EARLY LIFE
Nostaljik
was born in Santa Paula, CA on September 11th, 1982 and grew up in Fillmore,
CA. He performed at local talent shows and pep rallies from age 12 until he
graduated from Fillmore High School in the year 2000 and started writing and
performing his own songs at age 16. In high school, he enjoyed the sciences,
performing arts, and participating in the Mock Trial and drama clubs. During
his senior year in high school, DJ Reerun invited him to join Minds Under Craze
Recordings and began recording with him soon after. When he graduated high
school, he immediately attended Ventura Community College as an Early Childhood
Development major. He invested some of his financial aid money in pro-audio
equipment and discovered his inner producer while working as a part-time
assistant teacher for Easter Seals.
MUSIC CAREER
After
meeting local emcees, Ronin Gray, Scripts Unlimtd and producer Sean 3re of
Order Of Operations in community college, Nostaljik joined the group along with
local emcees/producers Rollz Blunt and Danny Noncents to form Triple O Records.
After performing at a series of local gigs, the group went on to release Triple O Records Mixtapes 1 & 2.
Ronin Gray, Scripts Unlimtd, Nostaljik and Rollz Blunt continued to perform
whenever given the opportunity. They also went on to save up enough money to
shoot music videos and go on small road trips to promote themselves. After the
release and promotion of his first solo release, Hangovers & Hot Weather (which was mixed and mastered by
Reerun), he decided to attend Full Sail University full-time to learn how to
produce professionally.
Once
Nostaljik started school again, he created Autumn Bleeds Aurora - a one-man
science fiction based screamo/trip-hop band to escape an egoist local hip-hop
scene and try something different. Attending the Vans Warped Tour inspired him
to break out of his shell and aspire for "something bigger than
himself" with a semiautobiographical science fiction novel and a live show
to act it out. The one thing that he felt was keeping him from lifting the band
off of the ground underneath him was a lead singer. After only a year, he
eventually scrapped the project and started anew with the realization that he
may never find his musical equal to front the band. He adapted to this
realization by merging acid jazz, dream-pop and trip-hop elements into a
mixture that formed his group, Syrah.
In
2012, Nostaljik felt compelled to release a new hip-hop album with the same
sort of emotional production that made Hangovers
appealing to his audience by doing something no other hip-hop artist or
producer of his time had done yet: compose an album based on and inspired by
the music and events of the Final Fantasy video game franchise. Down Feenicks Disc I: [truth!] (released
on Triple O Records) was a departure of conventional mainstream hip-hop and was
more of a clash between everyday street life and role-playing video games. In
February of 2013, Nostaljik released a follow up EP entitled, The Down Feenicks EP - Part 1: Songs For
Oerba.
In
January of 2013, Nostaljik entered his last class of the Music Production
program called Final Project and decided to write, produce and perform Syrah's debut album, The
Audiotistic EP as a requirement for graduation. It was released as a free
digital download on the group's Bandcamp site. Audiotistic was well received among his family and friends and
Nostaljik plans to shop the EP around to labels in the attempts to pique
someone's interest and have it picked up by a major label for mainstream
distribution.
INSTRUMENTS
Nostaljik
made his first beats on a Boss SP 505 Groove Sampling Workstation and a Boss
Dr. Rhythm drum machine, both by Roland. He first taught himself how to produce
on a PC with Acid Pro, Fruity Loops and Sound Forge. He subsequently switched
to an Apple MacBook Pro and was trained to use GarageBand, Logic Pro, Pro
Tools, NI Kontakt 5 and Wave Burner. He now records in a home studio called
Random Star Studios with a Blue Spark microphone, a Native Instruments Komplete
Audio 6 interface and a Native Instruments Maschine Mikro. He took bass
lessons, owns and plays a metallic blue Squire P-Bass by Fender. Some of his
favorite plug-ins include Absynth, Guitar Rig, FM8, Antares Auto-Tune Evo,
iZotope Stutter Edit and the Waves Power Pack.
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