How Have You Been?

Photo by Eldon Bueno 2025

It's already the end of March and I haven't written anything in a bit. Been quite busy with this reception thing and other creative stuff that's been going on.





This has been a longtime coming considering I've always looked up to Jonathan as a musician and as a person in my adolescent years. Though that we had grown apart for some time I recently had the chance to ask him if he had any recordings I could lay some baritone parts on and release. Thankfully he agreed and what you hear are two tracks from this record. All recorded to tape.




This was suprise release even for me considering that this is my first foray of sampling using a pretty archaic sampler. Sometimes the basics can bring out some creative projects and this was certainly one of them. It's not perfect and has lots of blemishes, but the idea is certainly there. This project is actually a preview of how I want to write music in the next few projects I'm manifesting.

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So that's what's been happening lately. Now I know that I don't update as much as I usually would, but keeping my mouth shut has been quite the theme for me. Just doing the thing and not having to talk about it has been very freeing. No matter what I'm still plugged in for some of the projects that other people have been releasing which the exercise of listening has been my approach as of late.

I don't really want to talk about things that I don't really want out there anymore. I may hint at some things, but your personal thoughts and feelings should be kept to yourself and to the ones you trust the most. I've finally made a commitment that being open isn't always a good thing. You can be welcoming and warm, but you can still be private and keep to yourself if you want to be. I see that most people are so online that it gets them in trouble and they tend to not check themselves. And most times people say the stupidest shit online to get reactions or are really that fucking dumb. I'm not perfect, but I know my place when it comes to being outspoken about how I feel about certain things. I can't be the only one thinking about this kind of shit.

Being private is not so bad. I know that to some it's a call for help to a degree, but for me I'm not really interested in opening up doors like that to people that don't even matter. Choose your peace and try to stick with it. You may end up realizing that life is better that way and makes you a bit more mysterious lol.


- The Bueno

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2026

Welp.. Happy New Year!! 2025 was definitely one for the books considering how much work I was able to release. This year I'll be continuing to focus on a lot of my musical endeavors. Here's what I got going on:

1. The Yamaha MT8X
I've finally found an 8 Track Cassette Recorder that was in great condition at a reasonbable price. Did a short test with it the other day and it seems like it's ready to go. This unit will be the offical recording unit for LST LVS personal projects from here on out. I have some ideas that I'm going to be drawing out in the next few weeks that will hopefully see some light for 2026. Stay tuned for that

2. Yamaha CP
I finally got a keyboard that could keep me away from using some free VST software for my DAW. Now that I have this keyboard I'm able to connect it to my guitar hero guitar to do some midi connection and write the riffs I wanted to write with no restrictions. This has been such a great addition for the setup that I'm now off the market for a keyboard. This is all I need

3. SP-303 & SP-404 MKII
Last year I started dipping my toes into sample based recording. When I inititally bought the SP-303 I wanted to see how the workflow felt using something archaic than the new samplers we have today. I exclusively want to sample from cassettes and have been bringing this unit to work to sample from cassettes I bought from SAVERS. Intially this was just to get the exercise of capturing samples a certain way, but at this point I'm realizing that this workflow helps keep my mind fresh on how I work on sampling and to figure out new ways to record.

4. Recording Projects
I think I'm going to be going full steam ahead writing and recording this year. Not sure how many releases will be in the chamber, but I have a couple planned. There's a collaboration that I can't really speak on just yet, a couple of tapes and maybe tracks that I can one off for you all to enjoy. I want to keep the practice of writing and releasing stuff just so I can see it out in the world.

5. Photo Editing
This year will be the year I'll finally take the editing of scanned photos serious. I'm going to be doing my best not to shoot as much and focus primarily on the editing side of photography. I've shot enough work and I think that it needs to be displayed somewhere. I don't know where, but somewhere and somehow.

