Rob Blaine is a musician / composer from Cape Town, South Africa. All tracks featured on his albums are composed by him. He writes a wide variety of instrumental (and occasionally) vocal music. His latest work is an album of Smooth Jazz music, titled Days of Analogue.
Latest album
The earliest backup I have of arrangements for this album was June 2020. I dragged my heels a bit with this one (despite not being transgender), but that’s OK because I knew I’d get it done. No more working on weekends and late nights; it just turns you into a zombie the next day. While many musicians were flaunting their pandemic projects, proud of the fact that they had been uber creative while under house arrest, I was miles away from even thinking about finishing. There was still too much to do. After all, was the ‘scamdemic’ really an opportunity to be creative? I don’t think it was. It was a colossal waste of everyone’s time and the people who put it in place already knew that long before it began.
It was during this period that my musical friend, Steve Robinson, passed away in late 2020. Steve, a guitarist, had played on the three previous smooth jazz albums. We had known each other for approximately 24 years. The track, “The three professors”, is a tribute to him and is my rendition of his own composition. Steve was connected to a musician of significant fame — Allan Holdsworth. He and Holdsworth were lifelong friends and approximately the same age. According to Guitar World magazine, Holdsworth was “as influential as Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen”.
In “Days of Analogue” I made a decision not to do any more hiring — Steve and I never hired each other. Hiring is usually an opportunity to meet new talent, but for now I’ve had enough of it, as it, unfortunately in many instances, created just as many problems. The album in its entirety is performed, recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by myself. It pays tribute to musicians in every country who practiced their art at a time when music was performed more on instruments than programmed on computers. Analogue tape was the recording medium of that era. This album rounds off my total, original smooth jazz playback time to 4 hours.
P.S. You won’t find my music on Spotify. When I heard that Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek, invested €100 million of Spotify profits in AI autonomous drone company, Helsing, I stopped distribution through them. I don’t approve of my music being used to fund someone else’s war. After all, all of our wars have been created for us and the media plays an integral part in each one. They’re the governments’ wars, not ours — and when people one day awaken and realize that they are being deliberately deceived and beguiled into destroying one another, our world will change. Until that day comes, we plod on as pawns/cannon fodder of the governments. (How will I ever survive without Spotify’s 17 cents a week?)
Wishing all of you the best and that we all outlast what the establishment worldwide have in mind for us in the near future….it’s already looking very ugly, but maybe some good can come of it. Our survival depends on how many of us finally decide to wake up!!
Rob