been working together on various projects since 1984. Their first recording, 'In The Silence' is a beautiful watercolor wash of ambient folk music and has received international airplay and rave reviews, Scott is a multi talented musician and arranger who plays bass, guitar, mandolin, and keyboards. Scott's sensitive guitar work is the perfect accompaniment to Leslie's rich soaring vocals. Together they recently released, 'Circles In Sand' which is getting lots of attention at radio here in the United States as well as at many overseas and international internet stations. They have been touring the U.S. in support of this highly anticipated second recording 'Gem-like, airy, balanced, intimate with not a note out of place.' Keyboard Magazine Scott has just released a new solo bass record called 'Sbass Music' (pronounced 'space music') This solo venture is Scott's first foray into the world of ambient sound design, He uses the electric bass guitar to conjure up otherworldly sounds and harmonies that leave listeners in awe.He will be putting together a multi-media 'sound experience' in order to bring this unique and soothing music to live audiences "Sbass is perhaps the leading ambient release of 2002. Smoothly mixing in with established ambient artists such as Steve Roach, Robert Rich, and Jeff Pearce. Scott Petito's Sbass offers more of that evocative soothing searching harmonic beauty we find only in a handful of musicians on this planet. To create such delicate and drifting works that keep reeling the listener in takes a special performer who immerses themselves in the moment of sonic beauty." - John Pemble KTPR / WOI Program Producer The cover of SBASS MUSIC by Scott Petito, depicts a bass guitar floating in space above a blue planet (did someone accidentally leave the pod bay doors open again?) This is Petito's witty introduction to his music: Outer Space + Bass Guitar = SBASS MUSIC. Get it? Actually, as cool as the title is, this album's main virtue is that it fills space rather than creates space; which is the goal of any self-respecting composer in the genre of Ambient Music. Petito accomplishes this and more with a bass guitar (however sonically manipulated) as his only sound source. Each of the nine tracks on SBASS MUSIC offers enough contrast and complexity to make an interesting experience of active listening, or not... as the disc is also designed to spin forever in continuous play mode out at the periphery of perception. But rewards await those who do pay attention. Petito realizes music at the limits of his instrument's capabilities and of his own as a composer and virtuoso player. He obviously left the conventional view of the bass guitar behind as he uses his instrument to explore music of stillness and atmosphere. The music slowly alternates between a trembling vulnerability to waves of strength and light - with an ever-present, deep subsonic foundation. Overall, the tone of SBASS MUSIC is soothing and comforting and references classic albums like, "On Land", "Apollo" and (the mellow side of) "Before And After Science" in it's mood and purpose. But the album plays like a free-form exercise in bass guitar stretching as this conventional instrument is often rendered unrecognizable; Petito constantly coaxing new and surprising timbres. Along with tender and reverberant melodies, the sound expands beyond the well-established palette of the bass with layered tones, bending notes, truncated plucks, image altering processing, e-bow melodies, deep swells and looping harmonies. Petito connects these elements and can be credited with creating an album greater than the sum of it's parts. Scott Petito expands the ranks of today's most innovative bass players turned Ambient composers (Bill Laswell, Skuli Sverrison) with his own, completely unique contribution - successfully combining imagination and creativity with technique and technology. -Chuck Van Zyl, Host of Star's End on WXPN A Sbass Music Testimonial Several months ago Leslie Ritter offered me Scott Petito's Sbass Music to try out for massage therapy sessions. It has been a constant background for my work as a massage and craniosacral therapist ever since. Each playing is a new discovery, as if the music is revised in partnership with my state of being at the time; and, clients report that it does the same for them. I search meticulously to find music that is relaxing, supportive and non-intrusive, especially for craniosacral work. Scott's Sbass Music is a rare and precious find. It is non-melodical, yet provides an underlying rhythmical pulse which brings the listener deeper into their core. It is as if one is floating in space carried on waves of liquid light, while being supported by the ground below. This is not 'spacey" music. It is very grounded in the pulse of life, a heart beat, the earth. Scott's Sbass Music is a powerful adjunct to my massage and craniosacral work. Heidi Washburn, LMT.

1) Afternoon in a Cloud
2) Beautifully Fearfully Made
3) The Gates of Heat
4) Distance Is
5) Liquid Paper
6) Sbass Music
7) The Zero Crossing
8) The Last Reflection
9) Communication in the Presence of Noise