... and that's where I'm realizing the artistic direction is chaning. I've shot so much, but edited so little that I forgot that the meaning of photography (at least in my end of it) is to shoot and edit your work and not just SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT all the fucking time. I'm beginning to realize that the camera is fading away in interest and I'm slowly wanting to just dive in on the other side of editing the work and cleaning up what I got. I have to be good and I have to let that side of me be in full focus. Photography has not been that attractive for awhile and I think there's that shift that I'm beginning to understand with others who had faded from it all these years.

I have a lot going on this year that will require a lot of time at home rather than go out and I'm okay with that. With the time I have to record these days I'm going to be doing my best to write as much as I can this year. Pretty excited man.


- Arthur (B)

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What a Year

As a creative I've been on my bag on the music stuff. Not so much on the photography game, but I'm finding myself letting photography sort of rest a bit. I have some New Years Resolutions that will involve me doing something different with photography that I'm actually excited about. It will make more sense once I get the ball rolling.

This release was a fun one as I continued my high as an observer of Japan. It felt new, but it also felt like home and I cannot even tell you how happy I was to experience that, let alone, be able to write about it in the musical sense. It was cool writing those drum scripts in JP and be able to bring that experience home. I'm forever grateful to my wife and best friend that we got a chance to experience that together. I'm definitely wanting to go back and this time I'll learn the language a bit lol. This was recorded on a Tascam 424.





Quite Life Vol II was released a few months after Japan Scripts and this release was just one of those "I feel like writing and release something" type of thing. And Quite Life series is kind of that concept. Of course its a reaction practice of Olympus Pen F images that I've taken over the years and deciding how I want the direction of the work go with the image that I decide to choose as a front cover. This was also recorded on a Tascam 424.





Probably my messiest recording yet. "Age 40 - 1985" is a coming of age record lol, but it defined a lot of what I was dealing with for the last few years being able to have stability and realizing that my life is loud in my head, but quiet outside. A lot has changed over the years and with the realization that my writing has gotten tighter after this record gave me a better perspective as to how I'm going to continue to make music. I'm happy about a lot of things and to be able to melodically express this musically was cathartic, but frustrating at the same time. I realized that making a full length record is tough and you have to take time to make sure the songs you write fit in the mold. Being that this was a recording diary for the last few years a lot of takes needed to be scrapped, some saved, angles of songs needed to be reviewed and order of songs needed to be placed carefully. I don't know if I'll be going through this approach again writing, but it did give me some idea of how I want to approach the next recordings. I love this record despite it being so flawed and it being my first full length release. This was recorded on REAPER DAW (godlike DAW for indie musicians like myself)





This is the final release of the year for me and it was a collaboration with my brother Daniel Dominguez. This was set to release late last year, but due to the fires in the Palisades along with contract market negotiations that LIKHA was trying to sort out the record did not release until late this year. To be honest I hated the fact that this was a thing with a record that Daniel and I had created, but to try out a different avenue for release I had to stay patient and let it rock when it was ready to go. This is the original cover for the record. When you search for this record on streaming platforms you'll see totally different font.
We had to comply to the LIKHA version of it if we were going to see some type of "in" towards the commercial industry. Even on some of the posts regarding the record release LIKHA had done this weird AI attachment that I did not like at all. I understand they're doing a lot for us, but at this point I think I'm going to continue to release music independently with Daniel for the forseeable future. I need control of the work we complete. I don't want to compromise and I want to stick to the direction for this next record collab we will do soon. This was recorded on REAPER DAW and passed back and forth with Daniel via Email.


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I'm thinking next year I'll be doing much of the same, but on a much higher altitude. There are some things I'm wanting to do differently. I have some projects I'll be doing next year that I won't discuss quite yet. In the meantime I'm going to be living off the high that I've been able to accomplish much of the work I've dedicated this whole year. Being prolific is to be imaginative and being imaginative is to be open. I love being an artist and I think I'll keep that going until I can't no more.

- Arthur (LST LVS)

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